Michael S. Carolan

Dr. Carolan is Associate Dean for Research for the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. His areas of expertise include environmental and agricultural law and policy, environmental sociology, the sociology of food systems and agriculture, and the sociology of technology and scientific knowledge. He also dabbles in social theory. He has published the following books: No One Eats Alone: Food as a Social Enterprise (2017); Biological Economies: Experimentation and the Politics of Agrifood Frontiers (2016; with Richard LeHeron, Hugh Campbell, and Nick Lewis); Food Utopias: Reimagining Citizenship, Ethics and Community (2015 with Paul Stock and Chris Rosin); Cheaponomics: The High Cost of Low Prices (2014); Society and the Environment: Pragmatic Solutions to Ecological Issues (2013); Reclaiming Food Security (2013); The Sociology of Food and Agriculture (2012); The Real Cost of Cheap Food (2011); Embodied Food Politics (2011); A Sociological Look at Biofuels: Understanding the Past/Prospects for the Future (2010); and Decentering Biotechnology: Assemblages Built and Assemblages Masked (2010). Dr. Carolan is also Co-Editor for the Journal of Rural Studies.

The Food Sharing Revolution

How Start-Ups, Pop-Ups, and Co-Ops are Changing the Way We Eat

Marvin is a contract hog farmer in Iowa. He owns his land, his barn, his tractor, and his animal crates. He has seen profits drop steadily for the last twenty years and feels trapped. Josh is a dairy farmer on a cooperative in Massachusetts. He doesn’t own his cows, his land, his seed, or even all of his equipment.

No One Eats Alone

Food as a Social Enterprise

In today’s fast-paced, fast food world, everyone seems to be eating alone, all the time—whether it’s at their desks or in the car. Even those who find time for a family meal are cut off from the people who grew, harvested, distributed, marketed, and sold the foods on their table. Few ever break bread with anyone outside their own socioeconomic group. So why does Michael Carolan say that that no one eats alone? Because all of us are affected by the other people in our vast foodscape.