Food policy scholars have long argued that contemporary food policy must acquire the capacity to simultaneously address multiple, potentially competing challenges if it is to be fit for purpose. Sometimes conceived as the ‘new fundamentals’ or the content of the ‘new food policy’, these challenges are many and diverse, including ecological, social, economic and political outcomes (e.g., stable, equitable markets; a biodiverse and well-managed natural resource base; democratic governance; and, of course, nutritious and culturally appropriate food production). Within the institutionalised locales of food policy-making, however, numerous obstacles confront the attainment of this multidimensional food policy, not the least of which being issue fragmentation. In this paper, drawing from Habermas’s idea of ‘communicative action’, I argue for the potential of social movements – particularly those mobilising on a food sovereignty platform – to overcome this issue fragmentation by providing a bottom-up, ‘rationalising’ pressure upon processes of food policy-making.
