Standards and Certification - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 39

Allison Loconto and Maarten Van der Kamp's, 'Differentiating Organics: Per-
forming Multiple Objects to Organize Singular Markets for Organic Tea and
Biscuits in the UK', use tea and cereals to show that individual enactments of
organic result in a multiplicity of production, despite standardizing practices. At
the same time, they show that standardizing practices, which result in a product
being considered in a class by itself, or singularization, are required for trading and
marketing of organic products.
They note that certification may appear uniform and that it may be necessary for
consumers. However, there can be significant differentiation of production methods,
market systems, interpretations of organic standards and assessment processes
through certification bodies, within a particular product. Therefore, the organic
standards offer the ability to see both singularity and multiplicity in the enactment
of organic practices, not by defining ethical standards that attempt to govern the
intentions and beliefs of producers, but rather, by defining the practices that can
be used to produce organic products. These practices can, of course, contradict the
IFOAM Principles or enacting them in a comprehensive manner.
This shows how singularization in the multiplicity of produced organic products
allows particular organic markets to function. Thus, the authors do not support the
claim that organic has 'lost its way,' because the practice of certified organic varies
from place to place. Instead, the authors offer a way to see organic taking root in
different contexts.
From this perspective, standards have not eroded the original concepts on which
IFOAM principles are based, but only perform different interpretations or different
realities of the standards. On the one hand, the IFOAM Principles and the Standards
allow for different interpretations and with them, practices that are sensitive to
individual circumstances. On the other hand, processing and marketing regulations
(technical) are often connected to, and ask for standardization and singularization.
In this way standardization is seen as supporting IFOAM principles, all of which
include a diversity of requirements upon becoming organic, and specifically allows
respecting cultural differences. However there is risk that such standards also open
space for practices that contradict the principles.
In 'Feeding the World - The contribution of IFOAM Principles', Freyer and
colleagues focus on the ethical possibilities behind the IFOAM Principles and
how they can be applied to help assess global food security issues. They discuss
how ethical values can connect to food supply, demand and access, in order to
understand concerns associated with organic practices and the question of how “to
feed the world.” They suggest that the ethics embodied in the IFOAM Principles
offer a framework for identifying how organic agrofood systems might contribute to
food security. The authors explain how these principles have quantitatively relevant
impacts on food supply, food demand and food access. Finally, they identify the
relevance of ethical foundations in organic instruments such as standards, control
and certification.
They therefore argue that if food issues are a common societal problem, then
the principles need to be more widely addressed and integrated in mainstream food