Working in food systems

Pitt, Hannah ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9636-7581 2025. Working in food systems. Holloway, L., Goodman, M. K., Maye, D., Kneafsey, M., Sexton, A. E. and Moragues-Faus, A., eds. Elgar Encyclopedia of Food and Society, Social Sciences series, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 510-515. (10.4337/9781800887435.00132)

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Abstract

Employment in food systems represents a huge proportion of paid work globally; add to this unwaged subsistence production and domestic food work and its scope is immense. Despite being essential to human life, much food work remains hidden from the end consumer, allowing low pay, exploitation and abuse. The ‘everywhere but nowhere’ nature of working in food systems combines with other systemic contradictions to perpetuate social devaluing of the work. This injustice is rooted in colonial histories which echo through racialised and gendered employment relations entrenched in global food systems. Precarious employment, particularly for migrants, is deeply entangled with how food is produced, and enables low prices. Tracing these threads it becomes apparent that who does food work, how they are treated and rewarded is highly problematic – a state which is difficult to alter without realigning global agri-food systems and their flows of capital and power.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Publisher:	Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:	9781800887428
Last Modified:	10 Dec 2025 11:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183088

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