Redesign

Redesign (stage 3) strategies are based fully on the principles of the ecologies, particularly agroecology, organizational ecology, political ecology and social ecology, and are fully elaborated to address complexity (the earlier stages benefit from an understanding of complexity, but are not in themselves necessarily complex to execute).  They take longer to implement and demand fundamental changes in the use of human and physical resources. This final, or redesign stage, is unlikely to be achieved, however, until the first two stages have been attempted. Ideally, strategies should be selected from the first two stages for their ability to inform analysts about redesign (the most underdeveloped stage at this point) and to contribute toward a smooth evolution to the redesign stage.

The redesign stage brings us to full implementation of the right to food, food sovereignty, and a reintegration of humans with nature. While some European analysts have historically considered such shifts anti-modern, Duncan (1996) has argued that this is a misreading of European, particularly British history.  But capitalist and socialist countries mistakenly pursued trajectories of disengagement from ecological processes to their detriment.  In particular, they lost the plot on the centrality of an ecological approach to agriculture and its role in the economy.  It was not that ecological approaches were unknown in earlier periods, but certainly they were marginalized by the dominant approaches to modernity.  The Redesign proposals focus on returning food systems to a central place, as part of a shift to a post-capitalist society, one in which many currently privatized functions return to, or become, public ones.

Click on the Goal below if you'd like to see the Redesign stage strategies associated with it.


Goal 1 Enough

Economic development strategies (including First Nations)

Income support and security architecture, policies and programmes (including First Nations)

Housing (including First Nations)

Self-provisioning (public and private spaces and supports for non-commercial food production, hunting and fishing, access to traditional foods for First Nations)

Breastfeeding promotion

Equitable access to the food distribution system, retail and alternative food projects

Goal 2 Supply

Demand-supply planning and coordination (fisheries and food)

Goal 3 Service

Food as health promotion and primary care

Integrating food into educational processes

Integrating food into public institutions and spaces, including schools

Reducing corporate concentration and broadening ownership of food system resources (including land)

Public control of food resources

Goal 4 Safe

Food safety regimes to support local and sustainable production across multiple scales

Food system, processing and farm designs to optimize food quality and eliminate contaminants

Pesticide, fertilizer, veterinary product and genetic engineering approvals

Goal 5 Resources

Sustainable fisheries management

Aboriginal food production

Sustainable food and aquaculture production, processing and consumption

Agricultural land protection

Energy efficiency

Protecting genetic resources

Food waste reduction

Sustainable transportation

Municipal organic waste and sewage sludge management

Goal 6 Income

Farm market net income (including operating cost minimization)

Improve Business Risk Management (BRM) programmes

Support for small and medium enterprise (SME) processing in rural communities

Goal 7 Participation

Food citizenship

Structures and processes for regulatory pluralism and changes to the loci of decision making

Goal 8 Work

Intergenerational farm transfer

New farmer programmes and rural development

Labour force development

Goal 9 Culture

Work – life balance

Food and culture

Food and body image

Food and community building

Goal 10 International

Trade agreement modification and abrogation

Food aid and development assistance

International conventions and treaties