Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
an expensive large new building because of a government grant. He could have also
have been concerned that organic farming was regulated by the government, though
that was not stated explicitly. Thus, some Amish leaders made a connection between
organic farming with government affiliation that appeared to create an anchoring of
behavior towards non-adoption or remaining conventional in their marketing efforts.
12.8
Organic Dairy Decision Making: Cashton Settlement
and Households
There are also divergent views about organic among individual households within
the Cashton settlement. For example as discussed in the community section, some
Cashton household perceptions of organic dairy are related to the idea that organic
adoption may be divisive and that all Amish dairies should be equal. Some of the
Cashton elders and farmers feel that all milk is the same, reflected in the comment
that “milk is milk”. If they believe that all milk is good and wholesome, then they
may feel threatened when other farmers claim that “organic” is somehow better than
conventional milk. The “milk is milk” concept may also be related to the prevalent
idea among non-organic farmers (both Amish and non-Amish) that organic milk is
a “marketing scam”. One Cashton Amish elder who was not a proponent of organic
challenged an organic Cashton Amish to a bet that the milk from their family farm
would test out the same in terms of quality based on typical milk quality measures.
When the results showed that the milk was similar, the Cashton elder felt vindicated
in his thinking.
The organic farmer was not dissuaded, and responded that the market demand
trumped the test results. So, in other words, why did it matter if the test indicated
that the milk was the same if the consumer believed it was better and was willing to
pay more for the milk? It was also interesting that the Cashton elder did not know
what qualities were being tested. Instead he was anchored on the value notion that
all milk is good and wanted to prove that. If individuals are anchored on a certain
idea like “milk is milk”, they tend to practice information satisficing and thus they
stop gathering additional information about organic even if it may be an appropriate
and more profitable management system for their farm.
The idea that organic farmers cheat illustrates a more extreme version of
anchoring on “milk is milk.” One Cashton farmer when asked whether he considered
adopting organic, retorted that he knows about truckloads of “hot milk” (i.e. milk
with antibiotic residue) that was marketed as organic. Some of the Cashton farmers
were convinced that a certain feed mill sold conventional grain labeled as organic
grain. 16 This idea about cheating within organics was fairly common among both
Amish and non-Amish conventional farmers, and it was sometimes the first response
they gave to questions about organic dairy.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search