I and my students use quantitative analyses of food and wine production systems to reveal linkages between ecological and social sustainability, “quality”, and the primacy of place … “Ecogastronomy”

The short version:what we do: Specifically, the Ecogastronomy Research Group (ERG) works in three interrelated domains:

i) Uncovering relationships linking biophysical context to organoleptic characters. We particularly focus on soil biology / ecology --> crop characteristics --> product organoleptic characters This work is currently centred largely, but not exclusively, on viticulture & wine.

ii) Application of fundamental ecological concepts towards characterizing and quantifying place-based identity (aka "terroir"). Our working hypothesis is that terroir - or identity - is a self-organizing, emergent property of all bounded biological and cultural systems.

iii) Identifying barriers to valorization and economic viability of place-based agricultural products (i.e., products that retain identity c/w generic commodity analogues). Products of identity are typically produced by small and medium sized enterprises (SMSEs) and associated with superior environmental & social performance. Our working hypothesis is that identity is the manifestation of intact ecological and cultural systems and cannot be expressed in their absence.

The longer version: Why we do what we do

Food is our most direct and intimate connection with nature. Foods, wines, and materials that have provenance (compared to generic commodities) tend to be seen as possessing higher quality than generic analogues. The most granular of provenance is a terroir product – a product originating from one specific place characterized by unique and irreplaceable traits particular to that place. A terroir product is a physical manifestation of the co-evolution of a people with their environment. Because scale of production is constrained by local / regional ecological processes, such products cannot be mass produced across a vast range and retain unique traits particular to that place. Scales of production that exceed what local eco-cultural processes can support rely on external inputs to make up the difference. The greater the reliance on external inputs, the greater the erosion of a product's identity, pushing it in the direction of  “commodity”. These are value-laden terms seen by many as pretentious but the fact remains that there is a strong negative correlation between the strength of a product's place-based identity and its environmental footprint (a term I use loosely here) relative to that of its generic commodity analogue.

So, from all this a hypothesis begins to take shape: robust and lasting sustainability lies not in greater efficiency through the adoption of ever greater commodification toward a sterile and generic existence. Instead, success lies in aligning short term personal benefits with longer term collective benefits. It turns out that Adam Smith was [almost] right, that the invisible hand of competition does transform self-interest into a common good … if we tweak the metrics of self-interest. An individual whose consumptive behaviour measures benefit in terms of quality of enrichment rather than quantity of material simultaneously maximizes their quality of life while catalyzing collective benefits. This is after all not only the basis of Darwinian evolution (who, not surprisingly, was heavily influenced by Smith) but also at the core of ecological sustainability – individuals acting in their own self interest collectively maximize the stability and resilience of the entire system. However, and this is a big “however”, the friction of space remains intact in “natural systems” making external organic subsidies rare (e.g. migration). Production within natural systems cannot exceed capacity of local processes, external subsidies are not an option and as a result, natural systems have no choice but to operate “within their means”. This fact exposes the central challenge to future sustainability: modern human-made systems seek to maximize value through maximizing efficiency which inevitably leads to reducing the friction of space to the greatest degree possible and thus ever greater reliance on external subsidies that can only produce, by definition, generic homogenous goods. I should reiterate that these are not statements of fact but instead are a series of thought experiments that yield testable hypotheses. The food and wine worlds are perfect venues to test these hypotheses.

Were this a more thoughtful reflection I would include such themes as Second Law of Thermodynamics, self organized criticality, Panarchy, optimal foraging theory, Jevons’ Paradox, small world networks, Slow Food, appellations / geographic indications among many more, however, this would turn what is meant to be a brief mission statement into a full length book … in the mean time I am keen to connect with potential students and collaborators who are wrestling with similar conundrums.

Finally, an observation; post-secondary education in the Anglosphere is in crisis. The Academy is rapidly abandoning the hard-won lessons of the Enlightenment in favour of illiberal nouveau mysticisms. I recognize public signals of adherence to any ideological orthodoxy—including prescribed language, positionality, assertions of intellectual or institutional territory, declarations of ideological solidarity, and other markers of conformity—as antithetical to open inquiry and the free exchange of ideas, irrespective of the political orientation from which they arise.

I teach the following courses at UVic’s School of Environmental Studies (some exceptions)

UNDERGRADUATE

• ES 240: Ecological Processes

• ES 347: Ecogastronomy

• ES 431: History, Science and Culture of Wine

• ES 446: Sustainable Fisheries

• ES 482: Restoration of Marine Systems

GRADUATE

• ES 500: Perspectives on Environmental Theory