Post-national Organic: Globalization and the Field of Organic Food in Israel - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 140

to organic agriculture was estimated in 2007 at approximately 46 billion dollars and
a growth of about 5 billion per year (Willer and Kilcher 2009 , p. 20). Organic food
is the nutritional-commercial category with the fastest growth rates in the global
food industry (Raynolds 2004 ). The growth in production and marketing led to the
expansion of the range of organic food products and agriculture (Raynolds 2004 ,
p. 732). Likewise, changes occurred in methods of distribution and marketing. On
the one hand the distribution of organic food through transnational commercial
retail chains expanded greatly, 2 while on the other hand there has been increased
activity by social networks and grass roots organizations (Castells 2003 , pp. 186-
189 [1997]) working to transfer information from a global level and to increase
organic agriculture activity at the local level. Thus, it seems that organic food
expresses the two main axes of “glocalization” (Robertson 1995 ): it is a product
of global culture, driven by the force of the accelerated neo-liberal and post-Fordist
production system, but also an outcome of the longing for local experience and a
resistance to the cultural homogenization of industrial modernization.
How do these contradicting aspects of organic food spread and “put down
roots” in places beyond its native land (North America and Western Europe)?
How are the international organic standards, marketing practices and organizational
configurations embedded in different cultures and what are the ways in which
organic is “translated” to the Israeli political and cultural context? The appearance
and evolvement of deliberately politicized organic practices, as it appears in the
Israeli field of organic food, sheds light on these questions.
Since the 1970s a fundamental change has been taking place in the social
structure and culture in Israel. This change is expressed, first, in the disintegration
of the national political and cultural center (Zionism), with the transition from
economic public-governance culture to economic private-business culture and the
transformation of Israeli society to an affluent-consumer society. Second, it is
possible to point to the formation of two polarized points of identity: the post-
Zionist identity - which aspires to globalization and connection to global networks;
and, a neo-Zionist identity - which promotes religious national locality (Ram 2005 ,
pp. 27-29). Exploring the emergence and evolution of organic food from a socio-
historical perspective demonstrates how organic food reflects, and even takes part in
this “politics of identities”.
Following is an analysis of the material and cultural dimensions related to organic
food in Israel. First, a historical description of the emergence of Israeli organic
agriculture (mid 1980s) is discussed. Second, the fragmentation in the organic sector
(2000s onward) that led to different configurations of production and consumption
is outlined. In this regard, I refer to the developments in organic food production
as organized in a distinct space of social action. This space can be seen as a “field”
2 In the United States, the major retail chain stores specializing in marketing organic food are Whole
Foods Market and Wild Oats. Alongside them, the conventional retail chains market over a third
of the organic food sold in the United States (Raynolds 2004 ). It should be noted that in most retail
chains in the West, organic food products are sold at a higher price, in the range of 20-40 %, than
comparable products that are non-organic (FAO/ITC/CTA 2001 ).