Seasonality as value(s) in organic farming: On the conflict on heating greenhouses in France

Abstract

This article deals with the notion of season, and illustrates an existing conflict, within organic agriculture, between symbolic and economic values. It takes the case of a polemic on the use of heating systems in greenhouse organic farming for tomato production. It asks and demonstrates how the organizations in and of market frame different seasonalities, either placing respect (symbolic value) for seasonality over economics, or vice versa. It identifies critical junctures that shaped the division in organic agriculture toward differing conception of seasonality, which oscillates between market logics in which its distinctiveness is (de)valued, symbolically and economically diminished or reasserted.