Daniel Sosna et al. (2026) Quantification of food systems: The case of food waste, EASST conference, 7-11 September 2026, Krakow
Our collective paper about the relatinship between quantification and urgency
Quantification of food systems: The case of food waste
Daniel Sosna, Lenka Bruncliková, Petr Jehlička, and Evelien de Hoop
Waste prevention and reduction have become an inherent part of food systems. A crusade against food-related profligacy and wastefulness relies on a notion of urgency. This paper examines the role of quantification in invoking urgency. A contrasting semiotic pair of food and waste, as life-giving and life-abandoning, provides a potent resource for crafting urgent messages, which can be magnified by the power of numbers. The authors approach quantification as a technology of urgency that awakens society and calls it into action. They analyse the contingencies of quantification in two countries, Czechia and the Netherlands, that have different histories and approaches to food-related policies. The paper traces the emergence and formalisation of key enumeration categories, as well as their use in number narratives to convey a sense of urgency across diverse actors, including researchers, representatives of NGOs and businesses, and state officials. Although the two case studies demonstrate shared patterns of responsibilization, particularly of households, they also reveal differences in the framing of number narratives and the degree of quantitative dependence. The paper concludes that as a technology of urgency, quantification not only reveals but also diverts attention from powerful sources of wastefulness that may include those embedded in the economic systems in which we live (e.g. hegemonic market logic, profit-making, and growth imperatives), in the material-spatial realities of life in which food-making and eating are increasingly separated from one another, and in linear modes of living and thinking (as opposed to circular).
Presented at the panel Food systems transformation and ecologies of quantification organised by Daniel Sosna. Maike Melles, and Petr Jehlička with Evelien de Hoop as a discussant.