RGANIC FARMING IS often considered to be a separate and distinctive way of farming. However, organic farming practices turn out to be just as diverse as views of nature and value assumptions involved. This paper is mainly concerned with differences in values and practices within organic farming at the level of the individual farmer. Secondly, it examines differences in values and practices at the level of agro-scientific knowledge related to organic farming. Thirdly, I discuss findings on the impact of values concerning nature on practice and knowledge in relation to the ongoing institutionalization of organic farming. The general aim is to show how value assumptions and orientations influence physical-material farming practice, as well as the contents and development of agro-scientific knowledge. 1 At the level of the farmer it is the stories of individuals, their backgrounds, education, training, attachment to different groups and ideologies, access to knowledge and different kinds of knowledge, and events in their lives which mould the explanation of actual farming practice. Different farming practices have distinctive values inherent or embodied in them as a result of complex stories. Investigation at the level of individual farmers takes the form of a case study. Some of the differences in values and practices can be explained at the level of knowledge, by analysing the history of different branches of agroscientific knowledge related to the organic way of farming.Other scientists (Christensen 1998;Kristensen 1997;Kristensen and Nielsen 1997; Rasmussen 1995-6) have described how organic farming in Denmark has entered a phase of institutionalization. On the basis of two levels of analysis of O Kaltoft 40 values and practices in Danish organic farming, I will show how this process of institutionalization involves a tendency to reduce diversity in practices and philosophies. Diverse practices and philosophies within the organic movement can be seen as an important source for the future development of environmentally sustainable kinds of agriculture. From this perspective, diversity is an important resource deserving development rather than reduction. Danish organic farming becomes institutionalizedThe history of Danish organic farming can be seen as the history of a social movement moving from a marginal position to integration by society (Christensen 1998; Rasmussen 1995-96). As Christensen points out, both the organic movement and society change and converge during this process. Nevertheless, I focus entirely on the organic movement here.During its marginal phase, the organic movement was identified with the activities of the alternative, left-wing and environmentalists movements, while biodynamic agriculture was leading its own, rather isolated, life. Acceptance occurred as official politics and public opinion took an increasing interest in environmental issues. The process of institutionalization was clear by 1988 when Denmark introduced a national governmental certification of organic farming, followed ...

Expert-based environmental and health risk regulation is widely believed to suffer from a lack of public understanding and legitimacy. On controversial issues such as genetically modified organisms and food-related chemicals, a “lay—expert discrepancy” in the assessment of risks is clearly visible. In this article, we analyze the relationship between scientific experts and ordinary lay citizens in the context of risks from pesticide usage in Denmark. Drawing on concepts from the “sociology of scientific knowledge” (SSK), we contend that differences in risk perception must be understood at the level of social identities. On the basis of qualitative interviews with citizens and experts, respectively, we focus on the multiple ways in which identities come to be employed in actors' risk accounts. Empirically, we identify salient characteristics of “typical” imagined experts and lay-people, while arguing that these conceptions vary identifiably in-between four groups of citizens and experts. On the basis of our findings, some implications for bridging the lay—expert discrepancy on risk issues are sketched out

T he organic farming movement is very interesting from a sociological point of view, enjoying as it does a measure of success in a period when the power of social movements in general seems low. It is a movement with radical views on environmental issues and the man-nature relationship. Contemporary sociology has to consider the nature-culture relation, new understandings of which are central to current theorizing about modernity, whether in terms of reflexive modernity or some kind of post modernity.My suggestion is that organic farming, the movement and its ideology, challenges the way in which sociological theory conceives of the nature-culture relation. In order to examine this idea, I shall attempt to understand and describe the organic farming movement in terms of modernization. Since modernization is a broad term, the main focus in this paper will be on those aspects concerned with the conceptualization of environmental problems, the nature-culture relationship and the role of science. I therefore confront Ulrich Beck's theory of the risk society with Bruno Latour's theory of actor-networks. Both theories deal explicitly with conceptualizing the nature-culture relation in late-modern (or 'post' or 'reflexive') societies.The Danish organic farming movement serves as the empirical example and my approach is participatory/ethnographic. The analysis does not limit itself to a single survey/study but includes my total experience with and knowledge about the Danish situation regarding organic farming. I will start by clarifying how I use the concept of modernity. Then I will outline my version of the development of Danish organic farming. This is followed by an explanation of my relation to the empirical 'material.' The core discussion diagnoses the organic farming movement in terms of modernization and presents a comparison of Beck and Latour.