“Our food should cost more”, but for whom? Food attitudes and politics at a farmers’ market in Copenhagen

Our current agri-food system is a major contributor to climate change: green house gas emissions and pollution from industrial agriculture, food transportation and food waste are just a few of the challenges. At the same time, climate change adversely affects soils, agriculture and access to food. Food attitudes and choices are therefore a cornerstone of everyday climate action.
This paper examines the food politics emerging in Grønt marked, a farmers’ market in Copenhagen. Part of the growing regenerative food movement in Denmark, the market aims to be a platform for change regarding food attitudes and behaviors. Started in 2019 by international volunteers, the market has grown to a weekly event from May to December in four different locations. The market offers affordable stalls to producers of local, regenerative foods, on the condition that the food is sold by the producers.
Located in public space and offering possibilities for engagement that go beyond simply purchasing food, such as seed exchanges, talks and debates, the market facilitates encounters between food producers and citizens-consumers. At the same time, due to its high prices, the market is also a segregated space, with the average food buyer being a white, urban, highly educated woman with above-average income. Based on fieldwork and conversations with the organizers, food buyers, and producers since 2021, this paper explores the potentials and challenges of the market as a place for transformation of food attitudes and behaviors across socio-cultural and gender differences, offering insights applicable to other domains than food choices.