Introduction

The concept of foodscapes has increasingly gained traction within the field of food studies (Mikkelsen 2011; MacKendrick 2014; Sonnino 2016; Sage 2018), as a means of expressing the myriad of interactions between humans and food. Understanding how people define and shape these interactions is paramount to grasping a fuller picture of the emergence and growth of alternative foodscapes. This paper looks at alternative foodscapes going against the grain of the conventional global-agrifood system and pursuing greater self-reliance. Foodscapes include “elements of materiality and ideology” (Johnston et al. 2009, p. 513). As such, MacKendrick (2014, p. 16) defined them as “the places and spaces where you acquire food, prepare food, talk about food, or generally gather some sort of meaning from food” and as the “institutional arrangements, cultural spaces, and discourses that mediate our relationship with our food.” With Flanders, Belgium, as the region of focus, this paper aims to highlight the diversity of self-reliant practices within alternative foodscapes while exploring the values, motivations, goals and structures that contribute to their existence. Examining each of these facets requires a view of both individual and social drivers, which we address by using the combined analytical lenses of behavioural, social innovation and social practice theories to answer the question: why and how do people strive for self-reliance and self-governing their foodscapes in contemporary Flanders?

Flanders is a relatively wealthy region and, as such, not one in which self-reliance may be considered necessary for survival. Nevertheless, the food system in Flanders faces several challenges including globalization, increasing drought, climate change, an aging population and scarcity of critical resources such as land and water (Mathijs et al. 2012; Nevens et al. 2017). Belgians have, over the past years, had a growing interest in back to the land movements which have also seen a surge in popularity globally. As a result, there is increasing interest in and debate around health, sustainable food and lifestyles which has fostered the emergence and growth of many different alternative practices within Flemish foodscapes. Though global networks of production, distribution and consumption have an explicit impact on many foodscapes, it is equally important to also pay attention to more localized developments. This is because foodscapes themselves operate and are experienced at different scales, from the personal domestic foodscape, to the national or global foodscape (Mikkelsen 2011). On the one hand, it is difficult to escape large scale influences, for example shortages of certain foodstuffs caused by drought, that can influence the decisions an individual can take within their personal foodscape. On the other hand, there exist options to personally define one’s own foodscape. As such, foodscapes can be seen as “contested spaces” that can be made and remade as “actors struggle to define the terrain of political action, including the extent of market involvement and private ownership of food” (Johnston et al. 2009, p. 513). There is a range of choices that can be made between complete reliance on the conventional food system and the decision to be completely self-reliant. In fact, there are no absolute boundaries between alternative and conventional (Sonnino and Marsden 2006).

Sonnino and Marsden (2005) proposed viewing alternative and conventional food systems as having nuanced and complex relations that must be considered. Similarly, framing different self-reliant practices as distinct entities engaged in by very different individuals and groups would overlook both the subtle and significant ways in which these practices interact, overlap and relate to the conventional system. With an increasing spotlight on the finite nature of global resources and looming global crises such as climate change we ask ourselves what actions are taken by individuals. This paper explores the conditions that make action possible by proposing an understanding of self-reliant practices that considers the substantive motivations and goals of those that choose to engage in them. We bring together behavioural, social innovation and social practice theories and apply these to an exploration of foodscapes. This paper’s approach is important because it contributes to the holistic understanding of, and debate surrounding, the potential and long-term prospects of local grassroots initiatives in the face of global challenges.

Values and self-reliant practices

The synergies between social practices, values and social innovation provide a unique perspective into the emergence and development of self-reliant practices within alternative foodscapes. In this section, we begin by elucidating the concept of self-reliance as it is used in this paper, highlighting the contested nature of how it is perceived and defined by those engaging in self-reliant practices. Following this, we discuss the definition of practices from social practice theory perspectives (Schatzki 2011, 2012; Crivits and Paredis 2013) that present practices as having both tangible and intangible elements. We then zoom in on the intangible elements of values, motivations and efficacies (Schwartz 1992, 2012; Bandura 1977, 1982, 1986), and discuss how they contribute towards agency in practice. Finally, using social innovation (Moulaert et al. 2013a) we zoom out to a broader view of how practices may interact with material and socio-cultural structures and, in so doing, create and reshape the foodscapes within which they unfold.

Self-reliance is primarily defined as the dependence on one’s own resources, powers and abilities rather than those of others and it is synonymous with self-sufficiency and independence (Stevenson 2010). As this paper deals specifically with self-reliance within foodscapes, we consider self-reliance as independence from, and the opposite to, reliance on the conventional, global agri-food complex. Furthermore, we build on the basic definition of self-reliance by showing how this concept can take on different meanings depending on the individuals or groups own perceptions and circumstances. As such, we consider the concept of self-reliance as fluid and dependent on how different individuals perceive and practice their own independence. One’s understanding of, and/or desire for, self-reliance is also simultaneously tied to individual or collective values and to the socio-material context in which these are embedded. White (2011a,b) called attention to this nuanced approach to self-reliance by detailing cases of minority activists in Detroit who engage in self-reliant practices as a means of community building, personal empowerment, redefinition of local food culture, and ultimately the resistance to failed system of consumerism in the wake of economic decline. These efforts towards independence are inextricably linked to experiences of racial, economic and class-based inequities that cannot be painted with broad strokes (Reese 2018). At the same time, people in vastly different social and material contexts, such as the cases in Flanders discussed in this paper, draw on their own personal and communal histories and experiences in their path towards practicing self-reliance. This leads to varied, hybrid and nuanced manifestations of self-reliant practices, with self-reliance forming a sort of umbrella term under which several different practices fall.

There are many definitions of what practices are and what constitutes them. Schatzki (2012) defined practices as “open-ended, spatially-temporally dispersed nexus of doings and sayings” (p. 14) which work in synergy with material arrangements—which are the concrete elements of a practice such as land or farm tools in the case of farming—that facilitate engagement in practices. He notes that practices are “organized by common understandings, teleologies (ends and tasks) and rules” (Schatzki 2011). Though definitions of practices may vary, by emphasising certain elements over others or phrasing them differently, they all highlight that practices are inherently constituted by links between tangible and intangible elements. Self-reliance in practice, as mentioned above, clearly highlights the integral nature of this dynamic relationship between tangible and intangible. Taking the US as an example, ideologies that discriminated against minorities deliberately channelled resources towards improving liveability in neighbourhoods designed for upper class suburbanites to the detriment of inner-city, often minority, populations. For instance, Reese (2018) discusses the emergence of self-reliant practices as means to create improved food access and food security in historically segregated and structurally underprivileged inner-city neighbourhoods. Crivits and Paredis (2013) elaborate on this argument by showing practices as having the dimension of agency, including values, attitudes and motivations, etc., on one side, and the twofold dimension of structure, on the other. The latter is divided into “material-functional structure” which includes infrastructures and technology, etc., and “socio-cultural structure” which includes norms, traditions and social influences, etc.

One of the intangible elements of practices that require finer attention are the values that motivate individuals and in turn contribute to the co-construction of socio-cultural structures. Schwartz (1992) addresses several key issues related to values, including: how individuals’ unique and social experiences affect their value priorities; how value priorities influence ideologies, attitudes, and actions in the political, religious, environmental, and other domains; and whether there is a universal pattern in these values across different cultures. Building on this, Schwartz’s (1992, 2012) theory of basic values differentiates ten personal values that are, according to him, culturally universal: self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, face, security, tradition, conformity, humility, benevolence and universalism. Schwartz et al. (2012) further refined these to nineteen values and their corresponding motivational goals, as summarized in Table 1. This theory has drawn some criticism regarding the incoherent varying number of divisions between the values which are often presented in different groupings in various publications (Gouveia et al. 2014). However, Davidov et al. (2008) responded to this by pointing out that the division or arrangement of the values are related and not discrete. This allows for their partitioning according to the specific aims of the research to which they are applied. Schwartz (2012) goes deeper into the nature of values suggesting that values serve as motivation to pursue goals and can be ranked and traded off against each other. This implies that values have a dynamic nature that is dependent on context. Though goals and motivation are essential to the production and reproduction of practices, it is important to note that they do not guarantee that a practice will be enacted.

Table 1 Set of 19 basic human values (Authors,
Full size table

It should be noted that values are both individual and collective. A focus on the values of individuals does not negate or subsume the presence of these values at a collective level and vice versa. Schwartz (1992) observed that values inherently serve both individual and collective interests. Subverting normalized practices requires a reprioritization of values. “When a viewpoint or practice becomes dominant … it can become viewed as the way things should be done. Seeking to do something different therefore becomes an act of resistance against a dominant tendency” (Fraser 2016, p. 73—emphasis added). With this in mind, practices that go against the grain of convention within foodscapes reveal several of the values suggested by Schwartz (1992), including self-direction, power, tradition, conformity and universalism. It is important to note, as proposed by Gabriel Tarde in 1890 book “Les lois de l'imitation” (The Laws of Imitation), that practices gain a foothold and are reproduced in society through imitation. Imitation can be said to correspond to the value of conformity, with individuals reproducing societal norms. However, as previously mentioned, having a particular set of values does not guarantee that action in line with these values will be enacted. Self-efficacy (Bandura 1977, 1982, 1986; Bandura and Adams 1977) relates to a self-awareness of the ability to take action which is an important aspect of agency and self-reliance. Efficacy can be said to be closely related to self-direction, with self-direction preceding efficacy. Outcome efficacy is the identification of actions that can be taken and self-efficacy is the acknowledgment of one’s own capacity to take these actions (when applied to collective capacity this is known as collective efficacy). It must be noted that even though an individual may be able to identify actions that will lead to certain outcomes (outcome efficacy), this does not mean that they feel they have the capacity (self-efficacy) to achieve these outcomes. Thus, the ingredients for subverting normalized practices, and ultimately creating new normalizations, include self-direction and efficacy followed by conformity which parallel the mechanisms of innovation and imitation, as described by Tarde (1890).

Many practices have a collective nature and are negotiated through social relations which arise to meet social needs. Social innovation literature has emerged around studies of collective capacities and agency to trigger and address social challenges. How relational aspects, such as power dynamics, affect change practices which are socio-spatially embedded is particularly important when looking at practices as a continuum rather than as self-standing entities. The acknowledgement of need and recognition that it should be addressed is a pillar of social innovation. In other words, social innovation is grounded in individuals and groups recognising the existence of challenges and the necessity to apply effort towards their resolution. As expressed by Moulaert et al. (2013a), this is “a general, shared ‘consciousness’ about the nature of problems that modern societies face and the ways that they should be confronted.” However, in attempting to confront these challenges, agents must interact with the dominant material-functional and socio-cultural structures that uphold the status quo of the conventional system. This can result in a positive impetus to renegotiate the reconfiguration of social relations to meet emerging needs or lead to a stalemate or antagonistic relations.

The contestation involved in shaping and reshaping of foodscapes brings to the forefront the issue of where power, or lack thereof, lies within foodscapes. For the purposes of this paper, we consider power to be efficacy and the means to act on efficacy to achieve a desired outcome. Powerlessness is an equally important consideration. Fraser (2016) explains that powerlessness “is about the experience of not being able to influence key decisions that shape your life” (p. 73), but that powerlessness does not mean that “an individual or member of a social group has no capacity to shape anything. Nor does it mean that they are powerless regarding all spheres of their life” (p. 73). Nevertheless, it is undeniable that power, hierarchies and privilege play a key role in navigating obstacles that are difficult or insurmountable for those in less privileged positions. Cohen and Reynolds (2015) discuss the roles of needs, goals and access to resources in shaping the ability of groups to engage in urban agriculture in New York. Their research uncovered that socially privileged groups, with needs that are arguably less fundamental in nature, use their access to economic resources and political influence to achieve goals such as expanding their operations or finding employment in urban agriculture enterprises. On the other hand, less privileged actors with needs that often focused on community building, nutrition and food security, were significantly disadvantaged leading to a perpetuation of inequities. They describe “structural obstacles that made the process of obtaining resources from government agencies contingent on individual relationships with officials, and therefore unpredictable and disparate” (Cohen and Reynolds 2015, p. 109).

Within the context of global foodscapes, individuals and groups may seek to challenge seemingly insurmountable odds and resist powerlessness, by imagining alternatives and going against normalized practices in order to develop new ideas and practices that are more just (Fraser 2016; Mehmood and Parra 2013). This imagining of alternatives to affect change, in both individual and social environments, is a key part of efficacy. Thus, the emergence of power can in fact blossom from an initial feeling or state of powerlessness as individuals and groups renegotiate and reshape their socio-political relationships with each other and their environment.

Bearing this in mind, we begin to form an idea of why individuals and groups start or engage in specific practices. This forms a good foundation in understanding alternative foodscapes, however, there is often no tidy demarcation to sum up why or how practices emerge or are sustained (Spijker and Parra 2018). In order to explore these more nuanced connections, below we move from theory to the analysis of experiences of the actual day-to-day practices. We delve into the various practices within Flanders, explore the roles of values, privilege, power in nurturing paths to self-reliance in a society that is relatively privileged and ultimately how this unique socio-material context shapes the self-reliant practices within it.

Beyond theory: digging into practices in alternative foodscapes

The practical approach to the data collection for this paper involved two main phases: desk research and fieldwork research. The desk research provided the basis for selection of which practices would be examined, by scoping out the current state of alternative food practices in Flanders. After reaching out to individuals actively engaged in these, we narrowed down the selection to those practices which had a self-reported motivation of self-reliance, however each of the practices differed from each other in tangible or intangible ways which we explore in the following section. The practices we analysed were community supported agriculture, permaculture, transition towns, prepping and hobby farming (Table 2).

Table 2 The five selected practices with brief descriptions
Full size table

Following the desk research and selection of practices, we moved on to the fieldwork phase using qualitative research methods (Taylor et al. 2015). To uncover the values, motivations and structural elements that underlie engagement in these practices in Flanders, we conducted twenty-eight in-depth interviews and site visits, in addition to participant observations over the course of 8 months, from January to August 2017. The in-depth interviews followed an unstructured format that addressed the origins, daily engagement and future of the relative practices. This allowed interviewees to direct the narrative and highlight their driving values and goals, as well as interactions with material and social structures, in an unprompted manner. The resulting data was a self-reported genesis, substance and evolution of the practice as experienced by the interviewee. A key part of this is that interviewees defined for themselves what being self-reliant meant to them. The unstructured format of the interviews meant that each resulting recording and transcript varied according to the unique pace, rapport and narrative direction that evolved during each interview. While a more structured approach might have harmonized the data collection, we specifically chose an unstructured interview format to limit unintentional prompting of particular answers as much as possible. The biggest limitation of this method is taking self-reported information at face value while there is a possibility of intentional or unintentional inaccuracy.

Additionally, we used an ethnographic approach with participant observations that included periods of time dedicated to living and working on the farms of selected individuals. This allowed us to make day-to-day observations of engagement in practices, to look beyond information provided in the interviews, and gain greater insight on the practices through first hand experiences and observations. The resulting field notes and photographs represent our research experience and reflect on how closely this experience connected to the information gathered during the interviews. Admittedly, living and working alongside interviewees had an impact on our perspective. It deepened insights into the people and practices and, at times, created a stronger sense of empathy for their motivations and goals which may be apparent in the field notes from each stay. Based on this comprehensive data collection, we distil three features that encompass the tangible and intangible elements at play within all the respective practices: goals, values and challenges. In the following section, we will discuss these features vis-a-vis the respective practices.

Practices within alternative foodscapes in Flanders

Several factors create a unique situation regarding Flemish foodscapes in terms of land and agriculture. There is a significantly large proportion of home ownership in Flanders (up to 75%). With high population density (487 inhabitants per km2 in 2019, cfr. https://www.statistiekvlaanderen.be/bevolking-omvang-en-groei) and urban sprawl, competition between land for housing developments and land for agriculture is a main feature. This is further exacerbated by zoning laws that strictly prohibit any form of permanent housing structure on agricultural land. At the same time, two thirds of agricultural land are leased and not owned, with land tenure laws that protect long time conventional farmers. These factors generate an extremely difficult context for outsiders to gain a foothold in agriculture with hardly any land for sale. When agricultural land is sold, it is at very high prices: a piece of agricultural land was sold at more than 50,000 euro per hectare on average in 2018, and in the province of Antwerp the average rose to more than 64,000 euro per hectare. The Flemish context is thus comparable to similar urbanized regions, such as the Netherlands, the German Rurh-area, the Paris basin, the South of England, etc., characterized by similar dynamics.

In this section, we take a deeper look at the respective practices, including an explanation of how they work and what they aim to achieve, from the perspective of the individuals actively engaged in them. We also discuss how this engagement reflects on the relation between the goals, values and challenges of the practices as a part of shaping an alternative foodscape in Flanders. We focus on how this engagement informs the relationship between conventional and alternative foodscapes. After exploring each practice on its own, we present an overview of their commonalities and differences, teasing out where they are positioned in the broader perspective of alternative foodscapes.

Community supported agriculture—creating connections to food and farmer

Tom founded the first CSA in Flanders, Het Open Veld, in 2007, and he now runs it with two other farmers. In the self-harvest system at Het Open Veld, “They [the consumers] pay me an amount of money in the beginning of the season, before the end of April, and in return, they come any time they want and take the vegetables they want, if they’re ready to harvest. Normally, they can harvest quantities which they can eat fresh. So, we don’t talk in kilos, we don’t talk in quantities whatsoever. It’s all free. Everyone can take different quantities. But all to use fresh. They can take for one day, come back the next day, or they can harvest for a week. What they can’t do is put it in the freezer, sell it to someone else, put it in jars to keep it for the winter. This is not included in the system, so it’s just for fresh use” (Tom, 16/03/2017).

Het Vrije Veld, run by Souliman, is another CSA farm in Flanders. Though it started on a self-harvest system, it shifted to sending boxes to its consumers. Souliman described the evolution of harvest systems that Het Vrije Veld experimented with, “I started with that [self-harvest]. But I am not close to the city, so I had fifty people the first year, who came picking the vegetables … and I saw that I didn't get a lot more clients. And a lot of people said, ‘Yeah, I want the vegetables, but I don't have time to come to the field’ and because if you come and harvest you need to make time, you have to come, you have to do the round of the field, pick the beans, pick that, cut the salad. So, I did a mix system. I had the people who want a box and I had people who do the picking. But that system is a bit more complicated because I also still had the shops and restaurants. I said, ‘That's not working for me, I want one system.’ So, I asked all my clients, ‘Do you want the picking system, or the boxes?’ Ninety-five percent chose the box system, so in the fourth year I changed the system to only boxes” (Souliman, 10/02/2017).

The direct relationship between farmer and consumer is a big shift from the conventional system. As pointed out by Souliman, getting involved in a CSA often requires dedicating time to harvest produce that you would otherwise find ready on a shelf. Cone and Myhre (2000, p. 189) state that, “In the contemporary market place, where choice, convenience, and value are salient priorities … CSA members must change habits of purchasing, processing, and eating to adapt to the production and distribution constraints of CSA farms.” One of these constraints is that, compared to supermarkets, CSAs can only offer produce that is currently in season. In Flanders, the ready availability of year-round fresh, organic food is commonplace with large supermarket chains such as Colruyt Group’s Bio-planet and Origin’o acting as direct competitors to CSAs. Souliman describes this constraint on choice, “… you cannot choose, you get a box with fresh produce from the season. In May you cannot have tomatoes, because we have tomatoes in the greenhouses, but only the months of July, August, September and October. So, people have to get adjusted to that. If you go to the supermarket you have summer all year round, you can go now and even buy strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers… But here, I see that we change a bit the habit of eating, because if you eat seasonally, you know that you will not have tomatoes now. You will have tomatoes only in August, September. For people, in the beginning, maybe it's a bit difficult but they get used to it, and they appreciate the seasonality.”

CSAs are somewhat unique from the other practices we discuss in this paper, as they have two sides to their engagement: the farmer’s perspective and the consumer’s perspective. Because of the nature of how they are set up, this practice is the one that lies closest to conventional foodscapes. This is because while they emerge from a desire to create an alternative to conventional consumption and conventional relations, or lack thereof, between farmers and consumers, they still rely on the exchange of money for a product. This creates an interesting scenario in which the initial risk of starting and succeeding with a CSA is balanced by the comparatively good income from creating premium products. Therefore, from the farmer’s perspective, both self-direction and security can be found as motivations within CSAs. Tom reflected on this balance, “If I would have done this project, and I was able to live in my caravan eating beets the whole winter, driving my bicycle, chopping my firewood, I would have inspired a few other people and maybe five or seven CSAs would have been in existence. But only because I live, let’s say, kind of a conventional life, I go on holiday, I drive a car, I pay for my house, my children are well-fed… everything you want, you know? Because I live this type of life, I inspire much more people.” Nevertheless, CSAs are not predominantly driven by profit seeking motivations and instead focus on engagement by consumers and the quality of life of the farmer at a time when many small, family owned conventional farms struggle to compete with large agribusinesses. Additionally, building closer relations with consumers allows them to feel a greater responsibility for and knowledge of the food they eat, and the necessary lifestyle to maintain that quality of life for themselves and the farmer. This connects to the values of benevolence and universalism.

From a consumer perspective, the period of adjustment to seasonal eating and active involvement with the farmer may lead to members quitting. Both Tom and Souliman talked about losing members when they first started because they were unable or unwilling to keep up with the CSA system. However, current memberships to their CSAs are fairly stable and, in fact, they have waiting lists of people interested in joining. Rik, a long-time member of Het Open Veld talked about adapting to getting food from a CSA, “There's always a little bit of time pressure. But a few years ago, I stopped looking at it as some work I should do, but as a hobby. It's something I believe in, I want to spend time over there, because I believe in this … If for some reason or another, I wouldn't have the time anymore to go there, I would still try to buy seasonal and local” (Rik, 04/05/2017).

Challenges facing CSAs are not limited to their consumer base. According to both Souliman and Tom, though the demand for local, organic food in Flanders outstrips the supply of it, more farmers are not changing from conventional agriculture for several reasons, including access to land which is difficult to find and prohibitively expensive to young farmers just starting out and also being accustomed to the conventional way of doing things. In Souliman’s words, “If you have farmed for a long time, you have a certain mind-set and changing that mind-set is, I think, more difficult the older you get.” Tom also concurred describing the difficulty of making the switch from conventional systems, “It’s culture that is just—the pressure of their surroundings, of the family, also financial, because sometimes if you have big financial pressure. Like, greenhouses you have to pay, and then it’s even more hard to switch.” According to both Tom and Souliman, this financial burden is more keenly felt by alternative farmers who rely on a limited number of available subsidies in comparison to those available for conventional farming. Nevertheless, CSAs may have bright future with organizations such as Landgenoten in Flanders which are contributing to improve access to land for organic farmers and pioneering farms like Het Open Veld paving the way for alternative foodscapes in Flanders. According to Tom, it is important to take some lessons from the conventional system, “We have to change capitalism, but not throw away everything. I mean, I don’t want to go back to communism or to eating carrots all winter. It’s not where I see the future. I think we can have a better quality in our life while respecting the planet and making it possible for the next generations to live in a good way.”

It is important to note that different CSAs follow different models of interaction between farmer, farm and consumer, with some leaning more towards working together and self-harvesting, while others lean more towards delivering boxes of fresh food or having some sort of grocery-style storefront in which consumers can shop for their shares. These differences between CSA models creates a significant spread between one CSA farm and the next, in terms of self-reliance or how similar it is to more conventional foodscapes.

Permaculture—a lifestyle of living off the land

Permaculture as a practice has been active in Flanders for decades, with farms like Yggdrasil and Plukrijp having come into existence in the 1970s as small family enterprises. These initiatives flourished over the years and evolved into more formal establishments that practice and teach permaculture since 1997 and 2007 respectively. This long history has allowed the founders of these farms to observe and reflect on the emergence and progress of permaculture in Flanders over the years. Yggdrasil, which was the first permaculture farm of its kind in Flanders, is now run by Frank A. who took over the reins from his parents. Frank A. explains his approach to teaching, “We don’t actually give permaculture courses as a whole, but we focus on gardening, because in our opinion a lot of people start with gardening and then because of the way they garden they change the way they live. It is easier to pull people into gardening, because a lot of people already garden.” Permaculture is embedded in a lifestyle that goes beyond the farm. In the words of Frank A., “It is a mindset, and if you change your mindset from organic or conventional to permaculture, very often it also changes in your everyday life, you start thinking about the products you use in your kitchen, and how you do your cleaning, you think about the way you use transport. Permaculture is very abstract and when you just tell the people the twelve principles it doesn’t sink in, but if they garden for a few years, they just slowly shift and then after a while they integrate it with the rest of their life” (Frank A., 31/01/2017).

According to some permaculture practitioners in Flanders, permaculture has experienced a change in public perception, with people having initially doubted its potential for success. Lucrece, who founded Yggdrasil with her husband, reminisced about its early years, “We had visitors and they said, ‘you will have problems with the cabbages’, you will have problems with that and that, but we said, ‘we will see’. ‘You will have problems with the soil because you don’t work in the soil’, and people were like ‘oh what are you doing’, and ‘the garden is not nice’, and all things chaotic, but we said, ‘okay we will try, just try’. If we have problems in a few years, we will change, and we will look for another solution, but it has always been going better” (Lucrece, 31/01/2017). Now, permaculture is experiencing a surge in popularity. According to Frank R., who founded Plukrijp with his partner Martine, permaculture has evolved “from very unpopular and has now become widely popular and in every school that is around here, there are teachers now that want to come with their class or send their pupils here to learn permaculture. This is one of the problems here, that this place is so small and there is not enough of these places. But people are running to get this information: how can we be self-sufficient? How can we be more autonomous? How can we live decentralised lives? How can we diminish our ecological footprint?” (Frank R., 13/03/2017). An interesting contradiction appears to emerge, with the simultaneous popularity and scarcity of permaculture in Flanders. This could perhaps be explained by the fact that permaculture is predominantly practiced by individuals who go on to start private farms, while permaculture knowledge is demanded by both these individuals as well as by agriculture students or hobbyists. Therefore, those who demand the knowledge the most, do not necessarily go on to propagate it. Without a comprehensive mapping of all private property-based permaculture in Flanders, it is difficult to conclusively reflect on this contradiction.

A shift to a more ecologically aware lifestyle, as advocated by permaculture principles, necessitates a sort of restructuring of social relations. According to the Permaculture Activist (2004, p. 3), it “aims to restructure society by returning control of resources for living: food, water, shelter and the means of livelihood, to ordinary people in their communities, as the only antidote to centralized power.” This puts explicit focus on reclaiming power and innovating to reshape lifestyles. Frank R. agrees with this view, “with permaculture we try to be less and less accomplices to the system. And insofar as we reduce our ecological footprint, this gives an enormous feeling of autonomy.” However, this active control over growing food is not a convenient or easy choice. Frank A. points out, “It is easier to just type something in your computer and next week you have that fresh box on your door step, instead of growing it yourself.”

This last observation by Frank A. reflects on the role of convenience and desire for engagement within alternative practices and foodscapes. Much like CSA models that require more engagement versus those that act more like a fresh food subscription service, there are several ways to ‘opt in’ to a more sustainable lifestyle depending on how much time, effort or money you are willing to put in. Michiel, one of the founders of the permaculture farm Far Field, reflected on this, “If you have a lot of money, then you don’t have a lot of time … but what you do is you buy time. So, when you go to the supermarket and buy food, which is prepared, then you actually buy the time you need to prepare it yourself. And when you go to a grocery store and buy vegetables, then you actually buy the time it takes you to grow them yourself. And then, if I have to make the choice between sitting in the office behind the computer, and earning the money to buy these things, or taking the time to grow them myself, then I choose the latter, because it gives me such a good feeling, that I can do it myself and I have the connection again with nature and with other people” (Michiel, 24/04/2017).

This highlights what the main challenges facing permaculture may be: time and money. To fully engage in a lifestyle according to permaculture principles, individuals have to restructure how they relate to food and their environment on a day-to-day basis. Alexander (2015) calls adopting a lifestyle that redefines what is good by rejecting consumerism and waste as voluntary simplicity. A term that rings true to the sentiments expressed by several interviewees engaged in permaculture. The choice to spend time engaged in this practice or to pay for the time someone else has spent via consumer choices. However, this may not be so straightforward a choice to make because it raises the question, perhaps, of the privilege necessary to begin to have such a choice be an option in the first place. While Plukrijp, with its open-door policy may allow for this level of experimentation to anyone who would like to join, the prohibitive cost of land in Flanders would most likely be an insurmountable barrier to most people wishing to begin their own permaculture, or in fact any type of farm.

Transition Towns—creating change through collective action

The movement, which originated in the UK in the mid-2000s, has a presence around the world, including in Flanders (Kenis and Mathijs 2014). The transition towns movement advocates for positive change through collective, local actions and was in fact, inspired from the principles of permaculture. In the words of Greet, the founder of the transition group in Deurne, Antwerp, “We have a shared garden and shared meals and a Repair Café and whatever, all kinds of things that contribute to being more self-sufficient, actually, because this is one of our goals.” However, she points out that collective action is not always easy to organize, “I visited quite a few places that have the same goal, and I saw the reality of these groups and how it grows and all the challenges that they face, also human challenges, because it’s always the most difficult” (Greet, 02/02/2017).

Despite admirable goals, and the dedication of core members, transition towns in Flanders inspire ambivalence because of the perception that the movement does not actually engage in any real world deeds beyond discussion. To this end, several interviewees expressed frustration or disappointment with transition towns’ lack of action, frequently referring to it as a place where there is “lots of talk, but nothing done about it to follow up”. When asked about his contact with Transition Towns, Michiel from Far Field said, “I’ve been involved when I was searching, in my searching phase, I have to find something which gives me the feeling that I’m making a difference. Yeah, I did it for quite a few years, these evenings and debates and brainstorm sessions, and I’m a person who wants to do. I want to act now, and not in five years, and not when everybody is—has agreed on how and with who” (Michiel, 24/03/2017). Evert, another farmer and founder of De Rustige Bedden, concurred, “It’s hard to have this sense of community when there’s only talking and talking and talking. People thought the idea of it was change, but they just think about it and it has to come down to an action” (Evert, 17/03/2017). However, the transition towns network in Flanders still has a potential to grow. Hugo, a transition towns organizer, is working with other transition towns organizers in Flanders to bring initiatives together online, “We are working on a list of other groups, like repair cafes, we have an estimation that that should be about 400 groups for Limburg. So, we have to look them up, contact them and bring them all in a map on the website, so that people can find each other there” (Hugo, 25/01/2017).

The Transition Towns movement is therefore a bit unique in the position it occupies within alternative foodscapes. It functions like an umbrella of practices, rather than a single practice in and of itself, as well as a sort of forum or incubator for discussion on sustainability, self-reliance and alternative lifestyles. As such, it acts more like a loosely formed network of individuals with an interest in engaging in self-reliant practices, who go on to have varying levels of actual engagement. An interesting reflection on Transition Towns and self-reliance was made by Helder, a small-hold organic farmer, who pointed out that the urban–rural divide and access to resources has a role to play in starting and sustaining interest in engagement, “I live in a rural area and here it's difficult. In Leuven, there are 200 people waiting to get on a list to have vegetables, but here, people who want fresh vegetables do it themselves” (Helder, 12/03/2017). This ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude is strongly in line with self-reliance but undermines the need for collective organization through a movement like Transition Towns. However, in an urban area, where there are more limited options, there may be greater interest in creating and sustaining networks like Transition Towns and even joining initiatives such as CSAs. This raises the question of whether a broader organization of action is a prerequisite to foster self-reliance within alternative foodscapes or if individual, decentralized initiatives are more likely to be fruitful depending on the context.

Prepping—security through self-reliance

Hades, a long-time prepper describes prepping as being “prepared for problems that can occur in the near future or far future. And it is in fact similar to everyone else who is preparing himself or herself for problems in the future, like those who take an insurance for the car, their house, unemployment, also the medical services that prepare themselves for problems that they can encounter everywhere” (Hades, 26/03/2017). To be sufficiently prepared, Hades believes that prepping is “more about skills” and “a lot of preppers who use only modern methods, also with electricity and so on. But if the event occurs that there is a problem with electricity… then you are stuck. You can have also a kind of provisions and then other things of prepping, but you should have also the skills, or you learn the skills, to do things like our ancestors did. Skills that most of the people have lost.” He further elaborated that one of the most important things of cultivating and maintaining these skills was the fact that it was an enjoyable activity that he could share with his son and fellow prepper friends. While he did not self-identify as a prepper, Hugo, the Transition Towns organizer, shared this opinion on self-reliance and the importance of skills over technologies, “Being independent, to me, is going to the basics, I mean, I don't think I can really be independent if I depend on the water filter someone is selling. As long as I can buy it, it's okay, but when it stops, I have to do something myself, I have to make my own wheat fields or so.”

Prepping as a practice is entirely focused on developing greater independence from a conventional system that may fail. Being self-reliant in terms of food is one of the fundamental focuses of prepping. With the more ardent, skills-based preppers farming sustainably, off-grid as much as possible. Skills, such as domestic food processing and preservation, are also key within prepper lifestyles. However, not all preppers are the same, nor do they engage in the practice of prepping in the same way, despite having the same teleology and goals. What distinguishes one prepper from another is two connected aspects of prepping: temporal and phenomenon-related. The temporal aspect of prepping refers to the period for which a preparation is made, for instance, in the example of the neighbour above, he is prepared for being long-term self-reliant with food, water, energy and shelter in the event of a complete system collapse. However, not all prepping is meant for years of self-reliance and this is where phenomenon-related prepping comes into play. For instance, in an area that experiences severe weather events an individual may prepare for the fixed period that it usually takes for day-to-day life to return to normal. Therefore, they may prepare for anything from a few days to a few months. As pointed out by Hades, skills are an essential part of prepping and are equally, if not more, useful than resources which will eventually run out in the long-term, for instance, the skills to grow and forage food may be more useful than stockpiling food.

Prepping, for the most part, is not a very visible practice. Beyond the communications between preppers themselves on online platforms it is difficult to find and connect with preppers because they do not engage with the public in the same way as the previously described practices. As such, preppers have much more in common with hobby farmers. Self-direction, security and benevolence are recurring themes discussed by preppers. However, this lack of visibility is a contribution to one of the main challenges that preppers face. Because they do not cultivate a public image, their image has often been defined by the perceptions of outsiders. In Hades opinion, some negative stereotypes have emerged because of sensationalist representations in popular media, including shows such as Doomsday Preppers. These have led to all preppers being painted with broad strokes, in Hades words, “The idea that we are all the same is not true, because when you have a group of people, when you have 10 people, 100 people, everyone is different. Perhaps some will have the same idea, but everyone does things in a certain degree, one more than another, of course … It's a bit of a shame that when they talk about preppers, and they show preppers, that it’s only special types—the more sensational types.” This is particularly relevant when one reflects on the similarities that most self-reliant practices within alternative foodscapes have with prepping, including fostering skills to nurture and sustain oneself and community considering the unsustainable trajectory of many conventional systems. However, because prepping does not necessarily share the public goodwill some of the other practices do, it leads to unfortunate situations. Speaking off the record, one prepper described the consistent harassment by police that lead to a Flemish online information sharing platform for preppers being shut down. Ostensibly, this was due to “dangerous ideas” being discussed on the site. However, the site in question had moderators in place monitoring regularly for individuals with extreme viewpoints. While we were members on this forum, we observed that most of the discussion threads were predominantly do-it-yourself postings on various topics, ranging from home repairs, farming and so on. To deal with this image-problem, preppers in Flanders are rebranding themselves to highlight the centrality of learning survival and self-reliance skills in much the same way as scouts. Bushcraft and survival skills courses do not carry the same negative connotation as prepping and, as such, can be pursued in a much more open manner. To this end, the rebranding has left the core principles intact, while creating a fresh and socially acceptable image: from dangerous practice to fun hobby. Here we see that the power to (re)shape image and perception can completely change your ability to engage in a practice. This sort of rebranding into acceptability, without changing core practice, highlights the importance of intangible elements within practices. It touches on the role of normative labelling, the power of perception and the influence that comes from constructing positive narratives as facilitators to practices.

Hobby farmers—happily harvesting from home

These group of individuals are those who make the most of whatever resources they have access to grow food for themselves and their households. Hobby farming can encompass everything from a small kitchen garden that provides only herbs and small vegetable crops to a mini-farm capable of supporting a family. As such, hobby farmers can be almost completely self-reliant, depending on their desire, dedication, skill and the amount of resources accessible to them. Flanders, with its high proportion of home ownership is particularly fertile territory for hobby farming should an individual wish to do so. Before the advent of supermarkets and modern foodscapes as we know them, it was quite common for families to have kitchen gardens. In fact, growing food at the household level has been encouraged at times in the past. A good example of this, was the encouragement of self-sufficiency from the First and Second World Wars through food growing in Liberty gardens and Victory gardens respectively. These gardens had the purpose of improving food supplies, encouraging the ideals of frugality and self-sufficiency, at a time of severe shortages (Miller 2003; Kurtz 2001; Witkowski 2003). In this way, there is an almost explicit overlap between prepping and what we refer to as hobby farming historically.

Hobby farming, particularly to significantly reduce conventional food buying, is not so easy. One of the reasons for this is because it requires farming skills and a level of dedication that not everyone has. According to Karel, a devoted hobby farmer who produces enough fresh vegetables for himself and his extended family almost year-round, “They have forgotten the skills. Even if for romantic reasons or so, they say, ‘Hey that's nice’, I've seen people starting a garden, and stopping it after two or three years. Because they don't manage. It's more complicated in fact to have good results from it, and you must put effort to it.” He also reflected on the lifestyle necessary to keep things going, “It's also the way of life. I think if you're used to going to the supermarket once a week and taking everything home … this is too difficult because eating patterns have changed.” However, even if an individual has the skills, having a large backyard farm requires having a large backyard in the first place. Access to land and the cost of land in Flanders makes this very difficult for people without the economic means to purchase or lease land. Hobby farmers, who either bought land decades ago when land prices were lower or inherited it from family, hold a privileged position in comparison to an individual who would like to do the same now without the same access to resources. Community or neighbourhood gardens have emerged to fulfil the desire to hobby farm for those who either are not homeowners, or whose properties do not have the green space necessary for hobby farming. However, this type of opportunity may not be within the grasp of the truly underprivileged because it often relies on the power to leverage social connections or access finance (Cohen and Reynolds 2015) (Table 3). 

Table 3 Summary of practices and their corresponding goals, values and main challenges
Full size table

Having looked at each of the respective practices from the perspectives of the individuals involved in them, a picture of what they are and what they have in common begins to materialize. Table 2 gives an overview of these aspects, divided into goals, values and challenges. Aside from the self-reliance that ties them all together, there is one value that should be highlighted. Hedonism recurred as a theme in all the interviews. Everyone often pointed out how happy their respective lifestyle choices made them and this, in their opinion, was an essential element of why they continued to engage in these practices. This was also strongly connected to the value they placed on being out in nature, doing things for themselves and seeing the produce of their work. Evelien, who coaches people on living a more ecological lifestyle summarized the sentiments of most interviewees by saying, “[Being more eco] that's not my goal. My goal, like everybody else, is just being happy and I want to reach that by living eco and by living independent. And I think when you set being eco as your goal then it becomes a punishment and you do it only because you feel guilty. And if you think like that, you cannot sustain it.” Hedonism thus emerges as a noteworthy teleology and reproducing factor for practices of self-reliance. It is important to note that hedonism, as presented by Schwartz et al. (2012), does not fully or explicitly capture the essence of what many interviewees described. Perhaps a broader representation of the value of the pursuit of happiness, not just as hedonistic pleasure or sensuous gratification, should also include mention of gratification from doing for others as well as the fulfilment of finding purpose or doing meaningful work, known as eudemonic happiness (Sekulova 2015).

With all this in mind, there are several connecting threads between all the practices discussed. The strongest connection between all these practices is their teleologies. These teleologies have significant similarity or overlap as regards self-reliance with all the interviewees having the goal of being more independent and striving to be more actively engaged in shaping their foodscapes. Another noteworthy similarity is the communal focus of many of the practices. Reese (2018, p. 408) sums up this succinctly, “the ‘self’ in self‐reliance almost always reflects an interest in and commitment to community.” In spite of this, the practices differ from each other in small but relevant ways, in terms of the day-to-day engagement in the practices and how they relate to conventional systems. None of the practices were 100% self-reliant, instead individuals related to and relied on conventional foodscapes in different ways. As such, the practices occupy a continuum from almost complete system reliance to almost complete self-reliance. These practices can be placed along the continuum based overall desired end goals or teleology which are also closely linked to value priorities. However, a continuum is also visible within specific practices because they are engaged in by different people in slightly different ways, despite being regarded as being the same practice. For instance, with CSAs, they have a continuum of sales models ranging from those that require high engagement to those that require minimal engagement from consumers. In the case of prepping, there are people who prep for a week in case of a storm and those who organize their entire lifestyle around living off-grid. With such diversity in mind, these practices present a complexity and fluidity that bring to light the necessity of going beyond superficial categorizations.

Conclusion

Alternative foodscapes in Flanders encompass a diversity of practices that have been cultivated over the years. At the beginning of this paper we asked why and how people shaped their foodscapes through self-reliant practices. These practices have emerged and flourished for various reasons. Different aspects of Flemish geography (similar to many other urban areas in Europe), including unfulfilled needs, have enabled and constrained the various practices discussed in this paper. The prohibitive cost of land, in particular farmland, has fostered the creation of socially innovative organizations such as Landgenoten to ease access to this critical resource. On the other hand, high rates of home ownership have enabled a plethora of hobby farms. Flemish inhabitants have striven to shape their own foodscapes within the unique biogeophysical and social landscape of Flanders. This has led to a great variety of practices which have been met with varying enthusiasm by the Flemish public. The relative privilege of Flemish society has played a large role in facilitating engagement in self-reliant practices. Many individuals in this research sought empowerment, independence and greater connection to their foodscapes and were able to achieve these ends because of their access to finance, political influence and/or social support structures.

Regardless of the labels which have been applied to these various practices, those which identify themselves as self-reliant have several shared values, motivations and goals that serve as their foundation. Self-direction, security, benevolence, universalism and hedonism (or the pursuit of happiness) are found consistently in the interview narratives. In fact, many of the narratives bore similar hallmarks regarding what they were striving for, calling to mind the idea of a “shared consciousness” of societal problems and how they should be addressed (Moulaert et al. 2013b). Despite this seemingly shared narrative, the case of prepping revealed a deeper layer in terms of the power of being able to construct your own narrative and to leverage this to facilitate engagement in practices. Even when the day-to-day practices were remarkably similar, perception remained a powerful gatekeeper to social acceptability, access to resources and at times even the basic freedom to pursue a practice without harassment.

Nevertheless, these practices cannot all be bundled together. Despite being rooted in broadly similar values and goals, there were clear differences between what individuals considered their ideal of self-reliance and how they chose to pursue this ideal. The ways in which individuals engage in these practices and broader society reveals nuanced differences between the practices themselves, but also between individuals and collectives engaged within the same practice. Individual, and ultimately collective, values and the space in which they are nurtured, are both socially embedded and reproduced within specific contexts, cultures and times. The very concept of self-reliance was perceived, defined and practiced in different ways, not just between the different practices, but also between different groups/individuals engaging in the same practice. With differences both palpable and subtle enough that they blurred the boundaries and commonly used labels applied to different practices. Considering these subtle shades of difference, a continuum of practices emerges between those practices which are entirely reliant on conventional systems and those which are striving to be as self-reliant as possible. Indeed, these practices may be more or less self-reliant based on the variable through which one chooses to analyse them by. Self-reliant practices within alternative thus prove to be more fluid and nuanced than broad strokes definitions imply. In fact, this paper does not seek to create a generalization of the practices or the individuals that engage in them, but rather to show the variety that is possible when individuals exercise their capacities. By highlighting these nuances, a clearer image emerges of the richness, complexity and socially innovative role of alternative foodscapes in Flanders.