|
Claudio Malagoli
University of Gastronomic Sciences
The Social Value of Gastronomy:
a course on social evaluation and food ethics
It is possible to say, without fear of contradiction, that the last few years have seen a growth in sensitivity towards food and eating, especially towards the sensory qualities of foodstuffs, the production techniques used to make them and the cultural heritage behind them.
A lot of work has already been done on the sensory perception front. The production sector has adapted to the situation by marketing foodstuffs of different standards of quality, capable of meeting most consumer needs and demands. The assortment of food products has been broadened and new earning opportunities have been created in the production of primary ingredients and food processing. Unfortunately, the consumer is, to use a euphemism, disoriented when it comes to buying food, insofar as he or she is often unacquainted with its real properties (nutraceutics, fortification, probiotics, prebiotics, symbiotics and so on).
Furthermore, food shopping is frequently influenced by promotion and advertising, which are always coming up with ‘miraculous food models’ that lower cholesterol, are not fattening, nourish the skin and so on.
A lot of progress has also been made with production techniques. In particular, the agrifood sector has adopted ‘soft’ techniques to create new food products. As a result, it is now relatively easy to buy organic, biodynamic and integrated pest management produce.
Yet the most fascinating aspect of the new awareness is the protection and promotion of the food-related cultural heritage, of gastronomy in particular. Gastronomy can be of great economic and social value for a country: economic value because typical food products can provide new income opportunities; social value insofar as proper gastronomy—based on local seasonal ingredients produced with low environmentalimpact techniques—can develop into so-called ‘eco-gastronomy’, hence a model of ‘sustainable eating’ for the present and future generations.
Promoting gastronomy is not only a matter of ‘tradition’, ‘culture’, ‘food security’ and ‘social security’, it also means safeguarding the ‘local economy’ and creating income opportunities in areas that have traditionally handed down such agrifood models from father to son. Aside from the market value of the foodstuffs produced, gastronomy has great, albeit often underestimated, social value.
At this point one spontaneously asks, ‘Is it possible to quantify the social value of gastronomy in monetary terms?’ This is obviously not an easy question to answer, given that a series of factors combine to define social value that do not normally have a market value (user value, existence value, vicariate value, legacy value and so on). More specifically, gastronomy’s monetary value is a ‘social value’ that belongs to the whole community and insofar as it is not the object of a ‘real market exchange’, cannot be quantified directly. Hence, for example, we are all aware that the higher market value of land on which a particular typical foodstuff can be produced and sold is not only a function of the higher income that is a prerogative of the agricultural sector, but results from a series of extra-commercial elements of a social nature (land conservation and management, cultural activities, tourism and so on).
As regards the monetary evaluation of goods of social interest, it is worth pointing out that, over the last years, the interests of assessors have clearly shifted towards this type of question, so much so as to make necessary a review of the theoretical elements that characterize the general assessable value. Numerous authors have tried to come to terms with this difficult operation. A point shared by all is the need to introduce a new type of value, ‘social use value’ (or ‘complex social value’ or ‘total economic value’).
This need stems from the fact that the theoretical bases of Land Assessable Value and Land Economics—the classic version (labor theory of value) and the neoclassical version (exchange value)—for the definition of value cannot suffice to understand and explain the new evaluative problems introduced by ‘Welfare Economics’. These problems have led to a review of the role the market plays in properly defining the value of goods, especially public goods, to the extent that we now speak of ‘market failure’ as the site in which the price is formed and the value of goods consequently defined. More specifically, it has been observed that the private cost of a given good (identifiable in market value or production cost) often fails to coincide with ‘the community’s ‘willingness to pay’, especially in the presence of surplus phenomena (consumer surplus) and the production of externalities. ‘Consumer surplus’ can be identified as the quantity of utility benefiting consumers who, insofar as they have confined themselves to paying the market price, have not paid a money consideration. The market price, of course, underestimates total willingness to pay (in short, a certain number of people always exists on the market who are prepared to pay more than the market price to consume a given good).
‘Externalities’ are simply the effects generated during production and consumption activities that interact, positively or negatively, with other production and consumption activities. Such effects are neither evaluated nor compensated for, so that externalities are often produced without taking into account the consequences they might provoke. A classic example of a negative externality is environmental pollution, which we all experience daily without any return. A classic example of a positive externality is the presence locally of a public utility that determines an increase in property value. Within the ambit of Welfare Economics, a leading role is played by gastronomy as an ‘economic good’—and more besides—of social utility. Conserving and developing an ‘ecological gastronomy’ is undoubtedly a value for our society, since in the past somewhat questionable food production techniques were used that seriously endangered the well-being of individuals and the sustainability of development (for example, the use of production techniques that, in the course of time have proved harmful for the environment or the use of animal meal to feed cattle).
The introduction of ‘social use value’ for the monetary evaluation of eco-gastronomy brings with it a series of problems related to the baggage of knowledge a gastronome needs in order to be able to operate as well as possible in the social ambit. Of particular importance is knowledge of methodologies that permit direct or indirect evaluation of the community’s willingness to pay for or accept a given public good in order to preserve the economic surplus and externalities that said good is capable of producing. This, in extreme synthesis, is the purpose of the course in ‘Social Evaluation’ that, from the 2007-2008 academic year, is part of the graduate program syllabus at the Pollenzo campus of the University of Gastronomic Sciences.
As we have seen, Land Assessment Value and Land Economics may help to define the social value of gastronomy. They are continuously evolving subjects which require constant updates, especially with regard to the new needs of the community in terms of the proper management of financial resources, sustainable development and the protection of its culture and environment.
|
