Investing Without a Return: Local Food Systems, Social Service Agencies, and Economic Mobility

Keywords: Food Systems, Economic Mobility, Neoliberalism, Equity
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Local food systems are lauded for a number of benefits they afford with respect to the natural environment and social cohesion (Bloom and Hinrichs, 2010). In addition to these social and environmental benefits, some have proposed that local food systems may also be able to strengthen local economies (Thilmany McFadden et al., 2016; O'Hara and Priog, 2013). However, whether these economic benefits are spread across a locality and specifically help those most in need is questionable. Some have argued that local food systems can actually reify economic inequality without an explicit focus on equity and economic mobility (Kagan and Merrigan, 2017; Olson, 2019). In response to this tension, we asked participants in a study on the impacts of COVID-19 to the food system in Charlotte, NC about the potential for a local food system to facilitate upward economic mobility. The common thread among responses centered on the ability for food and social service organizations to help residents meet their immediate needs. In this way, driving economic mobility through food systems can be understood less as a direct investment in food-related jobs or training programs, and more a practice in setting the foundation for success in other areas of life by ensuring people are well nourished. Following these results, we explore the potential and limitations of economic mobility through local food systems that remain embedded within neoliberal structures of state support of capital that supersedes concerns for poverty reduction.