The Rise of the Organic Foods Movement as a Transnational Phenomenon - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 740

foods production appealed mainly to parties and groups at polar opposite ends of the
let-right ideological spectrum. In the 1930s, organic farming found broad support
fromtheEuropeanfarright,includingtheNaziregimeinGermany.7Sincethe1960s,in
contrast,organicfoodhasfoundanewhomeinthecounterculturalNewLet(Guthman
2004).Relectingthesehistoricalpoliticalainities,itisnotentirelysurprisingthatthe
organic foods movement today finds allies in both far-right parties such as the British
National Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria ( Bündnis Zukunft Österreich )
and extreme-let parties such as Denmark's Red-Green Alliance ( Enhedslisten ).
However, green parties are even more closely aligned with the organic movement, and
thesehavegenerallybeeninabetterpositiontoinluencegovernmentpolicy,directly
or indirectly. The British Green Party wants to provide free organic meals in schools
andconvertatleast“10 percentofUKfoodproductiontoorganiceveryiveyears”
(GreenParty2010,pp. 22,39).Toreducethediferenceinpricebetweenorganicfood
and conventionally produced food products, the Swedish green party proposes, among
other things, to make organic food exempt from value-added taxation and to raise taxes
onsyntheticfertilizersandpesticides(Miljöpartietdegröna2005).Atthelevelofthe
EuropeanParliament,theEuropeanGreenshavedeclaredthat“[t]hefutureofagricul-
tureliesinorganicfarmingandfairtrade”(EuropeanGreenParty2009).Eventhough
the organic movement may have closer affinities with some political parties than others,
organic farming is nevertheless finding support, to a greater or lesser extent, throughout
the party-political arena in Europe. The organic foods movement has transcended its
early ideological origins and become part of the political mainstream.
The cooptation of organic farming by religious movements offers another striking
illustration of its frame-bridging capacity. The example of Buddhism in Thailand has
alreadybeennoted.InIndia,MeeraNandaobservesthat,“organicagricultureandother
small-is-beautifulmovementsarebeingrecodedintoa[Hindu]religiousidiomwhich
servesasthemobilizingideologyforthepeasantry”(Nanda2005,p. 157;seealsoNanda
2003).Attheconsumingendofthecommoditychain,itisnoteworthythatitisnowpos-
sible to find certified organic foods products that are simultaneously certified as kosher
or halal. The religious diversity thus evidenced is yet another indication of the ability of
the organic frame to bridge significant identity divides.
The growth of the organic foods movement has also been facilitated by its ability to
generateandthencapitalizeonscientiic,andhenceauthoritative,knowledgeaboutthe
benefits and potentialities related to soil ecology, pests and diseases, weed management,
nutrition, food quality, and the like that are associated with food production based on
“organic” methods. Much of this research has been conducted by researchers associated
with“movement”institutes,suchastheRodaleInstituteinPennsylvania(established
in1947),theResearchInstituteofOrganicAgriculture( Forschungsinstitut für biolo-
gischen Landbau )inSwitzerland(establishedin1973),andtheLouisBolkInstitutein
theNetherlands(establishedin1976).IFOAMorganizedtheirstinternationalscien-
tific conference on organic agriculture in 1977. Today, much of the research on organic
agriculture is conducted at “ordinary” universities and research institutes (which are
nototherwiseapartoftheorganicmovement)andreceivesconsiderablefundingfrom