Farmer's Cooperatives to Regionalize Food Systems: A Critique of Local Food Law Scholarship and Suggestion for Critical Reconsideration of Existing Legal Tools for Changing the US Food System

Abstract

Scholarship in food law is replicating broader societal interest in sustainability and local foods as a means to changing the dominant food system. The work of lawyers is critical to helping institutionalize innovative food systems ideas, but the scholarship often fails to engage in reflexive analysis of whether particular policies will effectively advance articulated goals. As a result, attention is disproportionally directed at certain initiatives at the expense of other, potentially more effective strategies. To address this, legal scholars need to incorporate other social science disciplines into their scholarship to develop thoughtful, critical analyses of the roles of law in building alternative food networks. Having recognized the limitations of local food systems, regional and midscale food systems are being advocated to augment the local initiatives. Cooperatives formed under the Capper-Volstead Act are legal entities with significant potential to help regionalize food systems. However, their formation and operation must be undertaken with consideration to the legislative history, statutory interpretation, and current economic contexts that allow some cooperatives to operate in ways that frustrate the goals of alternative food systems advocates. By incorporating social science critiques of food advocacy work and applying these critiques to a reflexive analysis of a legal tool for advancing alternative food systems, this paper demonstrates the important contributions that legal scholars can make through more engaged scholarship with other disciplines.