Food democracy as food security strategy: The case of a Costa Rican tourism town

Abstract

Tourism communities such as Monteverde, Costa Rica, the site of this study, have been profoundly impacted by the loss of tourism revenue during COVID-19. Faced with intensified food insecurity caused by the cascading impacts of this pandemic, the community has organized initiatives to stimulate local, sustainable food production to increase food security during the COVID-19 economic recovery. This paper adopts a food democracy framework to analyze restaurants’ regional food purchases, barriers to local purchasing, and tourists’ interest in and ability to identify local food products. Our findings show that nearly all restaurant owners identified benefits of purchasing regional food but reported multiple barriers to buying locally. Tourists reported high interest in eating locally produced food but do not have enough information to identify farm-to-fork options. Local food initiative stakeholder interviews show that emergent strategies demonstrate a move toward food democracy actions by promoting communication and co-learning between restaurants, food producers, and tourists to reinforce principles of food democracy. Based on our findings, we recommend (a) strengthening producer-torestaurant networks, (b) enhancing communication of local food production benefits and responsibilities to restaurants, and (c) promoting the locally made certification for restaurants to strengthen localized food networks and direct tourists to transformative food strategies underway in Monteverde.