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Back to the Land: The Paradox of Organic Food Standards

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  • Julie Guthman

    (Department of Community Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA)

Abstract

This paper examines how the rent-creating conventions that regulate organic food production undermine growers' abilities to farm in a less intensive manner. The paper builds on a growing literature on food governance which points to the unintended consequences of standardization and their verification. The argument is based in theories of rent, with specific attention to how the constructed scarcity of organic food creates rents that are competed away or appropriated. The author also discusses how organic regulations may manifest in monopoly ground rents, especially given the attention paid to land in organic certification. Insofar as these rents pass through to land values, they contribute to a broader pattern of land valuation that pushes farmers to grow the most valuable crops in the most productive ways—an imperative that is not necessarily conducive to organic farming as it is generally envisioned.

Suggested Citation

  • Julie Guthman, 2004. "Back to the Land: The Paradox of Organic Food Standards," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(3), pages 511-528, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:36:y:2004:i:3:p:511-528
    DOI: 10.1068/a36104
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tad Mutersbaugh, 2002. "The Number is the Beast: A Political Economy of Organic-Coffee Certification and Producer Unionism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(7), pages 1165-1184, July.
    2. R. Kaplinsky, 2000. "Globalisation and Unequalisation: What Can Be Learned from Value Chain Analysis?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 117-146.
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    Cited by:

    1. Natalia Brzezina & Katharina Biely & Ariella Helfgott & Birgit Kopainsky & Joost Vervoort & Erik Mathijs, 2017. "Development of Organic Farming in Europe at the Crossroads: Looking for the Way Forward through System Archetypes Lenses," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-23, May.
    2. Mariagiulia Mariani & Claire Cerdan & Iuri Peri, 2022. "Cultural biodiversity unpacked, separating discourse from practice," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(2), pages 773-789, June.
    3. Martha McMahon, 2011. "Standard fare or fairer standards: Feminist reflections on agri-food governance," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(3), pages 401-412, September.
    4. Mascha Gugganig & Karly Ann Burch & Julie Guthman & Kelly Bronson, 2023. "Contested agri-food futures: Introduction to the Special Issue," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 787-798, September.
    5. Saurabh Arora & Naomi Baan Hofman & Vinod Koshti & Tommaso Ciarli, 2013. "Cultivating Compliance: Governance of North Indian Organic Basmati Smallholders in a Global Value Chain," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(8), pages 1912-1928, August.
    6. Melanie Malone, 2022. "Seeking justice, eating toxics: overlooked contaminants in urban community gardens," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(1), pages 165-184, March.
    7. Gingrich, Chris D. & King, Emily J., 2012. "Does Fair Trade Fulfill the Claims of its Proponents? Measuring the Global Impact of Fair Trade on Participating Coffee Farmers," Journal of Cooperatives, NCERA-210, vol. 26, pages 1-23.
    8. Ellen van Holstein, 2016. "Transplanting, plotting, fencing: relational property practices in community gardens," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(11), pages 2239-2255, November.
    9. Mariagiulia Mariani & François Casabianca & Claire Cerdan & Iuri Peri, 2021. "Protecting Food Cultural Biodiversity: From Theory to Practice. Challenging the Geographical Indications and the Slow Food Models," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-22, May.
    10. Pantelis Zoiopoulos & Ioannis Hadjigeorgiou, 2013. "Critical Overview on Organic Legislation for Animal Production: Towards Conventionalization of the System?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(7), pages 1-18, July.
    11. E Melanie DuPuis & Daniel Block, 2008. "Sustainability and Scale: US Milk-Market Orders as Relocalization Policy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(8), pages 1987-2005, August.
    12. Ron Johnston & Brian Grabbatin, 2013. "Reviews: Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities, Rent from the Land: A Political Ecology of Postsocialist Rural Transformation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(2), pages 485-488, February.
    13. Tad Mutersbaugh & Lauren Martin, 2012. "Dialectics of Disassembly: Heifer-Care Protocols and the Alienation of Value in a Village Dairy Cooperative," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(3), pages 723-740, March.
    14. Kira J M Matus, 2009. "Standardization, Certification and Labeling: Lessons from Theory and Practice," CID Working Papers 37, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    15. Muhammad Bello & Awudu Abdulai, 2018. "The use of a hybrid latent class approach to identify consumer segments and market potential for organic products in Nigeria," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 190-203, March.
    16. Sene, Seydina & Paudel, Krishna P. & Park, Timothy A., 2016. "The Changing Structure of Retail Food Stores, Direct Marketing (DM) and Its Impact on Farmers’ Financial Performance," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235736, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Bailey, Alison P. & Garforth, Chris, 2014. "An industry viewpoint on the role of farm assurance in delivering food safety to the consumer: The case of the dairy sector of England and Wales," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 14-24.
    18. Daniel Coq-Huelva & Bolier Torres-Navarrete & Carlos Bueno-Suárez, 2018. "Indigenous worldviews and Western conventions: Sumak Kawsay and cocoa production in Ecuadorian Amazonia," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(1), pages 163-179, March.
    19. Adam Henne, 2010. "Green Lungs: Good Firewood, Healthy Air, and Embodied Forest Politics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(9), pages 2078-2092, September.
    20. Felix Zoll & Caitlin K. Kirby & Kathrin Specht & Rosemarie Siebert, 2023. "Exploring member trust in German community-supported agriculture: a multiple regression analysis," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(2), pages 709-724, June.
    21. Bello, Muhammad & Abdulai, Awudu, 2016. "Identification of consumer segments and market potentials for organic products in Nigeria: A Hybrid Latent Class approach," 2016 Fifth International Conference, September 23-26, 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 246965, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    22. Jennifer Hayden & Sarah Rocker & Hannah Phillips & Bradley Heins & Andrew Smith & Kathleen Delate, 2018. "The Importance of Social Support and Communities of Practice: Farmer Perceptions of the Challenges and Opportunities of Integrated Crop–Livestock Systems on Organically Managed Farms in the Northern U," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-26, December.

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