Nonhuman Labor and Food

Many, if not all, of the foods humans consume on a daily basis (from kimchi to yogurt and beer) are the result of both human and nonhuman labor. Nonhuman labor refers to “work” that is done by nonhuman actors to produce food and other valuable products. This labor can take many forms, including living, eating, growing, reproducing, and metabolizing nature to meet one’s biophysical needs. Although labor is a social and relational process that cannot be understood outside of human economies, there are merits to extending this concept to nonhumans, whose labor is often rendered invisible, natural, or instinctual. Even the ability to digest food is a more-than-human accomplishment, realized in collaboration with gut bacteria. Humans depend on a menagerie of microbes, mycelia, worms, insects, pollinators, farm animals, and other creatures to help grow and process food, but also to digest food and recycle food waste. In food systems, human and nonhuman labors never take place in isolation; they are deeply intertwined—and often mediated by dominant cultural and economic logics of accumulation, efficiency, violence, and extraction.