Challenging agricultural norms and diversifying actors: Building transformative public policy for equitable food systems

Food systems governance regimes have long been spaces of “thick legitimacy” (Montenegro de Wit & Iles, 2016), where embedded norms benefit pro­duc­tivist agricultural practices. Within governance regimes, the science-policy interface and the scien­tists who occupy this space are integral in today’s public policy processes. Often treated as objective science, technical disciplines have become a power­ful source of legitimatizing in decision making. Without the contextualization of lived experience or diverse ways of knowing, these siloed spaces can lead policymakers towards an action bias (e.g., a rush to short-term solutions) that neglects the underlying causes and concerns of our current crises. Current governance arrangements in the science-policy interface demonstrate the bias toward technical science (e.g. economics) and short-term solutions. However, by challenging productivist agriculture norms reformed public policy processes may shift from a space of repres­sion to one of possibility. This reform can happen through investigatiing dominant actor coalitions and identifying tools to reconfigure these power arrangements. Public policy theory, such as the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), helps organ­ize relations within current agricultural policy arenas. The work of practitioners and other disci­plines offer tools that can support transformative action by food systems advocates in the pursuit of changing the way public policy is made. In part, understanding how power is organized and who may influence policy processes is critical to change. This reflective essay ends with tools and strategies for those wishing to engage governments in this shift. The proposed tools and strategies focus on how people (e.g. policy champions), processes (e.g. policy leverage points), and partnerships (e.g. ally­ship) generate ways in which advocates can, and do, engage governments in transformative change.