The Transformation to Organic: Insights from Practice Theory - Organic Food and Agriculture: New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences - page 185

(Goodmann 2000). More generally, change is a discursive, communicative and material-
driven break or shift in the reproduction of a practice (Reckwitz 2002b, 255). It can emerge
from “… everyday crises of routines, in constellations of interpretative indeterminacy and of
the inadequacy of knowledge with which the agent, carrying out the practice, is confronted
in the face of the 'situation'.” Obviously, social behavior often responds to stimuli and
constraints from the biophysical world (Freudenburg et al. 1995, 366, in Schatzki 2010, 147
footnote 3). In other words, the material constitutes new social phenomena and vice versa.
For example, excluding a formerly used materiality such as synthetic nitrogen fertilizer,
creates a re-distribution of competences (cf. Shove et al. 2007, 54) and the site of the practice
becomes framed by a modified order of knowledge embodied in the practices and in the
new power relations which are manifested by these practices (Giddens 1984). But whenever
we try to describe change of a practice, it emerges and is experienced through social
practices.
The decision to convert to organic farming often follows an unforeseen path, created by the
negative impact of pesticides, animal disease, decreasing soil fertility, family sickness (Jarosz
2000), a change in worldviews (ethical, religious, spiritual) or any other crisis in daily
routines practices (Reckwitz 2002b, 255). Such events call into question the assumptions of
current practice (c.f. Bourdieu 1993). This phase of transformation is accompanied by
doubts, insecurity, disorientation, conflict and disillusion with the former ideas and
practices; new questions about how to “practice” in future arise.
In the transformation period, previous practices, habits and roles in the daily farm life lose
their relevance and new ones become created (see Table 3). Previous attitudes, ways of
acting and thinking (Bourdieu 2001, 28) confront a new world; a new language is needed to
capture new and different meanings, understandings and techniques. Farmers commonly
find themselves in contradiction to their former orders of knowledge (and ways of
knowing). Agricultural routines and habits, formed by family, school and education,
primary socialization in agricultural communities, technical advisors, and friends, all of
which shaped daily life (cf. Raphael 2004, in Jaeger and Straub 2004, 266-276), and in which
the farmer was embedded, become irrelevant. A “converter” may no longer be able to learn
from or adapt the practices of a “non-organic” neighbor. Moreover, the “non-organic”
neighbor's practices, such as spraying pesticides or using genetically modified seeds, may
now fundamentally endanger the “converter's” livelihood and well-being.
With the decision to exclude pesticides and mineral fertilizer, the farmer starts moving into
a world of unknowns (Table 4). Lacking any experience in organic farming or traditional
farming techniques practiced by predecessor questions arises: how to farm without mineral
fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides? How to do all of this while only weakly connected to
the organic movement and information, or to observations of organic practices?
In transformation, the farmer becomes the creator of a new system, developing new sets of
artifacts, natural objects and social/professional/business relationships that involve new
daily routines, social interactions and relationships with the farm landscape. Previous
knowledge loses its significance but can also offer a starting point for adopting, developing,
and establishing former and new techniques (cf. Hörning 1997, in Hepp and Winter 1997,
34). Because organic practices do not follow a recipe, the farmer often has to innovate and
adapt new techniques and practices, without reference to other practices.
With limited or no experience with organic practices (Freyer 1991), the converting farmer
engages in going back and forth between knowing what to do as a former non-organic
farmer and embracing new and emerging approaches (Reichardt 2007, 51; Joas 1992, 239).