The social practice of sustainable agriculture under audit discipline: Initial insights from the ARGOS project in New Zealand

Abstract

One of the most interesting recent developments in global agri-food systems has been the rapid emergence and elaboration of market audit systems claiming environmental qualities or sustainability. In New Zealand, as a strongly export-oriented, high-value food producer, these environmental market audit systems have emerged as an important pathway for producers to potentially move towards more sustainable production. There have, however, been only sporadic and fractured attempts to study the emerging social practice of sustainable agriculture -particularly in terms of the emergence of new audit disciplines in farming. The ARGOS project in New Zealand was established in 2003 as a longitudinal matched panel study of over 100 farms and orchards using different market audit systems (e.g., organic, integrated or GLOBALG.A.P.). This article reports on the results of social research into the social practice of sustainable agriculture in farm households within the ARGOS projects between [2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009]. Results drawn from multiple social research instruments deployed over six years provide an unparalleled level of empirical data on the social practice of sustainable agriculture under audit disciplines. Using 12 criteria identified in prior literature as contributing a significant social dynamic around sustainable agriculture practices in other contexts, the analysis demonstrated that 9 of these 12 dimensions did demonstrate differences in social practices emerging between (or co-constituting) organic, integrated, or conventional audit disciplines. These differences clustered into three main areas: 1) social and learning/knowledge networks and expertise, 2) key elements of farmer subjectivity -particularly in relation to subjective positioning towards the environment and nature, and 3) the role and importance of environmental dynamics within farm management practices and systems. The findings of the project provide a strong challenge to some older framings of the social practice of sustainable agriculture: particularly those that rely on paradigm-driven evaluation of social motivations, strong determinism of sustainable practice driven by coherent farmer identity, or deploying overly categorical interpretations of what it means to be 'organic' or 'conventional'. The complex patterning of the ARGOS data can only be understood if the social practice of organic, integrated or (even more loosely) conventional production is understood as being co-produced by four dynamics: subjectivity/identity, audit disciplines, industry cultures/structure and time. This reframing of how we might research the social practice of sustainable agriculture opens up important new opportunities for understanding the emergence and impact of new audit disciplines in agriculture.

From compliance to co-production: Emergent forms of agency in Sustainable Wine Production in New Zealand

“…This leads to two broad conclusions: (1) participants in audited practice are not passive recipients of change and (2) they are not frozen in one particular response. They shift and reposition themselves and this would appear to be of major significance in how environmental practices change (thus reinforcing the conclusions of Campbell et al, 2012). A further conclusion, as suggested above, is that there is greater potential for experimentation and innovation than might be expected.…”

“…Prior work on this topic-including that of the authors of this article-has commonly situated auditing comfortably within the wider framework of neoliberalisation. As a result, it prioritises the capacities of more empowered actors to use technologies of audit to constrain and control producers and thereby achieve economic advantage (for a fuller discussion of this theoretical prehistory, see Campbell et al, 2012;Rosin and Campbell, 2012;Rosin et al, 2017). Inherent to our de-centring of human agency in this article, we deliberately temper this focus on neoliberalisation, to create openings for the possibilities that lie behind and around the 'constrain and control' framing.…”

Are Organic Standards Sufficient to Ensure Sustainable Agriculture? Lessons From New Zealand’s ARGOS and Sustainability Dashboard Projects

“…However discovery of the social and economic drivers of farming practice are also fundamentally important for sustaining coupled social-ecological systems (e.g, Rosin et al, 2008, Campbell et al, 2012b. The long term resilience and sustainability of agriculture depends on learning and adapatability (Vogl 2015, this volume).…”

“…The results of qualitative analysis of interviews (Campbell et al, 2012b) and the responses of IM, Organic and Conventional growers in a nationwide survey to questions about environmental, social and economic dimensions of farming sustainability (Figure 3) both emphasised that IM growers are different from conventional ones. The IM growers were not just intermediate between organic and conventional (had they been, the multidimensional scaling diagram would have approximated E in Figure 3).…”

“…We do not know what drives the differences already evident nor, potentially more crucially, how they might change in future because of the engagement of IM farmers in the market accreditation and sustainability best practice monitoring frameworks. Clearly there are many clusters of "greeness" in orientation within all types of farming approaches and the way these are influenced by market accreditation and reward is an important dynamic for guiding the way the organic movement positions itself in markets and as environmental friendly farming advocacy (Fairweather et al, 2009b;Campbell et al, 2012b). In the meantime we urge researchers and market advocates of organic agriculture to not simply lump all non-organic farmers into one pool, especially since the eco-verification and wider sustainability claims of the IM farmers could undermine the premiere and historical monopoly of market assertions that organic agriculture certification gaurantees sustainable and ethical production.…”