More than something to hold the plants up: soil as a non-human ally in the struggle for food justice

Farmers as Bodies-in-the-Field, Becoming-With Rice

“…Just as Kudo points out that he is not in control but relies on and collaborates with 'different creatures', the French cheese makers point out that they do not "determine the trajectory of the whole" [72] (p. 334). The agency of the soil has also been highlighted by Ferguson et al [78], who pointed out that farmers perceive the soil as an active agent, and it is the (organic) farmer's relationship with soil that allows for different qualities of food. The farmer is thus someone who uses his/her bodymind to discern, to see ever more nuances, to recognize this active potential, and find ways to develop a "favourable propensity" [65] (p. 9).…”

Farming from a Process‐Relational Perspective: Making Openings for Change Visible

“…Yet, although farming is fundamentally situated at the interface between society and nature, between humans and technology, the materiality of the farm is rarely taken into account. To understand farming fully, it might then be important to find ways to combine social construction with an understanding of the agency of the material world (see e.g., Ferguson et al ; Herman ; Phillips ; Legun and Henry ). This would allow to link farming to a wide variety of forces, including physical interactions, biological processes, social encounters, reflective thoughts, revisited memories, emotional desires, and bodily feelings (see Alaimo and Hekman ; Anderson and Harrison ; Fox and Alldred ).…”

“…They have different styles of becoming, depending on the qualities by which they actively differentiate themselves (Colebrook , p. 84). For example the soil, which is part of the relational web that produces the ‘farm’, is not an inert matter, but dynamic and lively (Schneider et al ; Ferguson et al ), it will affect the farmer and be affected by him. Thus, what looks like a stable farm emerges out of multiple, disparate, and often divergent events.…”

“…These alternate theoretical perspectives have strengthened agro‐food studies, and they could also enliven work done at farm‐level (see e.g., Carolan , ; Higgins ; Ferguson et al ; Herman ). Indeed, much research effort goes into understanding what enables family farms to persist, how and why farmers select production practices that may be more environmentally sustainable, or how they perceive options to respond to changing social demands such as the increasing concern for animal welfare or climate change.…”

“The right to food is nature too”: food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement

“…However, the terrain of environmental expertise leads us to an expanded notion of food justice, in which not only human rights but the qualities of interspecies and intersystemic relations are at stake (Whatmore, 2006). This ethical consequence is explored by Ferguson et al (2015) in their study of soil processes and farmer-to-farmer learning in New South Wales, Australia.…”