Organic Farming in Late Modernity: At the Frontier of Modernity or Opposing Modernity?

Abstract

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.

How organic farmers view their own practice: results from the Czech Republic

“…Compared to studies conducted in other countries (Fairweather 1999;Duram 2000;Kaltoft 2001;Padel 2001;Tress 2001;Noe 2003;Darnhofer et al 2005) this paper pays particular attention to how farmers view their own practice, how they interpret it and how they discursively construct its substance and meaning (i.e., content), since it is their reality that shapes its content as a whole.…”

Bio cash-cow? Context and content of Czech organic farming

“…Similar examples have not been found since the Guthman's study, although other authors identified certain traits of the conventionalised organic agriculture in Western-European countries (Tovey 1997;Kaltoft 2001;Michelsen 2001). The hypothesis therefore still enjoys a lot of attention, while the main focus is on the possibility of delineating basic criteria that would enable us to distinguish the "genuine" organic agriculture from its conventionalised form (Darnhofer 2005).…”

Growing Naturally In A Postmodern Age: How Low-Income Producers Contend With organic Food Trends

“…-reflexive modernity‖ or post-modernity -is characterized by the distribution of risk and individualization…From the individual level it is difficult to grasp the process of standardization, which in turn encourage experiments with new social communities and life forms.‖ [21] Choosing to grow -organically‖ but [19] Whether the -modern‖ period will come again after the post-modern era resulted by economic-oriented organic farmers and entrepreneurs? Are Producers individualized, self-reliant and independent from the standardization?…”

“…The anthropocentric view point is -a central feature of (classical) modernity‖. [21] This goes back to the human and nature relations, i.e. whether humanity and non-humanity are separated or not.…”