Can we change the system from the inside?

Is it possible to change the system from within or should we instead apply pressure from the outside? Or maybe even create an entirely new system instead?

These questions were raised by the editor of the journal Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, Stephen Gliessman, who, in a recent editorial, referred to the agroecology conference funded by the US Department of Agriculture as the “belly of the beast”.  

“For many of us as agroecologists, being in the belly refers to the numerous beasts who control the current globalized, centralized, monocultured, and industrialized food system that we are trying to transform using agroecology,” says Gliessman. 

He raises concerns that collaborating more closely with ‘the beast’ could lead to corporate capture and cooptation, and that agroecology could be reduced to a set of bland practices – cover cropping instead of a radical approach to farming founded not only on ecological practices but on social equity and political engagement. 

But as the climate crisis intensifies, biodiversity loss accelerates and the need for change becomes ever more urgent, Gliessman asks if the agroecology movement needs to spend more time in ‘the belly of the beast’ to scale out the movement. See our explainer on agroecology’s history, different definitions and contentions. 

In this edition of Fodder, we dig into the fundamentally different attitudes to collaboration when it comes to food systems transformation. Can social movements and environmental groups collaborate with the beast to drive change, or do they risk being co-opted for the profits and interests of corporations? As Tara Garnett, director of TABLE recently asked our team: “Is compromise a fool’s mission?” Or as Ruth Mattock, TABLE communications and research officer responded: “Is compromise the only feasible option?” 

Can we change the food system from within a corporate structure? Credit: Divine Techygirl 

It’s a debate that is happening across food systems. Within the agroecology movement, the approach has been to separate itself from the beast given its radical opposition to the dominant food system and a desire to avoid corporate capture at all costs. In 2021, 600 grassroots agroecology groups and individuals boycotted the UN Food Systems Summit, claiming that it had been hijacked by corporate interests. 

Likewise, the world’s largest gathering of the agroecology movement, the Oxford Real Farming Conference, has a strict ban on corporate sponsors and hosting sessions, aiming to “create a space for the grassroots movement to debate, learn and grow, without risk of corporate capture or cooptation.”

But, as Gliessman suggests, is the agroecology movement missing out on opportunities to drive change? It raises questions of what scale and degree of change is the most effective route to fixing our food system. Is incremental change on a larger scale ‘better’ than radical change on a hyper-local level? Are both necessary? Is there an assumption that radical change on a larger scale isn’t possible?

In any case, scale is at the heart of this debate, a theme we looked at in depth in this explainer. 

Supporting the insider approach, Archon Fung and Ekin Olin Wright argue that collaborating with governments or corporations can give activists and movements resources and access that they simply wouldn’t have through external activism alone. This can be money for research, amplifying their message to a wider audience, and a seat at the table to influence policy. 

They note that Starbucks became the world’s largest purchaser of Fair Trade coffee in 2009 and pushed the whole industry to raise sourcing practices, including McDonald’s and Costa. The Fair Trade scheme certainly has its critics, but arguably the certification and its collaboration with corporations have produced tangible results for many – improved pay for workers, more transparency and more sustainable practices.

Critics of the ‘working-with’ approach argue that movements risk losing their radical edge and reputation when they collaborate too closely with the corporations they’re trying to change. Not only can this collaboration fail to confront the root cause of the problems they’re trying to solve, but collaborators risk both simplifying the issues and becoming financially reliant on corporations. And this dependency further reduces their ability to challenge systemic injustice. 

In August, Vox published an investigation by Kenny Torella titled, How the most powerful environmental groups help greenwash Big Meat’s climate impact. It criticised the WWF and the Nature Conservancy for partnering with the likes of McDonald’s, Tyson and Burger King, to help them reduce their emissions. Torella argues this arrangement helps greenwash corporations while only committing to small incremental changes that come under regenerative agriculture and efficiency improvements in livestock production. See our explainer on regenerative agriculture, a movement that has, for some, become the poster child of corporate collaboration.  

Is small change on a large scale preferable to no change at all? Credit: Mikechie Esparagaoza via Pexels 

In other words, “It’s all bun and no beef,” wrote Torella, who argues WWF should be campaigning for plant-based diets instead. 

But might a third way be possible? Frances Fox Piven and Richard Clower in, ‘Poor People’s Movements, Why They Succeed and How They Fail,’ argue that social movements must walk a delicate tightrope. Collaborate too closely and they risk cooptation and losing grassroots support, but if social movements avoid all institutional engagement, they limit their ability to effect change. 

In this vein, John Gaventa proposes an insider-outsider approach where movements leverage their seat at the table to push for reform but remain autonomous to hold corporations and governments to account with external disruption and campaigning. He argues that social movements and campaigners don’t have to choose between inside collaboration and external disruption, but should do both strategically. 

Greenpeace perhaps offers an example of walking this tightrope. Known for its high-profile activism, Greenpeace also selects opportunities to engage with industry. In 2017 Greenpeace and Thai Union, the world’s largest tuna producer, agreed to improve fishing practices and labour conditions and Greenpeace helped to implement and track Thai Union’s reforms. But simultaneously, Greenpeace continued to apply external pressure on the wider tuna industry.

And what about us as individuals who simply want to improve the food system? Should we opt for the corporate job and try to change the system from within? Or instead, take the often lesser-paid job fighting for radical change? Ultimately, it depends on what we see as the routes to change. 

There might always be fundamentally different ideas about how change can and should happen out there. But is there a middle ground, where understanding each others' differences could lead to better, less polarised conversations and, therefore, more collaborative solutions and outcomes?  

For the next edition of FODDER, we’d like to feature your views on this topic.

Do you think compromise is unavoidable? Is some change better than no change? Or is there a route to a radical change? 

Send us your thoughts to jackthompson@tabledebates.org or tag us on X or Linked In.