슬로우푸드 운동과 대안식품체제의 모색

Abstract

In 1986, slow-food movement started in Italy as a new movement against the globalization of fast-food. However, since the issue of food safety became one of people's major concerns all over the world in the aftermath of the terror of BSE(bovine spongiform encephalopathy) which had threatened the whole European continent in the 1990s, the movement has gone far beyond a mere food-related movement. The main cause of the movement have changed to the protection of biological diversity and the resistance against the spread of GMOs and the globalization of agriculture, and ultimately to the pursue of an alternative society by advocating slow-city, slow-life movements. Slow-food movement, even though it is a successful movement which has grown to a world-wide scale in a relatively short period of time, has several limitations. Especially, we have to pay a critical attention to the two facts that it has a bias based on social classes, in that it is a movement confined to the upper class which is a minority group relative to other social strata, and that it reveals an inclination to the commodification of movement. These facts are the main factors which have hindered the movement from cooperating with other agricultural and environmental movement groups sharing similar objectives and orientations. Focusing on this point, the article emphasizes that slow-food movement should explore an alternative food system that could replace the global food system in order to be a serious alternative agricultural movement. The exploration involves protecting small producers all over the world, guaranteeing the health and safety of food consumers, and resisting the globalization of agriculture through revitalizing regional agriculture and securing diversity and self-sufficiency of food ingredients.