Social Sciences Essay: Resistance to the impacts or practices of “conventional,” dominant, industrialized agricultural systems

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Resistance to the impacts or practices of “conventional,” dominant, industrialized agricultural systems.
Introduction
Conventional, dominant industrial agriculture aimed at mechanizing the whole food system, from production, processing to the storage and distribution of the farm produce. This kind of agricultural food system is directed by the competitive market pricing and is dominated by a few leaders in the global market. In order to meet the maximum demand of the global market, the crops are grown and harvested at a massive level, with little care to the basic needs of the workers. Lack of adequate food, housing, health and sanitation facilities for the farmworkers lead to distress which is heightened by the low financial benefits they reap at the end of the harvesting season. They are treated as farm slaves, where if they leave the work in the middle of the season due to non-payment of their dues, they lose all their money. All this is done to ensure maximum workforce so that the demand of the crop by the market leaders like Wal-Mart, Subway and many others is met. This leads to maximum profits to the leaders, yet the farmers and the workers are least benefitted. To resist the inhuman treatment of the workers and injustices of the conventional, dominant industrial agriculture that tend to globalize the entire production process, various alternative agri-food initiatives have been taken. These initiatives are very strongly motivated by social, geographical, political and economic reasons. The alternative food system raises hopes and imaginations and triggers the energy levels of hundreds of people directly or indirectly involved in any process of the food system. This system aims at providing a viable environment for sustainability, which is also socially humane and economically feasible.
Identification and Analysis of Mechanisms of Resistance
Many people are working towards establishing an effective alternative agri-food initiative. One of these initiatives of social resistance aims at opposing the globalization of production and contrarily brings forth localization of production. This resistance movement was spurred by the need to be economically self-sufficient and ensure the existence of the small scale farmer. For this, the local agricultural system needs to be rearranged. This can be achieved by reorganizing community-based agriculture supported by locally organized agricultural fairs or small scale markets, where the consumers and the farmers are connected directly, strengthening small family farms and local decision making.
According to Allen et al. 63
Localizing food seems to manifest both oppositional and alternative desires, providing an opportunity for direct personal relationships between producers and consumers and allowing people to express their sense of responsibility to the natural world and themselves within it(63).
This kind of localized agri-food initiative ensures the meaningful connection between the consumer and the producer that gives value to the food, rather than just the physical output (Marsden et al. 425; Murdoch and Miele 467).
Transformations of space, place, and environmental neither neutral nor in...