Of poultry and the good farmer: Skilled role performance in antimicrobial use on poultry farms in Sweden, France and Vietnam

Abstract

In this article, we advance the good farmer literature by assessing how farmers’ understanding of what it is to be a good farmer is formed in relation to a less visible (enclosed) species (poultry). Findings demonstrate how the materialities of poultry bodies lead to similar practices across the three sites. These practices reflect the small size and rapid growth of poultry bodies and illustrate the multiple senses: visual, olfactory and tactile, which are encompassed in skilled role performance. The differing ‘rules of the game’ between the countries lead to distinctive ‘moral capitals’ attached to antimicrobial use, including stigma (Sweden), care‐full farming (France) and moral obligation (Vietnam). We argue that although cultural capital is not accrued in the same way as for more visible species, farmers mobilise their social capital to express cultural capital. Farmers clearly respond to changing ‘rules of the game’ in the form of government regulations, developing normative expectations. Deployment of the ‘good farmer’ concept in Sweden demonstrates the potential to mobilise cultural capital through benchmarking.