Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

This paper explores how agricultural planning practice engages specific visions of agricultural futures. In Canadian agriculture, there are widespread differences in farming as seen in the diversity of farm practices, farm sizes, market orientations, institutions, and ideologies and values. Employing a case study approach to two regions in South Western British Columbia, this paper attempts to answer how agricultural planning practice addresses these differences and how planning instruments are employed to legitimize certain types of farms while silencing or rendering invisible others. Interviews with farmers, municipal and regional planners and decision-makers, and non-profit/industry association staff were triangulated with a comprehensive document analysis of agricultural plans and strategies and their orientation to the future. Data were analyzed through an agonistic planning theory approach to explore how depoliticizing practices are used to subvert and render invisible different conceptions and visions of agricultural futures. Implications are suggested for practitioners and stakeholders regarding the current capacity of agricultural planning to address contemporary and future food system issues. Additionally, I offer principles and practices for actors to broaden their capacity to address conflict and heterogeneity within agricultural planning systems.