Engaging the Organic Conventionalization Debate - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 163

marketable crops. In this system the smaller operations tend to occupy the more
marginal lands while the larger ones secure the expanses of certified organic land.
The agribusiness ventures were more likely to employ larger numbers of migrant
labor, although due to the greater mixture of crops, the smaller operations were
more likely to provide year-round work.
Buck et al. ( 1997 ) note that it was in the marketing and distribution of organics
that conventionalization was most dramatic. Large organic food retailers' preference
for certified organic products limited their access by non-certified producers. As
a result, the growing bifurcation relegated the smaller operations to the marginal
markets, i.e. farmers markets and subscription farming, as the larger farms serviced
the retailers and indirect markets. They argued that the localized, direct-marketing
arrangements that “illustrate the promise of local networks of direct grower-to-
consumer links, are effectively default choices for growers with few resources”
(Buck et al. 1997 , p. 14).
The politics of organic regulation influenced what kinds of producers (agribusi-
ness or lifestyle) benefit. Guthman argued that the technical approach and resulting
conventionalization contributed little to “sustainability - either socially or ecolog-
ically” ( 1998 , p. 143). While admitting the California focus of the research, they
predicted that national organic standards would accelerate conventionalization as
agribusiness re-shaped “organic agriculture to its own advantage” (Buck et al.
1997 , pp. 16, 17). Guthman ( 1998 ) concluded that California is the model of a
broader process whereby agribusiness appropriates nature through the regulation
and cooption of the organic label; California is the future of organics.
Research from Australia and New Zealand provided support for the conven-
tionalization thesis (Lyons 1997 , 1999 ; Lockie et al. 2000 ). Lyons ( 1999 ) noted
recruited to convert to organics tended to have a “pragmatic/instrumental approach”
whereby organic farming meant compliance with minimum certification require-
ments rather than a “philosophical” approach (Lyons 1997 ). The Heinz Wattie
“corporate greening” system typified conventionalization (Lockie et al. 2000 ). The
opportunistic corporate greening (see Buttel 1996 ) in Australia and New Zealand
was incorporating the organic industry within conventional agricultural networks
(Lyons 1999 ).
While Campbell and his associates (Coombes and Campbell 1998 ; Campbell
and Coombes 1999 ; Campbell and Liepins 2001 ) agreed that organics was
experiencing conventionalization and bifurcation, they disagreed that the
impacts were necessarily negative and inevitable. They found a relatively
stable bifurcation of the organic industry in New Zealand characterized by an
interdependent lifestyle/domestic/small-scale sector of perishable goods and an
export/commercialized/conventional sector of green durable goods (Coombes
and Campbell 1998 ). They did note that the impetus for national certification
standards was the export industry focused on “green products” to Northern markets
(Campbell and Coombes 1999 ). Although some smaller producers opted out of
certification because of this shift, the export industry expansion benefited the
smaller growers because it enhanced the legitimacy of organics. They saw this
as a durable arrangement with no signs of marginalization of the smaller growers.