Citizen Science for Sustainable Food Systems: Open Innovation, Traditional Knowledge & People's Active Role

Abstract

Citizen science for sustainable food systems is the response needed across the globe for several reasons. Firstly, because democratic spaces are shrinking and funding for people-centric initiatives is drying up. People have the right to know about and to question the results of government or industry-sponsored research – because it affects their health and lives. Secondly, and more importantly, because citizen science is the most effective response to neoliberal policies pushed by an increasingly powerful corporate lobby that has effectively taken control of most democratic(-in-name-only) governments. French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard wrote that capital “was never linked by a contract to the society that it dominates. It is a sorcery of social relations, it is a ‘challenge to society’, and it must be responded to as such.” In other words, to challenge and overcome the capitalist system in its current degraded form, as researchers and activists we must not limit our work solely to that for which we can find funding.