Understanding how trade-offs, genetic costs, or relaxed selection impact symbiosis will inform efforts to engineer crops with novel symbiotic capabilities. Microbial symbionts provide foundational services to agricultural crops. Rhizobia alone fix 70 million metric tons of N annually, valued at US $23–$59 billion worth of fertilizer application. Resolving the impact of domestication processes on symbiosis function in crops, and maximizing the benefits of symbiotic function in elite cultivars, has the potential to have a pivotal role in meeting the challenges to food security we face in the coming century.In recent times, food and its related experiences in most of the developed world seems to have gained an extraordinarily prominent and important position as the “canary in the coalmine” to measure the well being of society and its cultural vibrancy. It has become a media and mediator of both differences and homogenization, perhaps due to its universal nature – a quality noted early on in the twentieth century by George Simmel . Appadurai provides a cautionary warning as to this mediating and/or homogenizing role of food, which must always be measured against how the society/community chooses to adopt and use food to achieve a homogenizing effect. Food and associated experiences and values can also be used to promote nationalistic agendas , increase inequality, and be a medium to instigate and/or showcase cultural differences and thus expose the “other” as intrinsically different . Point being that food,macetas de 30 litros when used as a medium or means of identification and distinction, can be perceived as having extra-ordinary qualities compared to other social activities – you are, not just, what you eat; you eat what you are. Food can therefore become a potent symbol and marker of identification and make contributions to both change and coercion.

Food, with its enormous presence and tropic qualities, makes it both monumental and illusive as a concept to derive universal meaning from, an ambiguity which might make it perfect as a twenty-first century medium in the experience society which will be addressed later.Mintz eloquently reminds us of the pervasive, if sometimes hidden, importance of food in our changing lives: ”Transformations of diet entail quite profound alterations in people’s images of themselves, their notions of the contrasting virtues of tradition and change, the fabric of their daily life” . Issues of tradition and change and, therefore, ultimately of identity, seem intrinsic to food throughout history. But new linkages between food consumption and food production might be at play, linkages that carry with them meanings, understandings and forms that might be “unique” to our day and age. Experiences and their transformative and/or coercive powers are found within the contemporary study of school gardens, for instance, and in how school garden participation affects academic achievement and sites for learning , or how they can cultivate citizen-subjects . Family meals and commensality in general are viewed as a means to hinder anything from teenage substance abuse to better grades, though what constitutes a “good” family meal experience is harder to define scientifically, as its role and meaning has changed throughout history. 1 In fact, food sociologist Anne Murcott has, convincingly, shown that throughout the entire twentieth century people have worried about the dissolution of the family meal; a meal which is intimately linked to the supposed decline of and perceived threat to the “traditional” family pattern . Indeed, based on empirical historical evidence from Edwardian England, Murcott suggests that family meals were not necessarily more common in Edwardian England than they are today, though they definitely were already closely linked to the values of the determining middle-classes—values that many wanted to be perceived as adhering strongly to.

Much of this contemporary research seems to be legitimized by an overall concern with the separation between nature and man – especially children and nature , and the resulting decline in “eco-literacy” or “food-literacy.” These are concepts, not infrequently, linked directly to later poor dietary choices even though such choices are probably better understood when analysed within the overall structural/societal contexts that largely determine these experiences . But what such studies into school gardens and family meals do indicate, most importantly, is that food and related experiences are perceived, at present, to be part of solutions to larger structural issues and challenges, or can be used as relevant means to address these. Indeed, food – according to American food writer David Kamp – is the sole political feature that survived from the sixties political and cultural upheaval: “The counterculture generated plenty of misbegotten movements and lysergically distorted belief systems that would later cause its members to feel disillusioned or embarrassed. But the fresh food movement wasn’t one of them. In fact, it might well be the counterculture’s greatest and most lasting triumph.” . Using food and related experiences as part of a political narrative is not uncommon, however. Political sentiment can be found in studies of food deserts, food justice and legislation , and food production systems . Using food as a political medium is understandable, as it is one thing all people share and partake in, but its prominence also as a mediatized phenomenon cannot be explained, entirely, by its universal importance to human interaction and survival. Indeed, one would be forgiven to assume that food should mean much less, and occupy fewer of our thoughts, as there – at least in the developed world – has never been easier access to so much and so cheaply prized food. It is, therefore, not out of need or want that the great focus on food has arisen in most of the developed world. Food as sustenance – as invoked by the initial quote – or nutrition solely, seem not to do the importance of food justice. Food is part of, and a contributor to, increasing mediatization and identity making , done for purely entertainment purposes, but also, it seems has allowed a stronger confluence between nutrition and experience.

Food is more than nutrition, as eloquently pointed out by Pollan in his “Defense of Food,” and such allowances has opened up the nutritional field to include issues of food scapes explored holistically/experimentally . Or, using a more reductive/objectionist perspective , both studies are dependent on Appadurai’s notions of “scapes,” and therefore, indirectly and inescapably, how the environment affects behavior and consumption. Reducing food to its nutrients can be relevant in many areas of practice and research, but within the area of nutritional behavior and experience, an emphasis on nutrients might have lost some of its legitimizing and explanatory powers – if not its popular appeal. Nutrition/nutrients as a science gained power with technological breakthroughs during the twentieth century. This is not to claim that nutrition is not a greater concern for many more people than ever before; rather the issues are different , and, as will be made more obvious at the summarizing part of this paper, both concerns over nutrition and related environments can, logically, increase together. Particular theories given for food’s contemporary prominence are also burgeoning, and this paper cannot exhaust all those theories, but will try to provide sources relevant to the limited discussions and themes of this paper. The importance of food, and implicitly agriculture, could be ascribed to “ontological insecurities” about society ,macetas de 5 litros or the appearance of a “liquid modernity” presumably characterizing the postmodern world. Its future consequences, made explicit by the introduction of the “Risk Society” , along with worries about health in increasing individualized societies , surely all contribute to the overall perceptions held of food and also agriculture in contemporary society. An overall sentiment/hypothesis derived from this development could be that as traditional societal structures are eroded or replaced, the need for a re-imbeddedness and meaning in, presumably, fragmented societies emerges, and can take the form of adherence to traditional and/or local food production. Such preferences might also carry with it some negative social elements and have its origins in a “defensive localism” reacting against the forces brought about by increased globalization. Interestingly, the “local” sphere in most developed countries has been under the influence of global streams of trade and political fluctuations for centuries now and vice versa , and these local consumption patterns remain quite distinct despite the, suggested, homogenization of consumption and consumer culture . As is shown above, it is important to note that there are considerable cultural and historical variations on this narrative of decline and betterment using food, or agricultural experiences, as vehicles of change and/or coercion. This could perhaps be explained by degrees of urbanization and industrialization – also of the food production system. For instance, it is perhaps not surprising that the “re-imagination” and re-introduction of farmers markets selling local and organic food mostly, has its origins in the US; as the US was – and, arguably, continues to be – the country with the most industrialized food production and retail system in the world. An antitheses, or different food narrative, was perhaps therefore more needed in the US and subsequently in other Northern Hemisphere countries, than say, in Southern Europe where a continuing adherence to local products and retail systems prevails, to a much larger degree . It should be noted, that “alternative” agriculture movements can be found as early as in the beginning of the twentieth century with the biodynamic movement in Germany, emanating from the teachings and writings of Ru-dolf Steiner.

In Denmark the emergence of the concept of New Nordic Cuisine illustrates and illuminates some of these more recent developments. Recent research has shown that the New Nordic Diet, a diet invented by an elite group of chefs and dieticians to include exclusively “Nordic” food products as part of a larger dietary research project, has been less favoured by lower educated rural men than higher educated urban women who already to some degree were aligned with the content and associated values of the diet: “That’s fine, we already eat that, we’ll do fine” . The perceived barriers to this new food experience/products, are recognized less by those already aligned culturally and economically with its content. That perceptions matter greatly for this concept is evident in the research into the New Nordic terroir, and very interestingly, also seems to affect change and sustain traditional practices in tandem, on a micro-scale, admittedly: “Foraging for Nordic wild food is a living traditional practice, but, increasingly, it has also become an important element in the building of various Nordic brands. Terroir narratives about the return to traditional methods of food preparation, and to ‘natural’ local food, are vital for the success of New Nordic servicescapes” . Though moving beyond the “media-scapes” and “service-scapes” has proved harder for the New Nordic Cuisine, as appropriation and consumption by the Danish population, in general, has been severely limited – along with any scientific evidence to support the purported nutritional benefits of the diet compared to just following approved nutritional recommendations – eating nutritious food is healthy . That local, organic and/or New Nordic food products do not have any scientifically proven intrinsic nutritional benefits for ones individual health, does not mean that they do not have potentials to affect change elsewhere, especially in the primary production, and the understanding of this held by the consumers of its products. Perceptions of agriculture – often coupled with implicit notions of the environment and nature – have been shown within consumer studies to play a not insignificant role when choosing what foods to consume or not . Organic food, as a whole, is an excellent example of the importance of perceptions and how these affect everyday consumption of such products. In a Danish context organic food is perceived by consumers to benefit both family members’ health, farmers’ livelihood, animal welfare, the environment and nature, and eventually future generations, and that all these benefits are holistically related . These findings seem further related to the finding that consumers perceive of organic food and food production as generally more ‘natural’ . Consumers, who consider purchasing organic foods, are, in many ways, “moved” to perceive of the actual “field production” of these products. These perceptions can translate into consumption, which, in turn, can change production: “A key finding is that consumer behaviour co-evolves with market development” .