Social Dimensions of Organic Production and Systems Research

Organic food production in the United States began as a social movement response to the perceived negative externalities of an industrial food system. The agro-ecological advantages and production capabilities of organics have been well documented. To harmonize the various organic certification schemes, the national standard was developed and put into law in 2002. Since that time a process of organic conventionalization and bifurcation has occurred as traditional producers have entered the market and major firms have consolidated their organic positions. Conventionalization refers to the process by which organics take on similar characteristics of the mainstream agrifood system. Bifurcation refers to the process of organics dividing into large scale certified-organic operations selling in indirect markets and small-scale operations selling in direct markets based on trust. In this paper, we review the literature on conventionalization and bifurcation and contextualize it within the larger discussion on the sociology of agrifood. We conclude that organics provide a valuable case for looking at the ecological, social, and economic dimensions of an agricultural system and reveal future challenges regarding the long term sustainability of organics. Background on Organics For rural sociologists, the alternative agrifood system and organics is a central topic of discussion (1,2,9,10,24,40,44,47,72). Organics emerged out of the broader environmental movement that was critical of the negative ecological externalities of industrialism. It is a good example of what German philosopher Ulrich Beck (4) calls reflexive modernization, which would argue that upon reflection we realized that chemical-intensive monoculture generates significant negative externalities. It was a mistake to blindly adopt it but we can fix this error through the reflexive use of science and appropriate technologies, such as growing food using organic methods. Agricultural philosopher Paul Thompson (39) describes these contrasting viewpoints as the industrial and agrarian perspectives. The industrial perspective views agriculture as just another part of industrial society where commodities are produced at the lowest cost possible, while the agrarian, sometimes called alternative, perspective views agriculture as having important social functions beyond its efficient production of commodities. From this view, a major departure from the conventional agriculture model is needed because it is not sustainable. In the 1980s research documented the feasibility of organic production as an alternative to chemical-based agriculture (64,73,74). The USDA LISA/SARE programs were grounded in organic philosophy, but employed the term “sustainable agriculture” to be more politically palatable (1,19,69). After a long battle and resulting compromise, in 2002 the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) created the certified organic label (19,40). While the NOP provided regulatory underpinning for organics, the resulting certified organic label was a market label with no claims to superiority to conventional systems. The lack of other forms of government support for organics – such as economic support for transition or research – hindered the entry of new organic farmers and conversion by conventional farmers (35) resulting in an increase in organic 29 April 2013 Crop Management Published June 13, 2014