Organic Farmers: Contributing to the Resilience of the Food System? - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 190

It does not mean, however, that they were more sympathetic to playing a
part in alleviating climate change or that they felt in any way responsible for it
(Fairweather et al. 2009a , pp. 201-205). In fact, some of the organic farmers denied
anthropogenic climate change. They also did not seem to be any more sympathetic
than other farmers to the use of native plants and trees compared with exotic ones,
or the presence and useful functions native birds may perform in the landscape
compared with introduced species (except for organic farmers in the sheep/beef
sector) (Fairweather et al. 2009a , pp. 68, 78).
In 1990 and 1991 the industry was in crisis when Italian trade officials expressed
concern about the level of chemical residues in some New Zealand kiwifruit
(Campbell et al. 1997 ). Then, in 1992 the price crashed. An integrated pest (IPM)
management program, KiwiGreen, was born out of this and undoubtedly generated
benefits for organics (see Campbell and Fairweather 1997 , p. 21). KiwiGreen is now
integrated into GLOBALGAP certification, a requirement for all exported kiwifruit,
and part of what enables New Zealand kiwifruit to claim a large premium in world
markets as organic and IPM fruit. It is a guaranteed way of differentiating high
quality New Zealand fruit from that of other countries and of negotiating Maximum
Residue Level (MRL) barriers (Campbell and Fairweather 1997 , pp. 18, 19). 10
Through comparing different management systems within and across sectors
(sheep/beef, dairy, kiwifruit) we are able to make claims about the contributions
organics can make to the primary sector as a whole. Thus we suggest, that
organic farming practices need to be viewed as part of a much wider system that
encompasses many different practices and that there is some degree of synergy or
interaction between these practices. In order to make claims about the sustainability
and resilience of organic farming, we need to be able to compare it with other forms
of farming, while at the same time assuming that like other farming systems, organic
practices are not static in time or necessarily completely distinctive. Whatever way
it is considered it seems that the organic industry cannot be “disentangled from the
organic social movement” and “will continue to act as a counterpoint, moment of
contestation, or site of dialogue with the globalizing food system” (Campbell and
Liepins 2001 , p. 36; also see Rosin and Campbell 2009 ).

10.6 Organic Farmers and Their Farms Contribute

to the Resilience of the Food System

Resilience implies adaptability and redundancy at many levels - farm/farmer,
community, national and global. We propose that organic farms and farmers perform
a useful function as part of a resilient farming system because they serve the purpose

10 Growing kiwifruit organically was very difficult until the development of ultra-fine mineral oil
sprays for the control of scale (1993) and the approval of their use in organics (Tomkins et al.
1996 ). These examples illustrate the cross-fertilization and transfer of technology that can occur