Solidarity finance and food democracy in civic food networks in Australia: what role for ‘citizen-financiers’?

Civic food networks increasingly seek to increase their impact in building fairer and more sustainable food systems through solidarity financing. This represents a counterpoint to financialisation in industrialised food systems through alignment with the values and practices of solidarity economy such as localisation, reciprocity, cooperation, resilience and food justice. Of growing interest is the potential for sourcing finance from the wider community; people who may be willing to contribute to civic initiatives’ goals and share in their risks and opportunities. Crowdfunding is one such approach in solidarity finance, appealing to both new and seasoned investors interested in supporting local sustainable food initiatives. This paper considers two case studies of equity crowdfunding in Australia to examine the relationships emerging between solidarity financing and food producers, consumers and investors in civic food networks, and the implications for progressing food democracy. Our findings describe the investors and their financial and non-financial motivations to participate in solidarity financing, and specifically to support crowdfunding; and the goals, strategies, and governance structures that characterise the experiments under study. These themes reveal how crowdfunding financiers assess the potential impacts of investments, especially on ecologies and food justice outcomes. We argue that these cases of solidarity financing are producing new forms of ‘citizen-financiers’, in parallel to the growing networks of ‘citizen-consumers’ and ‘citizen-producers’ that underscore shifts towards food democracy. Understanding the characteristics of this emerging category of civic actors contributes new understandings of the potential for food system transformation through solidarity economy, alternative finance and civil society.