Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Part IV
The Interplay of Conventional and Organic
Overview and Observations
The chapters in this part discuss the interplay between conventional and organic
characteristics from rather different perspectives, and highlight different issues. The
first two chapters, 'Engaging the Organic Conventionalization Debate', by Douglas
Constance et al., and 'Organic Farmers: Contributing to the Resilience of the Food
System?' by Lesley Hunt et al. examine the organic movement and its multiple
relationships with conventional agriculture. The third chapter, 'From The Ground
Up? The Principles of Australian Organic Agriculture', by Rebecca Jones discusses
the Australian history of organic from the perspective of the original principles and
values of the Australian organic movement and how they have changed over time. In
the fourth chapter, Brock and Barham offer an example from a religious movement
in which both organic and non-organic coexist and are justified within the Amish
movement and values.
Constance et al. start with an overview of conventionalization and bifurcation
in organic referring to examples from different continents. The authors distinguish
two models characterizing agriculture. The agrarian perspective is built on social
engagement, is community oriented (civic agriculture) and entails diverse types
of cooperative relationships between farmers and consumers. These relationships
are based on the idea that food is from “somewhere”, and that as such, has a high
transformative potential to bring farmers and citizens together. They conclude that in
the US, government organic regulations have led to the exclusion of the mainly small
and socially oriented farmers from the retail market. The commodity-oriented model
is characterizing industrially organized agriculture designed to produce at the lowest
cost for large retailer markets. This kind of diversification orients the discussion in
the conventionalization debate. However, they point out that the characteristics of
conventionalization differ between country, region and continent and therefore do
not confirm the bifurcation thesis.
In their survey of “pragmatic conventional” organic farmers in Texas, the lack
of financial support for the conversion period was found to be the main barrier to
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