Organic Farmers: Contributing to the Resilience of the Food System? - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 200

to be done could be seen as unnecessary in a practical sense). In kiwifruit growing,
fertilizers used can be synthetic or provided by using different manures, composts
and compost tea. In sheep/beef farms fertilizer can be synthetic or derived from
rock phosphate. Because of a scarcity of organic inputs, many organic farmers have
to provide their own feed stocks such as ensilage, baleage and maize, practices to
produce feed which for conventional dairy farmers can be sourced off-farm, some
of whom are becoming dependent on imported palm kernel meal. Organic dairy
farmers do not use antibiotics but replace them with other “natural” remedies and
pasture mixtures containing herbal leys. In this way a “function” on the farm is not
dependent on one method (see Elmqvist et al. 2003 ;Walkeretal. 2006 ). This is
important at a time of peak oil and rising costs, particularly rising costs of imports.
Organics introduce greater flexibility into the agriculture sector. According to
Tarondeau (1999 cited in: Darnhofer et al. 2010b ) there are three sources of
flexibility - the products, the processes and the input specificity. We have shown
that often in an agricultural sector diversity of products is not happening on the farm
such as in dairying and kiwifruit, but can be provided further down the supply chain.
ZESPRI, the export marketer for kiwifruit, delivers a mix of products and markets
for the producer. In the dairy sector, the manufacturers are continually introducing
new milk products to other manufacturers further down the supply chain.
The situation in the sheep/beef sector is different with farmers having to
make their own product choices, but their supply chain sells a limited meat and
wool product range through a myriad of sellers. In terms of processes, kiwifruit
orchardists have developed many different models of being a kiwifruit orchardist,
whereas in sheep and beef and dairy farming there is a dominant model of what it
means to be a “good farmer” and this typically excludes organic farmers. However,
the presence of even a fledgling organic dairy industry is showing how practices
can cross the organic/non-organic divide. Throughout all sectors, organic practices
demonstrate alternative inputs to chemical fertilizers and sprays, and other ways of
“doing” farming. As long as these alternatives are kept alive, and although replacing
practices used by conventional farmers and therefore in a way redundant, they can
be there ready for use when a crisis strikes, such as when there is a shortage of
chemical fertilizers, or costs become too expensive, or a chemical used for pest
control or increasing growth is banned. Diversity and flexibility are linked. As
Darnhofer et al. ( 2010a , p. 551) state: “managing complex systems and uncertain
future developments implies spreading risks and creating buffers”. Magne and Cerf
( 2009 ) also point out that this diversity is just not to do with practices, but can
be associated with information - the different ways in which farmers perceive and
interpret information can increase the capacity to act.
Production of a sole product by a producer makes their business enterprise more
brittle and less robust than that of a producer who is able to spread risk by producing
a range of products. When organic products are part of a larger supply chain organic
farmers have greater security and the whole system is able to produce a more diverse
product range for the market, and is therefore more resilient through spreading risk.
If one product does not go well one year, or its production is decreased because
of an extreme weather event for example, the industry as a whole can still survive.