Rebels From the Crown Down: The Organic Movement's Revolt against Agricultural Biotechnology

Reed, Matthew

doi:10.1080/0950543022000028947

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…However, establishing scientific proof was far from straightforwardöespecially given the ecological philosophy held by activists, and their desire to understand the full interplay of relationships between soil and health. (6) This holistic approach sat awkwardly with conventional scientific conventions and reductionist experimental design (Reed, 2002b;Woodward, 2002). Organic ideas were already out of synch with trends in modern agriculture.…”

Section: Guiding Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Niches in Sustainable Development: The Case of Organic Food in the United Kingdom

Smith

2006

Environ Plann C Gov Policy

216

156

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Introduction Social science research into technology and sustainable development has broadened in recent years (Berkhout, 2002) as analysis has extended beyond the study of the development and diffusing of individual cleaner technologies. Increasingly, analysts are studying the transformation of entire sociotechnical regimes, and making recommendations for inducing and steering radical system innovations in more environmentally sustainable directions (Elzen et al, 2004; Loorbach and Rotmans, 2004; Schot et al, 1994). The aim of this paper is to introduce the literature on systems innovation, and to use a case study into organic food to test a critical element in that literature: namely, the degree to which niches have to be radical or compatible in order to influence sustainable systems innovation. Taking a sociotechnical perspective means that technical elements across a regime such as food provisionöphysical inputs, plant-breeding techniques, pesticides, harvesting technologies, animal husbandry, transport, food processing, cooking technology, and so onöare studied and understood in tight relation to social elements, such as prevailing attitudes towards the meaning and purpose of farming, ideas about soil health and nutritional food, official agricultural policy and price-support mechanisms, the structure of food retailing, shifting trends in food consumption, and other social considerations. It is the coevolution of these social and technical elements that determines the way the food regime operates. The analytical challenge is to understand the transformation of these sociotechnical regimes (Geels, 2004; Rip and Kemp, 1998). The systems-innovation literature considers niche initiatives as sources of radical innovation that have the potential, if managed strategically, to seed sustainable regime transformations (Kemp et al, 1998). Strategic niche management is advocated as a key policy approach (Hoogma et al, 2002; Schot et al, 1994). Strategic niches provide protected spaces in which alternative sociotechnical practices can be experimented with and developed in such a way that they subsequently inform and influence mainstream transformation. In its Fourth National Environmental Policy Plan, the Dutch

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Section: Guiding Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Niches in Sustainable Development: The Case of Organic Food in the United Kingdom

Smith

2006

Environ Plann C Gov Policy

216

156

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“…This leads to a strong sense of common identity that is displayed in a sense of solidarity that is evident in the openness between organic farmers, the loyalty of organic consumers and the defence of organic farms during the recent mobilisation against the introduction of GM technology. Until recently, the question of collective action and the use of protest was less apparent, as the focus of the movement had been the creation of a practical alternative and the consumption of organic food (Reed, 2002(Reed, , 2005. Recent protests have been more conventional in that they have been framed as direct and conflictual activities.…”

Section: The Organic Farming and Food Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The rural arena: The diversity of protest in rural England

Reed

2008

Journal of Rural Studies

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“…It used its state-sanctioned authority over organic farming in the uk to pronounce on broader matters of rural revival. Finally, in a way unimaginable by the rural revivalist of the 1930s the Soil Association gained the opportunity to become an agent of widespread rural change (Clunies- Ross 1990, Soil Association 1999, Reed 2000a. The agricultural apocalypse that is the bse crisis has changed the structures of British agriculture and food discourse.…”

Section: Fight the Future!mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fight the Future! How the Contemporary Campaigns of the UK Organic Movement Have Arisen from their Composting of the Past

Reed

2001

Sociologia Ruralis

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My subject is food, which concerns everyone; it is health, which concerns everyone; it is the soil, which concerns everyone -even if he does not realize it -and it is the history of certain recent scientific research linking three vital subjects (Lady Eve Balfour 1943, p. 9). S oil, health and food -Lady Eve spins out the three nodes of the discourse of organic agriculture and points to how she used science in an attempt to bind them together. Many of those who have either read about or been involved in organic agriculture will be familiar with the myth of Lady Eve. This paper seeks to revise that history and to bring to fore some forgotten elements of the past of the British organic movement. It is the contention of this paper that the present programmes and policies of the organic movement stem from a compost of the past, where the origins of some of the materials have been elided. That a small group of extreme nationalists played an important part in the formation of the early Soil Association is very uncomfortable for the contemporary movement to acknowledge. Without examining, the discursive legacy of this group the actions of the current movement cannot be fully explicated. It is perhaps time to reconsider the debt the discourse of the organic movement owes to those who were considered Fascists in their day.At the same time as considering the processes by which discourse 'forgets' that which it is politically difficult to acknowledge, the organic movement has been fighting the future projected by others. These futures have ranged from nitrogen fertilizers to genetically modified foods, each one described as progress and essential at that moment. Once the initial period of formation had passed, the process of eliding the elements of the past of the British organic movement became deliberate and necessary. Only through a forgetting of some elements of the past has it been possible to construct a discourse that is so persuasive today. In the 1930s, Food, Health and Soil were constructed as scientific metaphors, a collocation that over time became the subject of moral persuasion. It was not until the search for scientific proof was abandoned, when the business of establishing organic food and farming begins in earnest. Only by forgetting some of its own past has the organic movement's discourse been able to contest the futures of others to which it is so passionately opposed.

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Rebels From the Crown Down: The Organic Movement's Revolt against Agricultural Biotechnology

Cited by 11 publications

References 21 publications

Green Niches in Sustainable Development: The Case of Organic Food in the United Kingdom

Green Niches in Sustainable Development: The Case of Organic Food in the United Kingdom

The rural arena: The diversity of protest in rural England

Fight the Future! How the Contemporary Campaigns of the UK Organic Movement Have Arisen from their Composting of the Past

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