The video is part of our series of video presentations on the different thematic work areas of the ECA. We are also sharing our proposal on the Urban Commons in the text below. Finally, you can also read and comment on the proposal on the Commons Transition Wiki.

Energy Commons

As a basis, EU energy policy should consider energy a common good in order to provide all citizens with access to clean and affordable energy. This encompasses electricity production, transportation and efficient use as well as mobility and heating systems.

Background and context

EU energy programmes such as the Energy Union must change their focus from constraining energy generation to respond to market demands towards a more citizen-based, decentralized and efficient energy system. Giant gas pipelines, international grid connections and the support of large centralized energy companies and infrastructures are contradictory with the construction of a democratic energy system. By treating energy as a commodity, the EU creates a production-driven system, unable to respond to the urgent need of saving it (one of the key pillars to reduce CO2 emissions).

Policy description “Energy commons”

We propose here that a “commons-based” energy EU law should guarantee and facilitate the right of citizens and communities to produce, consume and manage their own renewable energy without legal, administrative or technical barriers.

• One main demand is that citizens should be involved in all new projects (from small to big -i.e., also from small solar to offshore wind farms):
  • Participation should not be limited to a financial one but be possible on ground of being an inhabitant (or else?)
  • Involvement in decision making
  • Profits should remain within the communities/state hands
• Specific infrastructure like smart grids or storage should be implemented under civil control (i.e., data should belong to the communities).
• Financial schemes should be designed to enable community energy to blossom (e.g., feed-in-tariffs, sustainable energy utilities, re-municipalization) and the role of the state/the EU should be investigated.
• Eventually, we should push to treat energy as a commons in order to save and control it.

This new paradigm would help to share appropriate energy technologies with communities of the Global South with the opening up of patent protections of climate-friendly technologies, especially those developed with EU and public funding. Cooperation should replace energy colonialism.

Why is the energy commons relevant? 

1. What are the existing experiences of the commons movement in this field, and initiatives of commoning related to this issue?

• All over Europe, there are many energy co-ops organized into federations  (like the DGRV in Germany)
• There is a European federation, which is already gathering knowledge and building capacity for enabling community energy (REScoop)
• There are other models, which come close to re-municipalisation of energy utilities, for instance the Sustainable Energy Utilities (SEU), where energy is treated as a commons (in the US, e.g. the SEU Delaware).

2. Why is this proposal pertinent to be discussed at the European  scale, with the EU institution, in the EU Agenda? It could also be  because it is an urgent matter to introduce at this scale of policy.

• It falls in the EU agenda to implement the Paris Agreement (COP21). Reaching the INDC & climate goals need an ambitious plan, which cannot be reached without involving the public.
• There are ongoing discussions on the Energy Union (the European energy policy)
• Energy commons is a double win: 1) Advance the commons & 2) Advance the energy transition.

3. What are the main ideas the commoners are reclaiming or struggling for in this field ?

• Energy system is in the hands of conventional energy utilities (that exert a huge resistance to the energy transition) and the states (that try to spend the least).
• The dominant ideology is a classical neoliberal one: energy is a commodity that should be regulated by the market. It is referred as such in all official EU documents.
• This leads to a state of “energy obesity” (as stated by John Byrne) under the control of large market actors, and which is hardly accessible to small actors (like co-ops).
• We must lobby to have energy treated as a commons, which means try to save it as much as possible and what we need should be produced by renewable sources, in hands of citizens.

4. What are the already experimented measures in this field and where (in a particular country? part of Europe? Elsewhere?

• See previously (point 1)
• Interesting experiment in Barcelona, where the municipality looks at the energy system in its globality and with a focus on fighting energy poverty.

5. Who are the actors involved in these struggles ?

• inhabitants, citizen-initiatives, municipalities, regions, countries & EU
• companies (solar & wind project developers)

6. How could these commons or commoning action be reinforced, scaled up, or replicated?

• Design new funding schemes (involving public -and perhaps- private funding) to support community energy
• Citizen involvement should become mandatory in all new energy projects
• Perhaps incite all municipalities to work on an energy plan
• It is a model that has the power to be “infectious” if people see the benefits in co-ops that already exist. Plus energy is a universal need, and a practical one and therefore an entry point to commoning.

7. What are the resources needed?

• Money (state, ethical banks, investment banks, angel investors…)
• Laws
• specific tools to help communities to make an energy plan and succeed to implementing it (stakeholder dialogue, risk management…)

8. Who could do what to move forward?

• A combination of citizen action (to convince) and political action (to accelerate)
• Large advertising campaigns, Lobbying actions

9. What is needed from the EU institutions?

• See point 7.
• Perhaps a referendum, or survey?

The post Energy as a Common Good appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The video is part of our series of video presentations on the different thematic work areas of the ECA. We are also sharing our proposal on the Urban Commons in the text below. Finally, you can also read and comment on the proposal on the Commons Transition Wiki.

Urban Commons

A proposal by David Gabriel[1] for the European Commons Assembly

Background

Europe is one of the most urbanised places in the world. Actually, more than 75% of the European population lives in cities. Daily life in cities has combined with the historic struggle of inhabitants to create urban commons. Many groups across the EU reclaim their urban commons, like public space or housing, and try to create new ones. Recently, several movements have been fighting for the right to housing and the right to the city in Europe. In this way, urban commons stand as alternatives to speculation, gentrification, and enclosure in cities.

Urban Commons Issues

• Housing
• Public Space
• The right to the City
• Social facilities
• Policy without school segregation
• Inclusion of the migrants and refugees
• Localizing human rights
• New Municipalism

Practices of urban commons  

One of the main ideas reclaimed by the urban commoners is the Right to housing and the Right to the City. The first formulation of a right to the city dates back to Henry Lefebvre during the 1960’s. Since then, networks and civil society organizations have defined “the right to the city as the equitable use of cities according to the principles of sustainability, democracy, equity and social justice. It is a collective right of the inhabitants of these cities, especially for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups who gain legitimacy of action and organization based on their use and customs with the objective of achieving, in practice, the right to free self-determination and an adequate level of life” (definition of the Global Platform for the Right to the City). The occupation of public space is also a new practice of urban commoners, with important consequences in Egypt (Tahrir), Turkey (Taksim), Spain (15M), the United States (Occupy Wall Street) and France (Nuit Debout). Nowadays, many urban commoners are debating about the use, role and importance of public space in the exercise of democratic rights and in ways of challenging capitalism.

Actors involved

Inhabitants, citizen and theirs organizations are involved in the right to the city movement and also networks, foundations, and multilateral organizations. One strategic orientation of the social movement is to achieve alliances with the local authority and networks of cities. The following organizations are some examples:

• Europe: European coalition for the right to housing and the city
• Spain: Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca / iniciativa legislativa Popular por la Vivienda Digna
• Belgium: Habitat et Participation
• England: Radical Housing Network
• France: Droit au Logement / Coordination Pas Sans Nous / Atelier Populaire d’Urbanisme
• The Netherlands: Bon Preaire Woonvormen
• Portugal: Habita – Colectivo pelo Direito a Habitaçao e à Cidade
• Turkey: Istanbul Urban Movements

Urban Policy and the EU

The European Union has no formal authority over urban policy. But given the crisis of the European Union, the cities could become the new scale to implement European policies and to create democratic relations among the citizens. The former European Parliament already called for an Urban Agenda for the EU in 2011. During the Netherlands presidency of the EU in 2016, member states, cities and the European Commission signed a new political agreement – the Pact of Amsterdam – to cooperate in four fields: air quality, housing, inclusion of the refugees and migrants, and urban poverty. Presently, civil society and citizens are not involved in the definition and implementation of the new urban agenda. Nonetheless, the urban common process could be a way the co-produce and implement the NUA.

Supporting and scaling urban commons

Each inhabitant or citizen could be involved in protecting and developing the urban commons. To reinforce the movement, we need to create new relations with the inhabitants and communities, particularly with the people who live in the popular neighborhoods. Community organizing and advocacy planning could be useful methods to rely on. We also need to propose social leader trainings focused on urban commons issues. The articulation between local, national and regional levels is also decisive in scaling up the local campaigns and sharing knowledge. With the institutions, we must re-open the debate around planning theory.

Institutional change

Introducing urban commons in the European urban agenda is the first difficulty. A new alliance between social movements, progressive cities and some European deputies would help. To put the EU agenda into practice, the issues of governance of the urban commons are central and need to include the citizens and the civil society. We are aiming at a cultural change of the European, national and local institutions.

Resources

We need money, methodology and human resources. Concerning methodology, we must share our different practices like community organizing, chartering, advocacy planning, and occupation of spaces. Finally, we need a European center for training new organizers with various capabilities (emotional, relational, rational, etc.)

[1] David Gabriel (Grenoble, France) contact: [email protected]

Photo by kika13

The post Urban Commons and the Right to the City appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In November 2016, a group of 150 commoners from all over Europe gathered in Brussels to lay the foundations for a united and strong European commons movement. The European Commons Assembly was born.

The European Commons Assembly is an ongoing process that facilitates pluralistic debate regarding the strategy and agenda for a united political vision. Its goal is threefold: 1) support the decentralised activities of commoners and their engagement in concrete, collaborative and bottom-up actions 2) give a voice to and increase the visibility of the commons movement 3) channel the needs and demands of socially and ecologically sustainable initiatives to the political arena.

These videos give a peek into the Assembly and its members, who explore how to bring the advent of creative institutions and political alternatives from the local to the European level and articulate joint demands for urgent issues, including food, energy and the city:

The idea of commons is growing in our collective imaginary, but remains underrepresented in concrete terms. It is time to jointly act to reinvigorate local, national, and European politics on the basis of these values!

The post Dispatches from the Commons Assembly appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Food, a life enabler and a cultural cornerstone with multiple meanings, is governed as a mere commodity by the neoliberal food policies that prevail in Europe. These meanings so relevant to human are reduced to the one of tradeable good and the value of food is mixed with its price in the market.

RE-VALUING MULTIDIMENSIONAL FOOD AS A COMMONS: A WORK IN PROGRESS

The Food Commons in Europe

A  proposal by Jose Luis Vivero-Pol for the European Commons Assembly. Read the full proposal here.

Considering any good as a commons is a political arrangement to govern a particular resource in a situated place and time. Along those lines, the consideration of food as a commons rests upon its essentialness to human life and the revalorisation of the different food dimensions (see figure 1) that are relevant to people (value-in use) and thus reducing the tradable dimension (value-in exchange) that has rendered it a mere commodity. A regime based on food commons would inform an essentially democratic food system (food democracy) based on sustainable agricultural practices (agro-ecology) and open-source knowledge (creative commons licenses) using non-material (cuisine recipes, agrarian practices, public research) and material items (seeds, fish stocks, land, forests, water) as commons to reach a global commons (food and nutrition security for all).

Fig 1: The six food dimensions relevant to humans: multi-dimensional food as commons VS mono-dimensional food as commodity

Source: Vivero-Pol (in press). http://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201701.0073/v1

CUSTOMARY AND CONTEMPORARY FOOD COMMONS IN EUROPE

Food shall be re-constructed as a commons based on its essentialness and the commoning practices that different peoples are maintaining (customary) or inventing (contemporary) to produce food for all, based on a rationale and ethos different from the for-profit capitalistic one.

Customary Food-producing Commons (territorial[1], many of them being ICCAs) are located in rural Europe, associated to cultural heritage, landscape preservation and biodiversity stewardship, being mostly owned in collective proprietary regimes, and still resisting the privatisation and enclosing waves triggered by capitalism. Despite centuries of encroachments, misappropriations and legal privatizations, more than 12 Million hectares of customary common lands have survived up to now in Europe (9% of France, 10% in Switzerland, 4.2% in Spain or 8.4% in Wales, UK). Their utility to human societies and efficiency in terms of resource management enabled them to survive up to present day. Despite this abundance, its relevance is hardly noticed by general media and neglected by the EU and national authorities and the mainstream scientific research.

Anyone can forage wild mushrooms and berries in the Scandinavian countries, thousands of surviving community-owned forests and pasturelands in Europe where livestock are raised in free-range, namely Baldios in Portugal, Crofts in Scotland or Montes Vecinales en Mano Comun in Spain. Additional examples can be provided by the irrigation system in the Huertas of Valencia, the emphiteusis proprietary regimes in Italy, the management of oyster beds in the Arcachon bay, the pastoral traditions of Sami people in the Scandinavian countries, the hunting licences in Switzerland and so on, so forth. In Spain, more than 6600 farming households depend entirely on them for earning their living, are grounded on legal principles that ensure the preservation of the communal condition of such property, as they cannot be sold (unalienable), split into smaller units (indivisible), donated or seized (non-impoundable) and cannot be converted into private property just because of their continued occupation (non-expiring legal consideration). In Galicia (Spain), common lands represents 22.7% of total surface and they are owned and managed by resident neighbours inhabiting visigothic-based parishes, a legal figure recognized in the 1968, 1989 and 2012 laws. Finally, in the medieval village of Sacrofano (Roma province, Italy), a particular and ancient University still functions for the local residents: the Università Agraria di Sacrofano holds 330 ha of fields, pastures, forests and abandoned lands where the citizens residing in the municipality can exercise the so-called rights of civic use (customary rights to use the common lands).

Contemporary Food-producing Commons (community-based, mostly urban, innovating practices). These social innovations re-invent traditional methods of governing commons (sharing home-made meals, community gardens) or design new commons that did not exist before, using internet, communication technologies and hyper-connectivity. European examples are mushrooming, such as Ecovillages (human-scale settlements consciously designed through participatory processes to secure long-term sustainability), Transition Towns (a placed-based movement to live with less reliance on fossil fuels and capitalistic markets) or Community Supported Agriculture (initiatives to re-connect small producers and consumers in local, organic, fair networks). They can be complemented with food buying groups, solidarity purchasing groups or food policy councils enrooted in alternative narratives of transition such as food sovereignty and agroecology such as Xarxa de Economia Solidária de Catalunya (Spain), Genuino Clandestino (Italy) or Cork Food Policy Council (Ireland).

Harvesting clams in Galicia. Photo by Jose Luis Vivero-Pol under CC-BY-NC-SA license

RELEVANCE TO EUROPE AND EU AUTHORITIES

Food is treated as a mere commodity in European policies, legal frameworks and normative views. Actually, food is not even considered as a human right in EU charters, constitutions and legal frameworks, nor a public good subject to public policies and universal access (such as health, education or water) and least to say a commons, although many commons and community-owned resources are producing food for Europeans.

The impacts of EU policies on agriculture, fisheries, natural resources, biodiversity (including seeds) and traditional knowledge are generally detrimental to the common lands, the material and immaterial commons and the commoning practices of governance. The European industrial food system with its many externalities (climate change, disappearance of small-farming, unhealthy ultra-processed food, food waste, unfair prices to producers, the absence of the right to food, subsidies diverted to corporations and bigger farmers, water and soil pollution, biodiversity reduction, etc) is driven by the valuation of food as a commodity and the ethos of profit maximisation. As a token, a recent foresight report on the global food security by 2030 considers food as “an opportunity for trade, innovation, health, wealth & geopolitics” (p.34) with no single mention to food as vital need, a human right or a cultural determinant for Europeans. The Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), what represents 40% of EU budget (52 billion Euro in 2014), deals with food as a for-profit commodity, subsidising the industrial food system and denying the food-producing commons. None of the five relevant regulations that conform the legal/political corpus of the reformed CAP include any mention to “commons”, “common resources” or the “right to food”.

The commodification of food ended up in the dominant industrial system that fully controls international food trade and, although it does not even feed half of the European population, has given rise to the corporate control of life-supporting industries, from land and water-grabbing to agricultural fuel-based inputs. This industrial food system did not even achieve the goal of feeding adequately, in quantity and quality, the European eaters. Food Insecurity (understood as the inability to eat meat every second day) is rising in Europe, already affecting 13.5 M people (10.9%) with a 2.7% increase since austerity measures were implemented; there are 50 M people with severe material deprivation including food and water and 30-40% children in 6 EU countries are below poverty line.

At present, there is a consultation on the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR). Out of the ten topics that are considered relevant to the domain “Adequate and sustainable social protection”, none refer to the basic protection of two vital human rights, the right to food and the right to water, because they are considered as commodities (to be provided through markets and accessed through purchasing power) instead of public goods, rights or commons (to be provided through a polycentric governing system formed by public provision, market access and collective actions). Needless to say, the right to land or the right to have breathable air are also absent from this debate.

The next Common Agricultural Policy has to include food commons and the right to food. Perhaps also to be renamed as “Commons Food Policy”?

THE TRICENTRIC TRANSITION PATHWAY

A myriad of local transitions towards local, sustainable, agro-ecological food production and consumption are taking place today across Europe. Drawing from Elinor Ostrom’s polycentric governance, food is being produced, consumed and distributed by agreements and initiatives formed by state institutions, private producers and self-organised groups under self-negotiated rules. Those food commons tend to have a commoning function through a multiplicity of open structures and peer-to-peer practices aimed at sharing and co-producing food-related knowledge and items. The combined failure of state fundamentalism (in 1989) and so-called ‘free market’ ideology (in 2008), coupled with the emergence of these practices of the commons, has put this tricentric mode of governance (see Figure 2) back on the agenda.

Fig 2: Scheme of a tri-centric governance and transition pathway for food systems in EU

Vivero-Pol (forthcoming, 2017).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2548928

Over the last 20 years there have been two streams of civic collective actions for food growing in parallel but disconnected ways, divided by geographical and social boundaries: (a) the challenging innovations taking place in rural areas, led by small-scale, close-to-nature food producers, increasingly brought together under the food sovereignty umbrella, and (b) the Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) exploding in urban and peri-urban areas, led by concerned food consumers who want to reduce their food footprint, improve the quality of their diets and produce part of their own food. Their maturity, however, have paved the way for a convergence of interests, goals and struggles. Large-scale societal change requires broad, cross-sector coordination. It is to be expected that the food sovereignty movement and the AFNs will continue (and need) to grow together, beyond individual organisations, to knit a new (more finely meshed and wider) food commons capable of confronting the industrial food system for the common good.

The transition towards a food commons regime will need a different kind of state (national states and EU authorities), with different duties and skills to steer that transition. The desirable functions of this Partner State are shaped by partnering and innovation rather than the Leviathan paradigm of top-down enforcement (command-and-control via policies, subsidies or regulations. This enabling state would be in line with Karl Polanyi’s theory of its role as shaper and creator of markets and facilitator for civic collective actions to flourish. Amongst the duties of the partner state are the prevention of enclosures, triggering new commons, co-management of complex resource systems, oversight of rules and charts, care for the commons (as mediator or judge) and provider of incentives and enabling legal frameworks for commoners governing their commons.

The private sector presents a wide array of entrepreneurial institutions, encompassing family farming with just a few employees, for-profit social enterprises engaged in commercial activities for the common good with limited dividend distribution and transnational, ‘too-big-to-fail’ corporations that exert near-monopolistic hegemony on large segments of the global food supply chain (van der Ploeg, 2010). The challenge for the private sector is to be driven by a different ethos while making profit, focusing also much more on social aims and satisfying needs. Thus, this food commons transition does not rule out markets as one of several mechanisms for food distribution, but does it reject market hegemony over our food supplies. In plain words, governments will support private initiatives whose driving force is not shareholder value maximization (e.g. family farming, food co-operatives, producer-consumer associations), while citizen/consumers will exert their consumer sovereignty by prioritising food with a meaning (local, organic, fair, healthy) beyond the purely financial (not just the cheapest). The private may also rent commonly-owned natural resources to produce food for the market.

The transition period for this paradigm shift should be expected to last for several decades, a period where we will witness a range of evolving hybrid management systems for food similar to those already working for universal health/education systems. The Big Food corporations will not allow their power to be quietly diminished, and they will fight back by keep on doing what has enabled them to reach such a dominant position today: legally (and illegally) lobbying governments to lower corporate tax rates and raise business subsidies or mitigate restrictive legal frameworks (related to GMO labelling, TV food advertising, local seed landraces, etc.) among other things.

HOW THE “FOOD COMMONS” COULD BE SUPPORTED BY EU AUTHORITIES? 15 MEASURES

If food is valued and governed as a commons in Europe, the following food policy options could be considered, to be then materialised in concrete political, legal and financial measures.

1.- A Declaration of the European Parliament to consider food no longer as a commodity but a commons, public good and human right to be included in national legal frames & public policies.

2.- Set EU targets for food provisioning in 2030: 60% private sector, 25% self-production (collective actions), 15% state-provisioning through Universal Food Coverage (see point 12).

3.- European Citizen Initiative to consider food as a human right, a public good and a commons in European policy and legal frameworks. Policy priorities should be geared towards safeguarding farmer’s livelihood and eater’s rights to adequate and healthy food.

4.- Food commons and right to food in the CAP reform with specific references and a recognition of the importance of the food-producing commons in Europe.

5.- Local, organic, freshly-made Schools Meals as universal entitlements, governed by parents and school staff

6.- Promote Food Policy Councils at all levels through participatory democracies, financial seed capital and enabling laws. Once enough numbers are achieved, an EU Food Policy Council could be established to monitor the reform yet-to-be Commons Food Policy.

7.- Farmers and fishermen as public servants. Food producers to be employed by the State to provide food regularly to satisfy the State needs (i.e. for hospitals, schools, army, ministries, etc).

8.- Guaranteed daily bread for all. Establishing public bakeries where every citizen can get access to a bread loaf every day (if needed or willing to).

9.- Universal Food Coverage to guarantee a minimum amount of food to every EU citizen, similar to universal health coverage and universal primary education.

10.- Patenting living organisms should be banned as an ethical minimum standard.

11.- Food speculation should be banned, because it does not contribute to improving the food system.

12.- Stricter and innovative rules to avoid food waste (binding regulations)

13.- All agricultural research funded with public funds to be in the public domain.

14.- Food-related subsidies to support innovative civic actions for food such as Territories of Commons, community-supported agriculture, food buying groups, open agricultural knowledge, etc.

15.- European Parliament to elaborate a communication to call for an EU food bank network that is universal, accountable, compulsory and not voluntary, random and targeted, shifting from charitable food to food as a right.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• De Moor, M., L. Shaw-Taylor and P. Warde, eds. (2002). The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, c. 1500–1850. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.
• EUROSTAT (2015). Eurostat statistics explained. Material deprivation  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Severe_material_deprivation_rate
• Kostakis, V. and M. Bauwens (2014). Network society and future scenarios for a collaborative economy. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Lana-Berasain, JM. & I. Iriarte-Goni (2015). Commons and the legacy of the past. Regulation and uses of common lands in twentieth-century Spain. International Journal of the Commons 9(2): 510–532. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.488
• Maggio, A., T. Van Criekinge and J.P. Malingreau (2015). Global Food Security 2030. Assessing Trends in View of Guiding Future EU Policies. Joint Research Centre Science and Policy Reports. Foresight Series. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/global-food-security-2030-assessing-trends-view-guiding-future-eu-policies
• Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Ostrom, E. (2009). A polycentric approach to climate change. Policy Research working paper WPS 5095. Washington, DC: World Bank.
• Polanyi, K. (1944). The great transformation: the political and economic origins of our time. Reprinted in 2001. Boston: Beacon Press.
• UNICEF (2014). Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries. Innocenti Report Card 12, UNICEF. www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc12-eng-web.pdf
• Vivero-Pol, J.L. (accepted, in press). Food as Commons or Commodity? Exploring the Links between Normative Valuations and Agency in Food Transition. http://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201701.0073/v1
• Vivero-Pol, J.L. (forthcoming, 2017). The food commons transition: collective actions for food and nutrition security. In: Ruivenkamp, G. & A. Hilton (eds.). Autonomism and Perspectives on Commoning. Zed Books. Pp. 185-221.
• Vivero Pol, J.L. & C. Schuftan (2016). No right to food and nutrition in the SDGs: mistake or success? BMJ Global Health 1(1) e000040; http://gh.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000040

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

1.- SCIENTIFIC PEER-REVIEWED TEXTS

Handbook of Food as a Commons. Routledge, London. Edited by Vivero-Pol, J.L., T. Ferrando, O. De Schutter & U. Mattei (due in 2017, 28 chapters and 38 authors).

Transition towards a food commons regime: re-commoning food to crowd-feed the world. In: Ruivenkamp, G. & A. Hilton (eds.). Perspectives on Commoning: Autonomist Principles and Practices. Zed Books. Pp. 185-221. (forthcoming, 2017). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2548928

Food as Commons or Commodity? Exploring the Links between Normative Valuations and Agency in Food Transition (accepted in Sustainability) http://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201701.0073/v1

The Value-Based Narrative of Food as a Commons. A Content Analysis of Academic Papers with Historical Insights (under review in Journal of Rural Studies). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2865837

No right to food and nutrition in the SDGs: mistake or success? BMJ Global Health 1(1) e000040; DOI: 10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000040 (2016). http://gh.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000040

2.- PRESENTATIONS WITH POLICY PROPOSALS

How to reclaim our food commons? Meaningful food to crowd-feed Europe http://www.slideshare.net/joseluisviveropol/how-to-reclaim-our-food-commons

Food is not a right in the SDGs: the EU position analysed http://www.slideshare.net/joseluisviveropol/food-is-not-a-right-in-the-sdgs-the-us-and-eu-positions-analysed

3.- OUTREACH SHORT TEXTS

Staying alive shouldn’t depend on your purchasing power. The Conversation (2013).

https://theconversation.com/staying-alive-shouldnt-depend-on-your-purchasing-power-20807

Why isn’t food a public good? Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (2014)

http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/00289

Food as a commons: A shift we need to disrupt the neoliberal food paradigm. Heathwood Institute (2015)

http://www.heathwoodpress.com/food-as-a-commons-a-shift-we-need-to-disrupt-the-neoliberal-food-paradigm-jose-luis-vivero-pol/

SPANISH

Soberanía alimentaria y alimentos como un bien común. En: Seguridad Alimentaria: derecho y necesidad. Dossier 10 (Julio): pp 11-15. Economistas Sin Fronteras, Spain. (2013)

http://www.ecosfron.org/portfolio/seguridad-alimentaria-derecho-y-necesidad/#.Uh3BAfW3vbk

FRENCH

Peut-on éradiquer la faim à l’horizon post-2015 en continuant à traiter l’alimentation comme une marchandise ? CTA Knowledge for Development Blog.  February 2016. http://knowledge.cta.int/fr/Dossiers/S-T-et-defis-agricoles/Securite-alimentaire/Articles-de-fond/Peut-on-eradiquer-la-faim-a-l-horizon-post-2015-en-continuant-a-traiter-l-alimentation-comme-une-marchandise

[1] During the European Assembly of Commons, there was a policy proposal presented at the European Parliament session on “Territories of the Commons”. See here for text: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309859387_Territories_of_Commons_proposal_JL_Vivero_hackpad_V_1  And here for presentation:  http://www.slideshare.net/joseluisviveropol/territories-of-commons-food-heritage-nature-climate-mitigation-democracy

[2] Indigenous peoples’ and Conserved Community territories and Areas: natural areas, resources, species and habitats conserved in a voluntary, common and self-directed way by local communities and indigenous peoples throughout the world http://www.iccaconsortium.org/

[3] This figure is downsized since it includes only 13 countries and only refers to Utilised Agriculture Area, so forested or coastal areas are not included. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Common_land_statistics_-_background

[4] Legislation in Finland (www.ym.fi/publications )

[5] Those who have “an open house and a burning fireplace” what means they regularly inhabit that house, either owned or rented. Therefore, commonality is not inherited but granted by living in the community.

[6]There are 2800 Montes Vecinales de Mano Comun (Collectively-Owned Community Forests) legally protected, representing a third of total forest area. They produce wood, food, pasturelands, income by selling wood or renting land for wind-power turbines. They are an example of direct assembly democracy that can be replicated on other settings applying the EU’s principle of subsidiarity in decision-making. More info at: http://montenoso.net/wiki/index.php/MVMC/es

[7] Law 13/1989 (10 October) de Montes Vecinales en Man Común (DOG nº 202, 20-10-1989) and Law 7/2012 (28 June) de montes de Galicia.

[8] The term “Università” derives from the ancient roman term “Universitas Rerum” (Plurality of goods) while the term “Agraria” refers to the rural area. http://www.agrariasacrofano.it/Storia.aspx

[9] ECOLISE http://gen-europe.org/partners/ecolise/index.htm and Global Eco-village Network Europe http://gen-europe.org/home/home/index.htm

[10] Transition Network https://transitionnetwork.org/

[11] http://urgenci.net/the-network/

[12] http://www.xes.cat/pages/xs100.php

[13] http://genuinoclandestino.it/

[14] http://corkfoodpolicycouncil.com/

[15] Country studies have been done for England, Italy, Croatia and Spain https://www.cbd.int/protected/ts64-country-case-studies/

[16] http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/deeper-and-fairer-economic-and-monetary-union/towards-european-pillar-social-rights_en

[17] http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/adequate-and-sustainable-social-protection_en

• Jose Luis Vivero Pol is an engaged scholar, food commoner. Click here to read more of Jose Luis’ writing on this blog. Universite catholique of Louvain, Belgium Email: [email protected]
• The P2P Foundation is serializing videos from the European Commons Assembly. See all videos here.
• Lead image: Conviviality in Central Africa Flickr CC Luca Gargano

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