Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
lated institutional participation by Southern food producers is to the depoliticization
of organic, fair and ethical trade agendas that has resulted from their standardiza-
tion through neoliberal tehnologies suh as audits, standards and accreditation sys-
tems (see Dolan, 2010). he hallenge remains for equivalence processes to go beyond
these structures in order to draw from sites where smallholders are actively exerting
their own agency, knowledge and priorities for the more environmentally sustain-
able, fair and ethical management of their food systems. It is here that lessons for
shiting certiication systems in order to beter meet the needs of smallholders exist,
and it is through these activities that rethinking South/North relations will be pos-
sible.
In conclusion, while institutional structures and cultural barriers can certainly
restrict the participation of Southern producers and organizations in regulatory
decision-making processes, in other instances - including our case studies - small-
holders' activities and interests have successfully informed hanges in how these
transnational food networks are governed, with some benefits for smallholders.
hese atempts to reshape globally-deined food production and trade conventions to
better incorporate the needs of Southern producers, NGOs and other actors also re-
veal a willingness and flexibility on the part of some regulators, and civil society, to
expand the scope of organic, fair and ethical standards. African smallholders should
be seen as political subjects and actors in local-global economies in whih organic,
fair and ethical trade are partial components. In Africa, the full extent to whih local
institutions, industry bodies and smallholder collectives are able to shift the content
of organic, fair and ethical standards to beter address the structural and cultural in-
equalities underpinning the interconnection between trade and livelihoods, and the
impacts of suh hanges for local - and indeed global - food security remains to be
seen.
Notes
1.
Definitions of smallholders vary immensely in the literature and across horticultural industries.
Oten, the terms 'smallholders' and 'outgrowers' are used interhangeably. In this study, small-
holders are defined as producers who grow relatively small volumes of produce on relatively
small plots of family-owned and - managed land, often combining production of an export
commodity with other livelihood activities.
2.
he terms 'organic farming' or 'organic agriculture' are frequently utilized interhangeably with
other concepts, including 'hemical-free', 'de-facto organic' or 'traditional farming practices'.
In this hapter, we utilize the term 'organic agriculture' to denote those farming systems that
