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Urban political ecologies of the apple: practices of corporate-led and community-led trade in the London city region

ABSTRACT This article investigates the urban political ecologies of the apple in London city region. As one of the largest cities in Europe, London is a pertinent site to explore the challenges and possibilities of future food systems. The apple is used as a lens to explore the diverging urban political ecologies of corporate-led and community-led food systems. A mixed method qualitative research approach combines a series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in producing, distributing and trading apples with practice-based ethnographic fieldwork, responding to calls within urban political ecology for more situated and grounded approaches that build new understandings of socio-environmental practices. Research shows diverging practices and biophysical properties of the apple amongst producers supplying multiple retailers and those operating via a community-led trading mechanism, which includes a farmers’ market and fruit and veg box scheme. Fieldwork suggests apple production for multiple retailers is retail-led, placing increasing pressures upon producers. Biophysical properties of the corporate-led apple are becoming increasingly standardised; narrow in terms of varietal range, and; privatised, via the rise of club brand apples. In contrast, fieldwork suggests community-led trade is based upon producer-led, agroecological approaches to production, distribution and trade. Biophysical properties of the community-led apple are context-dependent and diverse in terms of varietal range, quality and size. Community-led trading is identified as a mechanism for scaling agroecology through cultivating community social and ecological relations and producer-led approaches. To become more than marginal, agroecology and community-led trade require enabling policy, planning and legislative frameworks.