Differentiating Organics: Performing Multiple Objects to Organize Singular Markets for Organic Tea and Biscuits in the UK - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 69

certified Organic are also certified Fairtrade, Ethical (Ethical Tea Partnership) and
one estate had begun the Rainforest Alliance certification process. Indeed, when
trying to distinguish between the practices that were conducted on farm in order to
comply with the organic standard and those that are intended to comply with the
Fairtrade standard were often difficult to distinguish. There was general agreement
that organic was good for the workers and the environment, while Fairtrade provided
funds; however the boundaries of these two concepts were often overlapping. The
following is an excerpt from a focus group with farm workers, which illustrates this
blurred boundary well.

Q: Do you think that organic is a part of Fairtrade or are they two different things?
A: They are not different, first organic with today's knowledge is indeed that which we
have wanted. Because we avoid a number of different environmental damages ranging
from serious damage that can occur with placement of fertilizer that visits plants,
animals and other things that require the vegetation like trees, water sources and other
things. Therefore, organic farming is important and [it is] not the difference whether
or not organic farming is not very important nor as important as conventional farming
(kilimo cha mbolea ya chumvichumvi). 6 By now we encourage it even, now we criticize
conventional farming with urea, because it encourages that man move. He has to take
deliberate steps to change the system where it was changed [in the past] to provide
synthetic fertilizers [urea]. Change synthetic for natural fertilizers to preserve this
environment and prevent pollution of these things.

There has also been institutional boundary work that facilitates the multiple
enactment of organic with other standards in Tanzania. Specifically, this refers
to the concessions made for organically produced tea in the other standards
systems. For example in Fairtrade, “FLO 7 encourages companies to work towards
organic practices where socially and economically practical” (FLO 2009 , p. 30).
The Rainforest Alliance has reduced the distance required to separate farms and
territorial ecosystems by more than 50 % for organic farms. Also, “The farm must
give priority to organic fertilization using residues generated by the farm” (RA
2009 , p. 36), thus prioritizing organic agriculture techniques in their standard. The
Ethical Tea Partnership does not explicitly mention organic techniques, but does
so indirectly through its Memoranda of Understanding with FLO and Rainforest
Alliance. In terms of organic practices in Tanzania, this encouragement was enacted
through the audit practices, an inspector explains:
The key benefits of all the certifications, is they are forcing the world to go organic. They
would all prefer someone who is organic. They are saying: if you are organic, then I don't
check this. The move of the world now is to have something that is organic.

This is particularly salient as the independent contracting nature of inspectors in East
Africa translates into the same small network of inspectors conducting audits for
different standards. For example, it is common to find the same inspector conducting
audits for FLO, IMO, Starbucks' C.A.F.E. Practices, and Utz certified. As explained

6 Kilimo cha mbolea ya chumvichumvi translates literally into Farming with 'salt salt' fertilizer,
meaning farming with urea.