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Front Cover
Table of Contents
Editors' Introduction
Bonanno & Constance
Curtis
Lockie & Lyons
Taylor
Friedland
Abstracts / Resumenes
Back Cover

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF SOCIOLOGY OF

AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

VOLUME 9, NUMBER 1

2001

Co-editors

Farshad Araghi, Florida Atlantic University, USA

David Burch, Griffith University, Australia

Geoffrey Lawrence, Central Queensland University, Australia

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE

RESEARCH COMMITTEE ON THE SOCIOLOGY OF

AGRICULTURE AND FOOD (RC-40)

INTERNATIONAL SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

I J S A F

International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food (IJSAF) is an

official publication of the Research Committee on Sociology of Agriculture and Food

(RC40) of the International Sociological Association (ISA) and is published under the

auspices of the Florida Atlantic University, the Institute for Sustainable Regional

Development, Central Queensland University, and the Science Policy Research

Centre, Griffith University. The journal publishes theoretical and empirical papers in

the general area of the sociology of agriculture and food. This includes the study of

labor, production, market, policy, technology, and global and local change. Manu-

scripts are subject to external review before a final judgment on publication is made

by the editors. The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

publishes original works. Previously published papers and works under consideration

for publication in other journals will not be considered. For information on previous

volumes, subscriptions, and submission and style guidelines, visit the IJSAF web site

at <http://www.acs.ryerson.ca/~isarc40/>, or contact one of the following co-editors:

Farshad Araghi, IJSAF Co-editor

College of Liberal Arts

2912 College Avenue

Florida Atlantic University

Davie, Fl 33314

USA

Email: araghi@fau.edu

David Burch, IJSAF Co-editor

Science Policy Research Centre

Griffith University

Nathan QLD 4111

Australia

Email: d.burch@sct.gu.edu.au

Geoffrey Lawrence, IJSAF Co-editor

Institute for Sustainable Regional Development

Central Queensland University

Rockhamton QLD 4702

Australia

Email: g.lawrence@cqu.edu.au

Editorial Board: Reidar Almås, U. of Trondheim, Norway; Alberto Arce, U. of Wageningen,

Netherlands; Monica Bendini, U. Nacional de Comahue, Argentina; Alessandro Bonanno, Sam

Houston State U., USA; Lawrence Busch, Michigan State U. USA; Frederick Buttel, U. of

Wisconsin, USA; Hugh Campbell, Otago U., New Zealand; Douglas Constance, Sam Houston

State U., USA; Maria Fonte, U. di Napoli, Italy; William Friedland, U. of California, Santa

Cruz, USA; Harriet Friedmann, U. of Toronto, Canada; Lourdes Gouveia, U. of Nebraska,

USA, William Heffernan, U. of Missouri, USA; Bertrand Hervieu, CPSP, France; Ray

Jussaume, Jr., Washington State U., USA; Chul-Kyoo Kim, Korea U., South Korea; Mustafa

Koc, Ryerson Polytechnic U., Canada; Richard Le Heron, U. of Auckland, New Zealand; Luis

Llambí, IVIC, Venezuela; Norman Long, U. of Wageningen, Netherlands; Philip McMichael,

Cornell U., USA; Mara Miele, U. of Pisa, Italy; Manuel Belo Moreira, U. Tecnica del Lisboa,

Portugal; David Myhre, Ford Foundation., Mexico; Patrick H. Mooney, U. of Kentucky, USA;

Laura Raynolds, Colorado State U. USA; Yoshimitsu Tanigushi, Akita Prefecture College of

Agriculture, Japan; Sarah Whatmore, Bristol U., UK

International Sociological Association

Printed in the USA by Printing and Mailing Services, Princeton University

Design, layout and production by David Myhre ISSN: 0798-1759

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

SOCIOLOGY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

VOLUME 9, NUMBER 1

2001

Co-editors

Farshad Araghi

Florida Atlantic University, USA

David Burch

Griffith University, Australia

Geoffrey Lawrence

Central Queensland University, Australia

CONTENTS

Editors’ Introduction ............................................ 3

Corporate Strategies in the Global Era: The Case of

Mega-Hog Farms in the Texas Panhandle Region

Alessandro Bonanno and Douglas H. Constance ....................... 5

Reforming New Zealand Agriculture: The WTO

Way or Farmer Control?

Bruce M. Curtis ................................................ 29

Renegotiating Gender and the Symbolic Transformation

of Australian Rural Environments

Stewart Lockie and Kristen Lyons .................................. 43

Community Forestry as Embedded Process: Two

Cases from Durango and Quintana Roo, Mexico

Peter Leigh Taylor .............................................. 59

Reprise on Commodity Systems Methodology

William H. Friedland ............................................ 82

Abstracts / Resúmenes ......................................... 104

The Research Committee on

Food and Agriculture (RC40) is a

world wide organization of social

scientists who are interested in

the study of contemporary food

and agricultural systems. RC40

publishes the International

Journal of Sociology of

Agriculture and Food. Visit the

RC40 web site at:

http://www.acs.ryerson.ca/~isarc40/

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

We welcome readers to Volume 9 of the International Journal of Sociology of

Agriculture and Food (IJSAF). In keeping with the journal’s international

focus we have selected, for this edition, a diversity of papers from authors

throughout the world dealing with such topics as the strategies of corporate hog

producers in the U.S., the reforming of New Zealand agriculture, the symbolic

transformation of Australian rural environments, and community forestry in Mexico.

We conclude with an important contribution from Bill Friedland on commodity

systems methodology. We thank the authors for submitting their papers to the

IJSAF and ask readers to consider the journal as an outlet for their own work. We

intend, for example, to compile a special edition (or part of an edition) on the

sociological aspects of agro-biotechnology and encourage those researching in that

area to submit material.

As most readers know, the IJSAF is concerned with a critical, sociological,

understanding of food, of agriculture, and of relations between the two. It covers

issues of policy, market, technology, labor – as well as the wider concerns relating

to all aspects of production and consumption. It provides a forum for scholars

whose research can provide insights into contemporary agri-food restructuring in

a globalising economy. It also promotes, where possible, comparative and historical

analyses that can contribute not only to a broader political economy and political

ecology of agri-food issues, but also to progressive social action.

The new editorial team which is now in place (and will be for the next two years)

has sought to streamline the processing of papers that have been submitted to the

journal. We are now doing all the ‘work’ of the journal electronically. When we

receive a paper (as a Word attachment) we quickly examine it for content and style.

If the paper is clearly not appropriate for the Journal we send an email to the author

– usually identifying a more appropriate outlet for publication. If the paper’s

content is acceptable we check for style. If the author has not conformed to the new

style guide we send it back to be reformatted. Once the paper has been received in

an acceptable format we provide the paper in electronic form to three reviewers,

along with an electronic proforma. Once the reviews of each paper are received, the

editors synthesise the comments, and send these back to the author of the paper. If

the paper has been accepted for publication, we ask the author for a quick

turnaround – of about one month. While this process is still ‘on trial’ we believe

that it will allow us to publish our target of two editions per year.

Readers may be unaware that the Research Committee on the Sociology of

Agriculture and Food (RC40) is the only research committee of the International

Sociological Association with its own journal. We are very proud of this and hope

that we can seek greater participation by RC40 members in the various activities of

the journal. We have, for example, begun to identify the main areas of academic

strength of members as a prelude to targeting particular people to undertake reviews

4 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

of papers. We acknowledge the assistance provided to date, but also ask for

increased participation for the future.

Finally, the smooth transition from the previous editor to the current editorial

team could not have occurred without the support of Mustafa Koc, David Myhre,

Ray Jussaume, Jr., and Phil McMichael. Special thanks also go to Simon Kitto of

Central Queensland University who worked, tirelessly and professionally, as

editorial assistant for this volume.

Farshad Araghi

David Burch

Geoffrey Lawrence

* Address all correspondence to Alessandro Bonanno, Dept. of Sociology, P.O. Box 2446,

Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77341, USA; e-mail: soc_aab@shsu.edu. We

would like to thank Chris Mayda, Bob Antonio, Andrea Castro Medina, Ronda Harris,

Lourdes Gouveia, Laura Raynolds and the anonymous reviewers for their comments to early

drafts of this manuscript.

Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40), International Sociological Association.

CORPORATE STRATEGIES IN THE GLOBAL ERA: THE CASE OF

MEGA-HOG FARMS IN THE TEXAS PANHANDLE REGION*

Alessandro Bonanno

Douglas H. Constance

Sam Houston State University

INTRODUCTION

Employing the case of the expansion of mega-hog production facilities in the

Texas Panhandle region, this paper contributes to the globalization of

agriculture and food literature by illustrating the strategies employed by

transnational corporations (TNCs) to advance their economic and social interests

and respond to emerging resistance. We argue that – rather than substantively

addressing property, quality of life and environmental concerns raised by rural

activists and residents – TNCs complement their hyper-mobility with corporate

actions at the legitimative, political and economic levels which support their plans.

At the legitimative level, hog-producing TNCs reacted to the challenges of local

residents by presenting a “green” image which indicates conformity to good

practices of environmental stewardship, narrows the definition of sound

environmental actions and devalues opposition’s claims. Politically, TNCs modified

existing environmental legislation to fit their agenda. By exercising direct control

over the polity, TNCs were able to eliminate citizen participation from decision

making processes concerning environmental issues. Additionally, they were able to

further depoliticize environmental and property issues by shifting them from the

political realm to the administrative sphere. Economically, TNCs stressed the

benefits that communities received from the relocation of mega-hog operations in

their areas in a context characterized by a high demand for corporate investments

from other regions. Additionally, TNCs employed their economic clout to exploit

communities’ needs in order to gain acceptance of corporate positions.

This case study is grounded on a Critical Theory framework (Antonio 1983;

Horkheimer 1972; Wiggershaus 1994). While sharing the Marxian tenets of

economic domination and class struggle over of the control of the means of

production, Critical Theory pays attention to the cultural and ideological sides of

class domination. For Critical Theory mature capitalism is characterized by the

cultural hegemony of dominant classes and the economic and ideological

oppression of subordinate groups. Though the use of Immanent Critique, critical

theorists document the false unity of theory and history, the claim that current social

arrangements correspond to the bourgeois ideals of universal equality, justice and

6 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

freedom. Accordingly, our study of TNCs is framed in a context in which the

corporate search for more profitable forms of production is accompanied by

similarly important actions at the cultural and ideological levels. In this context,

culture and ideology are contested terrains in which hegemonic discourses support

but also legitimize the interests of dominant classes. These assumptions allow us to

approach domination and resistance from an economic as well as cultural and

ideological levels without having to commit the ontological primacy of one of the

other components. For Critical Theory the relationship between economy and

ideology is a dialectical one.

A case study methodology featuring content analysis is employed to examine the

discourses and actions of TNCs and their opponents. These data were generated

through keyword searches of available data bases at the Sam Houston State

University Library and the internet. Keys words included “CAFOs,” “Seaboard

Farms,” “Texas Farm,” “Premium Standard Farms,” and “ACCORD.” Data consist

of the universe of published works and documents available on the subject from

1995 to 2000. The majority of the data for construction of the case were obtained

from internet versions of local, regional and national newspapers that provided

balanced accounts of the controversy. Documents generated through these searches

were organized and analyzed for content focusing on the debate over the impacts

of swine CAFO location in the Panhandle region of Texas.

The paper is divided into four sections. The first section reviews salient literature

on the globalization of agriculture and food and of the primary tenets of the

literature of the globalization of the economy and society. The latter is employed

to frame the discussion of the former. Moreover, the major findings of this literature

are employed as departing points for the analysis of the case. The second section

presents the case study. Here, the illustration of the events follows more an

analytical than a chronological pattern, although some faithfulness to the events

time sequence is maintained. After a brief description of the expansion of the

industry in the region, the section explores the actions taken by TNCs at the

political, economic and legitimative levels along with local resident’s responses.

The third section consists of an analytic discussion of the case study. It is

maintained that TNCs employ an array of strategies to advance their agenda. These

strategies transcend hyper-mobility and involve control of the polity, TNCs’ use of

economic clout, and attempts to legitimate their actions to broader segments of

society. The fourth and concluding section discusses the impact that corporate

strategies have vis-a-vis the issue of democracy in the global era.

THE GLOBALIZATION OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

LITERATURE: A BRIEF REVIEW

One of the major tenets of the now vast literature on the global economy and society

(see Cox 1997; Carnoy, Castells, Cohen and Cardoso 1993; Dicken 1998; Harvey

1990; Lipietz 1992; Sassen 1996; Sklair 1993; Spybey 1996) is that transnational

corporations are among the most powerful agents in today’s society. They are

entities endowed with powers which shape contemporary patterns of socio-

economic development. Some view TNCs as key vectors for the expansion of the

economy and the creation of better socioeconomic conditions (e.g., Kindleberger

1986; Strange 1996). They believe that the TNCs’ ability to bypass state imposed

Bonanno and Constance 7

1. According to Barlett and Steele (1998) the practice of “corporate welfare” has skyrocketed

in recent years in the United States. Corporate welfare refers to the wealth of state subsidies,

tax abatements and general incentives that corporations receive in order to invest, create

employment and limit disinvestments in local areas. These authors also demonstrate that

despite the heralded benefits that corporate welfare was supposed to generate, evidence

indicates that it is rarely responsible for employment growth. Some among the many

examples of corporate welfare include: a $10 million incentive package provided by the city

of Jonesboro, AK to Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of the powerful PepsiCo Inc; $16.9 million in

tax exemption and $3 million in property sale tax reduction to General Motor from the state

of New York; $29 million of tax and investment credits and $2.5 million for job training

programs to the meat packing company Nebraska Beef Inc from the state of Nebraska; $253

million to the automobile giant Mercedes from the state of Alabama; $355 million from the

state of Ohio to General Motors; a $2 million a year sale tax exemption to Time Warner from

the state of Florida; an $80 million incentive package to UPS from the state of Kentucky

(Karmatz, Labi, and Levinestein 1998).

laws and regulations is an indication of the problems that state intervention has

generated in socioeconomic matters and, ultimately, a solution to this issue

(Friedman 1982; Rubner 1990). They generally hold that TNCs should be allowed

to freely maneuver if better socioeconomic conditions are to be sought.

Diverging positions stress that newly created jobs do not transcend low to

minimum wage levels and their existence is subjected to corporate relocation

strategies (Bluestone and Harrison 1986). When pressures to raise wages and/or to

conform to existing state imposed regulations emerge, corporations can exercise

their enhanced global mobility to relocate in areas characterized by less expensive

labor pools and more favorable political climates (Lash and Urry 1994; Sassen

1996). Hyper-mobility of capital is the term employed to refer to the now expanded

capacity of TNCs to move about the globe in search of more favorable factors of

production and sociopolitical climates (Harvey 1990). Pitelis (1993), for instance,

argues that the desire of TNCs to control labor and diminish production costs

motivate them to consider alternative production sites. This situation increases their

bargaining power over nation-states which compete for direct investments. The

nation state is, consequently, faced with a contradictory situation in which its desire

to attract investments limits its responsibility to monitor TNCs’ actions. Locals

within nation-states are forced to compete with each other in order to attract TNCs’

investments. In so doing, however, they discount local resources for corporate use.

Recent studies (see, for example, Barlett and Steele 1998) indicate that

communities’ efforts to provide incentives for corporations do not necessarily net

job increases. This corporate welfare is simply a system to shift public resources

toward the corporate side with minimal – and often negative – results for

communities. Despite this evidence,1 TNCs’ ability to move, and/or threat

relocation, has been a powerful tool for the generation of less expensive and/or

more convenient factors of production (Sassen 1996; Sklair 1998; Storper 1997).

Works in this camp also argue that the transnationalization of economic relations

weakens the ability of the nation-state to monitor groups and resources which, in

turn, compromises the maintenance of established forms of democracy. Because

nation-states have historically been the vehicles of self-government, they have been

able to allow citizens – albeit in different degrees – to bring their judgments and

8 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

values to bear on the economic forces that dominate society. The ability of

economic actors to transcend national domains has greatly diminished the historical

capabilities of citizens to participate in decision making processes, a situation which

redefines the limits and scope of democracy (Danley 1994; Sandel 1996).

Complementing contributions referring to other productive sectors and society

as a whole, the literature on the sociology of agriculture and food has provided

numerous analyses of the behavior of TNCs and the consequences that their actions

have on various segments of society and institutions. A number of authors have

documented the ability of TNCs to establish global production networks based on

the identification of more desirable factors of production (e.g., Friedland and

Bendini 1998; Heffernan and Constance 1994; Sanderson 1986). Global sourcing

is the concept employed to describe TNCs’ capacity to operate worldwide in search

of less expensive labor and resources, friendly legislation, and more

accommodating social relations (Fink 1998; Gouveia 1994; Higgins and Jussaume

1998; Raynolds 1998; Raynolds and Murray 1998). To be sure, this literature

stresses that the concept of “more desirable factors of production” involves more

than TNCs’ simple search for less expensive labor and natural resources. It

contemplates processes of identification of those locations endowed with good

business climates, that is, regions in which the intervention of the state, industrial

relations, political postures and cultural outlooks assume procorporate tendencies.

The ability of TNCs to bypass state rules, regulations and demands has also been

one of the foci of the sociology of agriculture and food literature. Employing the

cases of various agro-food commodity chains and corporations, authors maintain

that TNCs’ hyper-mobility and the transnationalization of social relations within

which it emerged have allowed corporations to increase their control over the state

(e.g., Bonanno and Constance 1996; Friedland 1991; McMichael 1996; McMichael

and Myhre 1991). For some, this control is only partial as TNCs need state support

to carry out capital accumulation projects (Friedland 1994; Koc 1994). Others

indicated that the state has already been controlled by TNCs and its national form

has entered an irreversible crisis (Llambí 1993; McMichael 1996; McMichael and

Myhre 1991). Regardless of these differences, it is commonly agreed that TNCs’

hyper-mobility has weakened the ability of nation-states to monitor and/or oppose

the activities of corporate actors. This situation, they argue, also weakens the ability

of citizens to participate in decision making processes concerning food security and

availability, scientific research patterns, environmental sustainability and

community development , (e.g., Busch, Lacy, Burkhardt, and Lacy 1991;

Constance, Kleiner, and Rikoon 1997; Mason and Morter 1998; O’Connor 1998;

O’Connor 1994; Vellema 1999).

A growing concern among students of global phenomena in agriculture and food

has been the implications that the TNCs’ actions and their ability to bypass state

imposed rules signify for democracy (Bonanno 1998; Busch 1998). Authors pointed

out that the bypassing of state-imposed rules and regulations allows TNCs to be

exempted from submitting to democratically established rules and procedures. It is

a situation, they continue, in which TNCs can select which ones among the

democratic processes and outcomes they want to follow and accept. Bonanno and

Constance (1996), for instance, documented how agro-food TNCs avoided U.S.-

based environmental legislation by claiming another nationality through moving

Bonanno and Constance 9

their production facilities overseas and reflagging their fishing vessels. These

actions, it is maintained, jeopardize the existence of basic assumptions upon which

democracy has historically evolved (Busch 1998). Lacy captured the essence of this

literature by articulating the situation in these terms: “Both democracy and

globalization have important implications for empowering communities. However,

the overarching challenge of our age is the crisis in democracy itself. Globalization

may contribute significantly to that crisis” (RSS 1998:2).

THE CASE STUDY

The Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) Come to the Panhandle

The case study discusses the establishment and growth of CAFOs in the Texas

Panhandle region. This area has been targeted for CAFOs due to its social,

economic, geographical and political characteristics. This multi-state region (Texas,

Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico) allows TNCs to select among a

variety of state regulations, socioeconomic incentives, political postures and

community sentiments within a relatively limited area. Because of this proximity –

but not exclusively because of it – TNCs have the possibility to choose the most

favorable conditions of production by enticing adjacent communities, counties and

states to compete against each other for corporate investments (Barlett and Steele

1998; Constance and Heffernan 1991; Giardina and Bates 1991). Additionally,

TNCs view the low concentration of population, the limited political opposition that

this situation entails and the long standing tradition of animal agriculture typical to

this region as ideal conditions for the establishment of CAFOs (Barlett and Steele

1998; Hart and Mayda 1998). Finally, the low socioeconomic status of counties

within the region motivates political elites and some local residents to welcome

industrial investments (Lee 1998:4d).

CAFOs have appeared in a variety of locations across the United States (Ladd

and Edwards 1998; Thu 1996; Thu and Durrenberger 1998). Fueled by corporate

needs to homogenize production, satisfy processing sector demands, and reduce

costs, this type of business emerged as a desired option for large agro-food firms.

The industry justifies CAFOs as an answer to the increased demand for lean meat

generated by enhanced quality of life consumption models typical of postindustrial,

affluent societies. Additionally, it is viewed as an effective manner to reduce

production costs and bring jobs to economically depressed areas (Houghton 1998).

However, it is also evident that restructuring internal to the sector and the

development of more elaborated commodity chains requiring enhanced commodity

standardization and delivery systems contributed to the growth of CAFOs (Kilman

1994). To this effect an industry representative recently stated: “Texas has been

viewed as the next frontier for giant hog farms capable of turning out hundreds of

thousands of uniform animals for a fast-growing market” (Lee 1998:4d).

In recent years there has been a rapid growth of CAFOs in the Panhandle region.

This growth began with the location of the Seaboard Corp. pork processing plant

in Guymon, Oklahoma in 1995. In this area, major hog production firms have

permits to raise more than 2,000,000 animals annually and this number is on the rise

according to Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas officials (Ledbetter 1997c). Firms that

have recently located or expanded include: Premium Standard Farms, the 2nd largest

pork producer in the U.S.; Seaboard Corporation, the 3rd largest; Texas Farm, the

10 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

20th; Vall, Inc., the 25th; and Hitch Pork Producers, the 39th (Successful Farming

1999).

As of December of 1997, in Ochiltree County on the northern border of Texas

and Oklahoma, Texas Farm is a subsidiary of Nippon Meat Packers. Nippon Meat

Packers is one of Japan’s largest meat packers. It processes pork at a plant in

Nebraska in the U.S. that it jointly owns with the major U.S. meat packer and

processor, IBP (Insights 1997). Nippon raises hogs in the Texas Panhandle to

export to Japan. In response to concerns about BSE (mad cow disease), Nippon

Meat Packers began specifying the source of its meat (Hoover’s Online 2000).

Nippon Meat Packer is one of Japan’s largest food companies with 115

consolidated subsidiaries. Some ninety four are in Japan and there are twenty one

abroad (Wright Analysis 2000). Texas Farm had 7,000 sows in production which

were scheduled to grow to 53,000 by the year 2000. It had permits to raise 431,593

hogs per year and build 52 lagoons to service those facilities. It was also seeking

additional Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC) permits

for another 307,350 hogs and 64 lagoons to control animal waste. Additionally, it

had four facilities permitted and four more pending for more than 300,000 hogs

located near Perryton in Ochiltree County. According to Texas Farm sources, the

company operations covered 10,000 acres in Ochiltree and Hansford Counties,

Texas, employed 140 workers, and projected the number of employees to expand

to 420 by the year 2000 (Ledbetter 1997c). Most of Texas Farm’s production was

targeted for export back to Japan (Morris 1997).

Seaboard Farms is the hog producing subsidiary of Seaboard Corp., a diversified

international agribusiness and transportation company primarily engaged in the

domestic production of poultry and pork, commodity merchandising, baking, flour

milling, and shipping. Overseas, Seaboard Corporation primarily engages in shrimp

production and processing, flour milling, produce farming, sugar production, and

animal feed production. It has over 4,000 domestic employees as well as substantial

employment within its Latin American and African operations. Seaboard’s Pork

Division started in the early 1990s and quickly gained market share in the U.S., as

well as became one of the leading exporters from the U.S. to Japan, Mexico, Korea

and other premium foreign markets (Seaboard 2000). Seaboard Farms already had

permits to raise 392,750 market hogs. It had also permits pending for another

716,920, and just submitted another permit application for an additional 296,000

hogs (total of 1,411,670) according to the Water Quality Services of the Oklahoma

Department of Agriculture. Seaboard operations just moved to the Oklahoma side

of the Panhandle after leaving Southeastern Minnesota despite receiving significant

economic contributions from local authorities to establish and carry out production

in that region (Barlett and Steele 1998:54–55). Environmental problems generated

by animal waste and inadequate lagoon-based waste treatment systems coupled with

the company unwillingness to invest to upgrade its facilities resulted in Seaboard

leaving now polluted Minnesota areas for new uncontaminated lands (Barlett and

Steele 1998:53).

Spanish-owned Vall Inc. is a subsidiary of Vall Company headquartered in

Lleida Spain. Vall Company pioneered the system of livestock integration in Europe

and currently has 2,500 collaborators supplied by its companies with livestock for

fattening, feedstuffs, and technical assistance on animal health. The company owns

Bonanno and Constance 11

2. Subchapter K permits are those issued after the TNRCC changed its permitting regulations

and eliminated public hearing processes for neighbors of cattle feedlots or hog farms; under

Subchapter B permits, neighbors were allowed such hearings. See below for more details.

and operates five hog farms in the Panhandle of Oklahoma with, 2,500 sows per

farm and around 250,000 fattened pigs. The company has a feedmill in Texahoma,

Oklahoma that provides feed to its hog operations (Vall Inc 2000). Vall Inc. has

five applications to permit 86,400 head of hogs. Presently it has about 12,000 sows

producing approximately 240,000 pigs per year and employs 120 people. By the

year 2000 the company is expected to have 24,000 sows and raise 500,000 pigs per

year at its 35 to 40 finishing barns. Vall, Inc. sites are located in Sherman County,

Texas, and at Four Corners and Texahoma, Oklahoma. (Ledbetter 1997c).

Premium Standard Farms (PSF) is a subsidiary of the ContiGroup, a division of

Continental Grain, one of the largest privately held corporations in the Unites

States. ContiGroup is a leader in integrated pork and poultry production, cattle

feeding, and aquaculture, with nearly 200 years of experience in agribusiness and

global trade. It operates in thirteen countries through facilities and affiliates and is

one of the world’s largest cattle feeders, the sixth-largest integrated poultry

producer in the U.S.; and through its joint venture with Premium Standard Farms,

the U.S.’s second-largest integrated hog producer. The Company is a leader in

aquaculture and flour milling, and one of the largest animal feed and poultry

producers in China. It also operates the largest integrated shrimp farm and hatchery

in Ecuador, raises and markets more than 12 million pounds of fresh salmon per

year along the U.S. Maine coast, and is a major producer of animal feed, wheat

flour, pork, and poultry in Latin America and the Far East. ContiGroup is one of the

world’s largest agribusiness companies with 14,000 employees worldwide – plus

an additional 10,000 in joint venture operations (ContiGroup 2000). PSF has

188,892 head approved on Subchapter K permits and another 925,000 head on

Subchapter B permits.2 Its operation near Dalhart has 22,000 sows with 251

employees located on 40,000 acres in the area and is stocking its facilities with

additional sows. According to a PSF spokesperson, “We’re simply adding sows as

we can to the High Plains farms” (Ledbetter 1997c:3d). The regional manager for

the TNRCC in Amarillo, commented that, although TNRCC did not have the actual

number of requests because many of the operations were just stocking their farms,

things were just hectic in the Panhandle (Ledbetter 1997c:3d).

Table 1 below lists the annual estimates of hogs at each location according to the

company figures provided to the TNRCC, the Oklahoma Agriculture Department,

and newspaper reports (Ledbetter 1997a:1).

Corporate Strategies and Local Responses

Corporate Actions at the Political Level

In early 1993 complaints about hog production generated environmental pollution

began reaching TNRCC offices. In particular local residents complained about

intense odors and respiratory problems. An investigation from TNRCC concluded

(Morris 1997:10a):

The concentration of dust being carried outside the feedlot was adequate to

interfere with the normal usage and enjoyment of … private property. The

12 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

3. The name of this state senator is omitted to protect privacy. Records of meetings between

state and CAFO officials disclose the identities of the participants (Morris 1997).

Table 1. Estimates of number of hogs produced annually by site, 1997

Company No. of hogs County State

Premium Standard Farms 396,000 Dallem Texas

Texas Farm 140,000 Ochiltree Texas

Vall, Inc. 240,000 Texas Oklahoma

Seaboard 392,750 Texas Oklahoma

Dean Paul 15,360 Hansford Texas

Paul Hitch 300,000 Texas Oklahoma

DeKalb 200,000 Seward Kansas

dust could potentially cause adverse physiological discomfort, such as burning and

itching eyes, coughing and breathing difficulties, to persons of ordinary (sensitivity).

Individuals with compromising health conditions could be more severely impacted.

Despite these findings, TNRCC did not issue any odor-related citations to

CAFOs. The air program director for TNRCC’s Field Operations Division

commented that the agency’s ability to cite CAFOs for nuisance odors had been

impaired by a 1993 Texas Supreme Court ruling. In 1993 F/R Cattle Co. of Erath

County, TX contested a citation from the Texas Air Control Board (the predecessor

to TNRCC). They claimed the odors emanating from the feedlot were part of a

“natural process” and were therefore exempt from regulations linked to the Texas

Clean Air Act. While F/R Cattle Co. lost the original trial and the appeal, the Texas

Supreme Court found in their favor (Morris 1997:10a). As a result of this decision,

the director informed the TNRCC regional offices that all proposed CAFO odor

citations were to be sent to a review committee at the central office in Austin. The

task of the committee was to ascertain whether there was evidence of “flagrantly

bad management practices, extremely intense impact and/or a pattern of problems

at the source” (Morris 1997:10a).

The limited ability of environmental agencies to cite CAFOs did not halt local

residents from complaining and raising doubts on the presumed benefits that the

introduction of these agro-food operations brought to the area (Morris 1997). Faced

with growing resistance, CAFO corporations sought political assistance from state

agencies. In late 1993, steps were taken to secure the support of an eminent Texas

State Senator3 and like-minded political figures. CAFO representatives protested

TNRCC’s investigations of cattle feedlots that were allegedly producing pungent

and “potentially unhealthful” clouds of dust. Additionally, they complained that the

TNRCC was not giving them time to correct their infractions, a reversal of this

agency’s previously established policy and a behavior which was almost

unanimously considered overzealous.

The strategy worked. By the summer of 1994 a proposal was drafted to simplify

Bonanno and Constance 13

the permitting process for CAFOs in Texas. A key element was the elimination of

the public hearing process which was contingent upon the farm or firm meeting

certain environmental criteria. In a letter to TNRCC, the state senator stated, “The

perception throughout the United States that the regulatory environment in Texas

is burdensome and unfavorable creates disincentives (for CAFOs) to locate in

Texas” (Morris 1997:10a). The Senator’s self-professed aim was to attract

operations that had been moving into states such as Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Additionally, he also made it clear that CAFOs should not be made against the law

just because some of the neighbors find them offensive. “While many people would

like to use the TNRCC as a sort of rural zoning agency, that’s not their job. Their

job is environmental protection” (Morris 1997:10a). The Chairman of TNRCC

responded quickly by indicating that the TNRCC had “been thinking along the same

lines” and agreed with the “basic thrust of his proposal” (Morris 1997:10a).

Dissatisfied with this outcome, the air quality manager for the Amarillo chapter of

TNRCC resigned his post in August of 1996. Co-workers stated that he had

resigned because he “could no longer tolerate the agency’s hands-off policy toward

CAFOs” (Morris 1997:10a). By the summer of 1995 the TNRCC had incorporated

the proposal into the changed rules regarding CAFO permits: “Its field personnel

were ordered to stop issuing nuisance-odor citations to CAFOs, regardless of how

disagreeable their emissions became” (Morris 1997:10a). The new rules stated that

permits could be challenged only on matters of technical merit and not “the fact that

a barn might reek or otherwise be troublesome” (Morris 1997:10a).

According to a local TNRCC agriculture and water quality specialist, Texas

adopted CAFO permits in an effort to streamline a fragmented system and make

better use of the agency’s limited resources. From his point of view, the new system

has worked fairly well. The Chairperson of TNRCC stated, “If you compare what

Texas requires with what other states require, we are as stringent, if not more

stringent. What we require in Texas is protective of the environment and the people

around these facilities” (Morris 1997:10a). He went on to say that Texas was

following a national trend in doing away with site-specific permits and hearings

based “more on land-use disputes than on actual environmental risks” (Morris

1997:10a). To be sure, this posture clashes with the content of existing Federal

regulations. The EPA, for instance, requires inspection of soil sample every three

months while the TNRCC requires for soil checks every year. Additionally, the

EPA mandates inspection of waste-retention lagoons ever two years while the state

of Texas requires these inspections every five years (Barta 1998). With this change

in the regulatory climate, large-scale pork producers began to locate and expand

rapidly in the Panhandle region.

Local Resistance

As information spread in 1995 that the CAFOs were moving in, some residents

formed a group called Active Citizens Concerned Over Resources Development

(ACCORD). A similar group had formed a few years before in Texas County,

Oklahoma in response to the rapid growth of CAFOs around the Seaboard Farms

pork processing plant in Guymon, Oklahoma (Morris 1997). By early 1998

ACCORD had grown to 155 members. The group held monthly meetings inside a

farm-supply business called the Outhouse which became their “war room” where

they plotted the movement of hog farms on two large county maps that cover one

14 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

4. The use of legal strategies to combat corporate actions is an important component of the

local anti-corporate resistance. Following previous successful attempts by other segments

of the environmentally based anti-corporate movement, ACCORD members challenged

TNRCC’s pro corporate standings on the grounds that the elimination of hearings was illegal

and therefore that CAFO permits issued under the new regulation should be revoked. The

design was to replicate the strategy employed in a number of previous cases in which locally

based environmental groups challenged corporate entities on legal grounds. In these cases,

the use of the Court was aimed at requesting the enforcement of already existing laws and

regulations unattended by corporations. Like other attempts before this one, this strategy was

successful as Court support for pro-environmental claims is growing (see also Constance et

al. 1997; DeLind 1995). However, this victory discloses also its limits. It was primarily

directed at preserving the implementation of already existing norms which have been on the

verge of being reformed by pro-corporate forces. It was a defensive battle which is telling

of the difficult political climate within which pro-environmental and community based anti-

corporate groups operate. Indeed the vulnerability of this strategy is evident in the instance

in which the Texas Supreme Court overruled a lower court judgement which supported an

originally more aggressive role of TNRCC in monitoring and citing CAFOs.

wall (Lee 1998:4d). In short, ACCORD was a community-based small group that

was created by concerned citizens disturbed by declining property values and

quality of life in their communities. Members were local residents, mostly farmers

and ranchers, who felt threatened and violated by the establishment of the CAFOs.

The development of health problems and the discomfort caused by CAFOs’ air

pollution emerged as the primary reasons motivating protest. However, the fear that

persistent quality of life problems could affect the value of local residents’

properties, enhance social problems such as crime and school overcrowding, and

deteriorate the community’s overall socioeconomic conditions further motivated

anti-corporate actions. Anti-corporate feelings remained strong even in the presence

of claims that the CAFOs’ presence generated new jobs and other economic benefits

to local communities (Constance and Bonanno 1999).

Exemplifying local residents’ willingness to fight for their substantive ability to

participate in decision making processes in their communities, ACCORD’s most

visible action came when they initiated a lawsuit against TNRCC. ACCORD

claimed that the rule changes deprived property owners of their fundamental right

to a hearing prior to the permitting of a feedlot (Lee 1998; Morris 1997).

Furthermore, they claimed that the “awful odors from large-scale hog farms waft

into their homes and their tractor cabs and generally threaten their quality of life”

(Lee 1998:4d). According to the ACCORD legal representative, “The state

permitting process should not be a formality. It is now, but it shouldn’t be. [Also]

the rights of the hog firms to make money should not supercede the rights of

adjoining landowners to be free from annoying and possibly hazardous air

pollution” (Morris 1997:10a). ACCORD legal representative’s additional statement

that the State Senator who was author of the changes “has written off the citizens

of Ochiltree County” was emblematic of local residents’ resentment regarding the

collusion between corporate and political powers and their broader capacity to

scrutinize links between these two spheres. The Court eventually ruled that the 56

CAFO permits approved by TNRCC for cattle feedlot expansions, new dairy

operations, and pork facilities under Subchapter K since 1995 were invalid4

Bonanno and Constance 15

5. To avoid the limitations imposed by the Court ruling, TNRCC reworked CAFO

regulations. In late 1998 a new set of rules were adopted which, however, were almost

identical to the previous ones. This new set of rules continued to prohibit residents from

challenging CAFO operation permits unless the challenge involved technical merit. Also

eliminated in this version was the right of residents for a public hearing following a

complaint. CAFO representatives commented on the new rules by stressing that they “allow

agriculture to return to business in Texas” (Barta 1998).

(Ledbetter 1997d; Lee 1998). The sentence motivation was based on the fact that

TNRCC had failed to show “reasoned justification” for eliminating hearings for

permits (Lee 1998:14d).

Corporate Actions at the Economic Level

CAFO representatives insisted that the new regulations were more stringent than

ever before and that the facilities in question “were designed and constructed

properly to be protective of the environment”(Ledbetter 1997d). They attributed the

ruling to a “technicality” having little to do with the environment, citizens’ health

and property value.5 These objections notwithstanding, considerable emphasis was

placed on the economic effects that the ruling might have on the Panhandle. One

representative stated: “We’re confident the state will work out the technicality

because the importance of animal agriculture to this region and our state is very

substantial [as] operations touched by the ruling account for more than $2.3 billion

and 2,400 jobs” (Ledbetter 1997d). An animal science professor and director of an

industry related institute at a major Texas university warned of the consequences

that a situation such as this could have in a competitive market populated by highly

mobile corporations. He stated: “[the ruling] has already had an effect. Companies

are doing site selection – they’re just doing it in other states… And if [pork meat]

is not produced in Texas, it will be produced overseas” (Lee 1998:4d). “After all,”

the Head of the Animal Science Department at the same university concluded, “the

pig industry has provided a vehicle for communities to grow [and] to preserve a way

of life” (Brown 1998:9). Following established mobility-based corporate strategies,

Nippon Meat Packing was quick to announce that “major additions to its Panhandle

facilities were on hold”(Lee 1998:4d). An analyst noted that “he knows of a least

two corporate hog producers that had eyed new locations in the northern Panhandle

but now have become skittish” (Lee 1998:4d) while another study stressed that

“there are already reports of plans to develop huge hog farms in Mexico, where the

restrictions on them would be less onerous” (Hart and Mayda 1998:76). Texas Farm

issued a formal statement saying that it had selected the Panhandle region of Texas

because it was environmentally sound and it already had a long and successful

history of large-scale cattle feedlots. The company further stressed that its lagoons

surpassed federal and state standards and that it intended to bring “new life” to the

declining local economy by building a $10 million feedmill in Ochiltree County that

would employ 400 workers (Morris 1997).

The possibility of the existence of local resistance was quickly acknowledged by

the CAFO corporations. However, rather than simply relocating to a new area,

CAFO TNCs employed their economic clout to counter such opposition. In late

December of 1997 Seaboard Farms announced that it was negotiating with officials

and residents of Cimarron County, Oklahoma to build facilities to house about

16 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

400,000 hogs. The deal called for the community of Keyes to become home to a

feedmill, but also to have its grade school reopened (Ledbetter 1997b:1a).

According to Seaboard Farms estimates, when all the construction was finished the

operation would add $50 million to the tax rolls and an annual payroll of $2.5

million for about 75 employees and managers (AP 1997). “The Keyes school

district was in trouble,” a Seaboard Farms spokesperson stated and “we agreed to

give them some up-front money so they could reopen their elementary school” (AP

1997:24a).

The agreement between Seaboard Farms and Cimarron County included the

construction of a 259,000 head hog farm covering 8,000 acres and a 500,000 ton

feed mill to be located near Keyes, Oklahoma and the commitment on the part of

the community to allow the construction of 400 buildings for growing the hogs.

More importantly, Cimarron County officials and residents would not take any

action to restrict Seaboard’s ability to acquire land for the construction of the

buildings (Ledbetter 1997b:4a). In return, Cimarron County would receive the

promise that the hog buildings would be located within a 5-mile radius of property

Seaboard currently owned and outside a 5-mile radius of any town in the county;

a $125,000 donation to the Keyes Public School District upon commencement of

construction of the feed mill, and a $2,500 donation to the district for each new

student whose attendance in the district is directly related to the employment of a

family member at Seaboard Farms or the feedmill during the two-year period

following the establishment of these operations.

Cimarron and adjacent Counties, as well as the state of Oklahoma, funded

Seaboard to a much greater extent than the corporate grants that they received. The

state of Oklahoma passed a $700 million measure to build infrastructures to

facilitate Seaboard relocation and $47 million were allocated for highway

improvement to accommodate Seaboard generated traffic in the area. Additionally,

Seaboard was granted a number of fiscal abatements which translated into a

situation in which the company was excused from paying 78 percent of its taxes.

For the fiscal year 1998, Seaboard was required to pay only 17 percent of its

assessed tax bill (Karmatz et al. 1998). Finally, while great emphasis was placed on

the importance that CAFOs had for the region, little was said about the quality of

the jobs created. These were low paying jobs starting at $7.00/hr. characterized by

harsh labor conditions which prompted a turnover of 100 percent a year (NCRCRD

1999). The net result was that this combination was rejected by the majority of local

residents and the plant was staffed increasingly with migrant, often illegal, labor

composed by some Asian workers – mostly Laotian and Vietnamese – but mostly

by Latin American laborers (Karmatz et al. 1998).

Corporate Actions at the Legitimative Level

Texas Farm called the odor problem “challenging.” Employing a posture which

showed formal consideration of the issues at hand, it indicated through a

spokesperson that the company did not dismiss odor complaints and tried to locate

barns far enough away from neighbors to minimize negative effects. It was claimed

that Texas Farm continually evaluates its state-of-the art waste treatment systems.

According to the same spokesperson, “we’ve tried to address those concerns head-

on. We have been as candid and upfront as I know to be. There needs to be some

Bonanno and Constance 17

level of tolerance” from the neighbors (Lee 1998:4d). These arguments were backed

by a member of a local university who concluded that it was possible “to produce

pigs in confinement in ways that do not harm the environment It is possible to

produce pigs without odor” (Brown 1998:9).

This type of attentive position was not shared by independent CAFO producers.

For instance, a local CAFO operator who had expanded his operations in the area

to about 15,000 hogs in two buildings dismissed the critics as “radicals” who “need

a cause.” He said that his permits had all the required safeguards for odor and

spillage and that “we don’t need a watchdog group to oversee our operations. The

TNRCC’s got that completely covered” (Morris 1997:10a). These sentiments were

not just confined to a realm external to corporations. A hog industry expert

suggested that the Texas legislature create penalties for false charges made against

CAFOs equal to the penalties imposed for violations by CAFOs. Furthermore, along

with physical setbacks, there should be “philosophical setbacks,” or what he

referred to as “pig enterprise zones,” which would buffer the industry from

“agricultural terrorism” and “corporate sabotage” by opponents (Brown 1998:9).

The damage done by anti-CAFO protesters required additional counter actions.

Accordingly, it was decided to initiate a campaign to elevate the image of CAFO

corporations by stressing their environmentally sound operations, their willingness

to dialogue with local opposition, and their past and present respect for existing

rules and regulations. To these ends in April of 1998 the Perryton Chamber of

Commerce sponsored a tour of Ochiltree County hog and cattle CAFOs followed

by a public hearing. On the tour were a number of state Senators and

Representatives, five members of the Texas House Environmental Regulation

Committee, several CAFO industry officials, and several interested citizens. The

official purpose of the tour was to study the “cumulative effects of numerous

CAFOs in a concentrated geographic area, and to determine whether environmental

protections are adequate” (Brown 1998:8). The tour stops included two Texas Farm

facilities, a commercial sow operation and a nursery/finisher, located within 10

miles of Perryton. At the Texas Farm’s sites, the entourage of about 25 vehicles got

no closer to either facility than the county road, from which no animals or waste

lagoon was visible. The group did stop at the site of a lagoon under construction

where Texas Farm officials explained the process of compacting and core testing

used in building the clay lined lagoon pits that hold the hog effluent flushed from

the barns (Brown 1998). The tour then stopped at Wolf Creek Feeders to visit the

feedlot feedmill under construction. The manager of Wolf Creek explained to the

group their dedication to environmental protection and detailed their efforts to

control dust and minimize odors. After lunch the group stopped at a confined hog

feeding operation owned by Dean Paul Farms. The group observed the operations

from about one-half mile away and smelled no odors. On the return trip to town

they stopped to see the progress on the construction of the new Texas Farm feedmill

due to be finished in mid-1999. At the mill a Texas Farm official displayed

drawings of the mill and commented that when completed, it would be the fifth

largest consumer of grain sorghum annually in the world. However, he was “non-

committal” when asked how much grain would be purchased locally (Brown

1998:8).

Visitors signing in at the following public meeting were greeted with banners for

18 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

ProAg (Plains Residents Organization of Ag Growth), a newly-formed organization

reported to have 1500 members in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The ProAg group

formed in early 1998 to combat anti-corporate hog farm sentiments which had

emerged in several states “targeted by the industry for development” (Brown

1998:24). Sign-up sheets for those people wishing to address the Committee were

available at the ProAg table, along with free bumper stickers, hats, and newsletters

promoting the group. The white ProAg hats were very noticeable during the three

hour meeting (Brown 1998).

The Texas House Environmental Regulation Committee, along with the other

state legislators, heard the testimony of 29 people. One of the State Senators began

the testimony by praising the economic benefits of live pork production and the

slaughter facilities, which he promised would follow. He cited the example of the

prosperous hog expansion around Guymon, Oklahoma were the Seaboard Farms

processing plant is located. Since that time, Seaboard Farms-owned and Hitch-

owned hog production facilities had expanded to a level of 740,000 head annually.

He reported that an $8 million investment by the City of Guymon had resulted in

5,000 new jobs, residential property value increases of up to 30 percent, and 140

new businesses in the past five years (Brown 1998). The Senator admitted that

Guymon was experiencing some problems due to its sudden growth such as housing

shortages, a surging crime rate, school crowding, and odor problems, but he

commented that those are “more social problems than pork problems” (Brown

1998:8). He “shrugged off” the complaint about noxious odors coming from the hog

farms. “Once you get a mile away, you can’t (sic) hardly smell them,” the senator

stated (Brown 1998:8).

A local farmer’s wife and retired schoolteacher challenged this definition of the

situation. The third generation farm she lives on has 400,000 hogs to the south,

southwest and east of her home. She testified, “Our roots run deep. We care about

our community and our environment. I live by hogs 24 hours a day, and have not

found one Seaboard or Hitch official that lives by them” (Brown 1998:9). She

stated that many residents in the Guymon area are victims of “hog smog” which she

described as pockets of ammonia that linger in furniture and drapes in their homes.

“We cannot keep (the fumes) out of our homes,” she said. “We’ve done everything

we can to seal our homes and yet they persist” (Brown 1998:8). Showing pictures

of decomposing dead hog in dumpsters to the Committee, she further testified that

neighbors of hog farms suffered health problems ranging from nausea, headaches,

and congestion. They also have seen their living and working quality of life decline

and property values drop. She also reported other negative effects such as increase

gang activity in the schools, increased demand on welfare programs, and overall

crime rates up by 65 percent with violent crime rates even higher than that (Brown

1998).

A representative of Texas Farm testified in defense of the industry. He said that

pork production provided stable jobs, a good working environment, and good benefits.

Furthermore, the Governor of Texas and the Agricultural Commissioner assisted in

recruiting the corporate hog industry to Texas. “Our company was recruited to this

state, this region, this county,” he said (Brown 1998:9). The Senior Vice-President of

the First Bank of the Southwest, supported these claims and concluded by testifying

to the beneficial effects on what was a rapidly declining tax base in the county.

Bonanno and Constance 19

DISCUSSION

Confronted with locally-based resistance, TNCs displayed a variety of counter

actions. Following the categorization employed in the presentation of the case

study, we organized corporate actions in three general groups: political, economic

and legitimative. These three distinct – yet interrelated – facets of corporate

behavior are analyzed in terms of: (1) the positive image of themselves that CAFO

corporations proposed in regard to the environmental and quality of life issues

(legitimative strategies); (2) their control of environment regulatory processes and

state environmental agencies (political strategies); and (3) the use of their economic

powers in regard to local communities and groups (economic strategies).

The Image

Throughout the case, CAFO TNCs projected an image portraying their Texas

Panhandle presence as environmentally sound and conforming with existing rules

and regulations. Employing their own rendering of the situation, support from

political and scientific leaders, and their reading of the opposition, CAFO

corporations presented a technologically “green” and socially positive image which

narrows the definition of environmentally sound operations and displays a

delegitimized view of anti-CAFO postures. We would like to illustrate four

constitutive elements of this image.

The first of them refers to CAFO corporations’ definition of their operations and

adopted technology as scientifically and technically sound. Despite local residents’

complains, throughout the case corporate arguments indicated that CAFOs were

structures designed to address present and emerging environmental problems.

CAFO representatives claimed that these were the product of state of the art

research which was aimed at combining productive efficiency with environmental

sensitivity. Downplaying nationwide complaints against CAFOs, in a number of

occasions members of local universities and research institutes supported the

soundness of CAFO technology. “It is possible to produce pigs without odor,” one

pro-CAFO expert concluded referring to new technological advancements in the

field. The message was clear, science indicated that the opposition’s complaints

over CAFO pollution transcended legitimate concerns. CAFOs were technically and

ecologically adequate and the supposed problems were simply not existent.

Simultaneously, this message supported a much narrower definition of

environmental problems. Those problems generated by CAFOs did not deserve this

label because they were at best “temporary problems” which can be further

addressed with available instruments. Following this discourse, the entire issue was

displaced to the levels of the opponents’ unreasonable demands and CAFO TNC’s

positive attitude toward the adoption of technical solutions.

CAFO corporation’s awareness of, and willingness to, address environmental

contamination is the second constitutive item of this positive corporate image.

While corporate representatives acknowledged that an odor issue existed, they

employed this admission to legitimize the “reasonable” nature of the corporate

posture and support the claim that companies have been doing everything possible

to address the pollution issue. CAFO corporations were not only responsible

members of society who were capable of acknowledging problems, they were also

equally responsible in the selection of solutions. The technical solutions that they

20 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

proposed were, in effect, adequate to solve the problem.

CAFO corporation’s responsible image is reinforced by their claims that they

have been cooperating to the fullest extent with Texas regulatory agencies and local

authorities and communities. Ignoring the content of Federal regulations which

pointed to the opposite, corporate positions identified Texas regulations to be

among the stricter in the nation which required more sophisticated record keeping

and better designed facilities. These were conditions which required additional

investments and higher production costs. CAFO corporations stressed that these

conditions have already been satisfied by the industry. Additionally, “CAFO TNCs

have been invited to Texas” one industry representative stated, pointing to local

public officials and community leaders’ efforts to attract CAFOs in the area. The

invitation was accepted and this, it was claimed, was one of the primary reasons for

the CAFO’s presence in the Panhandle region.

CAFO corporations’ presentation to the public represents the third constitutive

item of their image. The episode of the Ochiltree County CAFO tour is emblematic

of attempts to create public support by opening CAFO facilities to the inspection

of elected public officials and interested citizens and presenting empirical evidence

backing corporate claims.

During the tour, political figures endorsed CAFO operations. They addressed

visitors and praised CAFOs for their economic and social contributions. The

number of new jobs created and the increases in property value constituted some of

the central items of their presentations. They dismissed charged of socioeconomic

degradation by decoupling housing shortages, surging crime rates, school

overcrowding, and other related problems from the existence of CAFOs. These,

politicians maintained, are “more social problems than pork problems.” They also

dismissed pro-environmental groups’ contentions of air pollution as exaggerated,

legitimizing in this way the truthfulness of corporate claims about the adoption of

reasonable environmental positions.

The tour was characterized primarily by the presentation of empirical evidence

supporting corporate postures. At a closer scrutiny, however, we find that there was

an extremely selective presentation of “empirical evidence.” The accusation that the

facilities are environmentally unsound was countered by allowing visitors to view

them but only from a “safe” distance. No animals were visible nor were the often

questioned waste lagoons. Indeed, a lagoon was made available to inspection, but it

was under construction. This is an effective strategy to legitimize the use of waste

lagoons. By showing under construction lagoons, evidence of environmental problems

could never be detected because they emerge only when lagoons malfunction after

they became operational. However, the assumed environmental features of the lagoon

were illustrated to the visitors. Accordingly, the visitors were presented with an

explanation of the functioning of the lagoon in which its post-operational undesirable

consequences could not be verified while its potential – and therefore unchallengeable

– ability to address the environmental problems of animal waste was emphasized. A

similar tactic was employed for the illustration of the functioning of a feedlot mill

which was also under construction. In essence, the environmental soundness of CAFO

facilities was demonstrated by using a tactic in which claims of these structures’

positive features could not be contrasted with their actual characteristics.

Bonanno and Constance 21

6. Despite the fact that the Senator played a significant and prominent role in this case, it

would be erroneous to equate political actions with the individual. These were the outcomes

of the interaction of broader political forces in a context which was favorable to corporate

positions. References to the Senator in our analysis have largely heuristic purposes.

The fourth component of this corporate image refers to attacks to the credibility

of anti-corporate activists. The latter constitutes the fifth component of the corporate

image. In this instance, CAFO TNCs constructed a view of opponents’ actions

which evaluate them as exaggerated and unreasonable ones. These were the

outcomes of the work of activists who are stigmatized through the use of belittling

terms such as people involved in “agricultural terrorism” and “corporate sabotage.”

Indeed, the corporate position claimed their outrageous behavior was not only

dangerous to the well-being of local communities but something from which CAFO

operators should be protected. For instance, dwelling on a perceived scientific

position, a pro-corporate expert urged the Texas state law makers to introduce

legislation which would punish anti-corporate activism. In this view, CAFOs should

be protected from damaging radical activism which hampers the growth of these

positive socioeconomic contributions.

The Control of Environment Regulatory Processes and State Agencies

A second group of corporate strategies consists of their control of environment

regulation processes and state environmental agencies. Threatened by anti-corporate

activism, corporations worked to weaken the content of environmental legislation

and to diminish the sanctioning power of state agencies. Following the often

described path in which corporate actors control the polity, (Block 1977; Domhoff

1979; Miliband 1969; Poulantzas 1978), CAFO corporations were able to mobilize

support from key members of the state political apparatus. Most notably, they

enlisted the support of one influential State Senator6 who was known for his strong

ties to the agricultural sector and for the financial support that he received from it.

The request of CAFO corporations to the Senator and his associates was explicit:

to make the establishment and existence of CAFOs less problematic primarily

through reducing the ability of state agencies to cite them for environmental

violations. The plan of action centered on two items. The first consisted of the

establishment of a discourse in which TNRCC’s policy was defined as overbearing

and ultimately counterproductive to the well-being of Texas agriculture. The

adoption of this posture provided most of the justification for a pro-corporate

reform of the legislation regulating CAFOs. The second item referred to the de-

politicization of the issue. The elimination of public hearings, the restriction of

complains to technical merit, and the shifting of the dispute from the environmental

arena to the property arena characterized this action.

The Senator’s evaluation of TNRCC’s policy was made explicit through a memo

to the Amarillo TNRCC air quality manager. In that memo, the Senator admonished

the air quality manager that TNRCC’s actions against CAFOs were

incomprehensible and the outcome of “overly enthusiastic” behavior. A more

explicit illustration of this posture came in the text of a subsequent letter to

TNRCC. In that text, TNRCC’s actions in defense of existing environmental

legislation were defined burdensome and unfavorable to Texas agriculture. More

specifically, it was stated that continuation of anti-CAFO citations could negatively

22 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

impact the local economy as this situation could motivate companies to eventually

move their operations to other states. In this case, the often used corporate strategy

of “capital hyper-mobility” (Harvey 1990) was implicitly but clearly recalled to

deter TNRCC from enforcing pro-environmental rules. The Senator further justified

his point by maintaining that he received numerous complaints against TNRCC.

Indeed, though the Senator was pursuing a pro-corporate conduct, he constructed

a position in which his actions were viewed as consistent with popular desires. As

the events of the case indicated, though, the popular support claimed by the Senator

was contrasted by the actions of local TNRCC agents and those of other local

residents who protested CAFOs.

The depoliticization of the CAFO issue is emblematic of the ability of TNCs to

manipulate the polity. The elimination of public hearings deprived local residents

of the capacity to question corporate policies and practices and voice dissent.

Indeed, it eliminated one of the most feared forms of anti-corporate action available

to local rural residents. However, it could be argued that the most important

corporate achievement was the strengthening of a political climate in which

democracy appeared weak and its practice conditioned by the interests of a

restricted elite. In this context, the fundamental democratic principle of public

participation in decision making processes was reduced to a function which could

be eliminated with ease.

The control of the polity and its use to depoliticize the issue is further represented

by TNRCC’s reclassification of environmental pollution as a property issue and the

confinement of complaints to the technical merit area. “We don’t do property value”

claimed a TNRCC official, justifying in this manner the lack of intervention of this

agency in cases of environmental pollution. The justification included the claim that

this was a national event. The restriction of complaints from substantive objections

concerning air, water or land pollution to matters of technical merit signified that

objections to CAFOs could be raised only if established protocols for their approval

and construction were violated. More importantly, it signified that the objections of

anti-corporate activists were placed outside the TNRCC sphere of jurisdiction and,

therefore, could not be addressed employing this instrument. Despite opposition

from local cadres, CAFO corporations were able to neutralize the use of TNRCC

as a venue for anti-corporate resistance.

Finally, it should be noted that pro-corporate forces’ control over TNRCC

transcended the regulatory sphere to enter that of the establishment of a broader

pro-corporate discourse. This situation is exemplified by the acceptance of the

corporate vision of the role of TNRCC by the agency’s mid-upper level cadres. The

positions of TNRCC officials such as the air program director for TNRCC’s Field

Operation Division, but also Amarillo air quality manager’s resignation, are cases

in point. Though acknowledging the sense of frustration resulting from the changed

conditions of operation of TNRCC and the newly created limits of the agency’s

scope of actions, some TNRCC officers did not contest the new mission of the

agency and approved the reshaped and reduced meaning of protection of the

environment associated with it.

Economic Powers

The third strategy employed by CAFO TNCs consists of the use of their economic

Bonanno and Constance 23

clout to condition the actions of communities and groups. The events of the case

point to two related instances. The first refers to hyper-mobility. CAFO

corporations present their presence in the area in terms of the creation of new jobs

and the overall enhancement of the economic conditions. Because competition from

other geographical areas exists, corporate designs to invest locally should be

regarded as beneficial and benevolent. The second instance refers to the

exploitation of local socioeconomic contradictions to limit dissent. In this case,

TNCs provide the solutions to unattended community problems in return for the

abdication of possible anti-corporate behaviors.

As far as the first instance is concerned, CAFO corporations and their supporters

presented mega-hog farms as extremely beneficial in a situation characterized by

local economic stagnation. This growth, it was also argued, promised to be

extended into the future as demand for lean standardized meat has increased

steadily in recent years. Additionally, direct investments in the agro-food sector

positively affected other sectors, such as retail, housing and manufacturing, which

also displayed growth in the area. The benevolent dimension of corporate actions

is justified by the argument that the CAFO presence in the Panhandle was a

corporate decision favoring the area over numerous and equally deserving rural

locations domestically and abroad. Additionally, the CAFOs’ presence in the

Panhandle was not simply a TNC-based initiative as their relocation has been

courted by regional leaders. In this case, a number of alternative options could have

been pursued. Because political leaders such as the Governor of Texas, the Texas

Agricultural Commissioner, and members of the state of Oklahoma supported the

industry’s local presence and actively recruited CAFOs , the present course of

actions was taken. In essence, the corporate message is one in which local

communities greatly benefitted from the corporate commercial presence and one in

which these benefits would vanish if it were not for the willingness of TNCs to

remain in the area.

This posture, however, contrasts with past corporate behavior. Seaboard Corp.,

for example, relocated to the Panhandle region after intense exploitation of natural

and human resources generated intolerable levels of environmental pollution and

social contradictions in Albert Lea, Minnesota. In that area, Seaboard benefitted not

only from extensive economic support from local interests, but also from Federal

agencies. The city of Albert Lea donated $3 million and $3.4 million to build the

mega-hog facility and create the wastewater treatment plant respectively.

Additionally, the state of Minnesota contributed $5.1 million while the Federal

Government donated a hefty $25.5 million grant. Jobs were created, but at

significantly lower wages than previous meatpacking jobs in the same plant under

a previous owner (Karmatz et al. 1998). When local workers refused to accept the

precarious labor conditions and pay, Seaboard imported much cheaper and less

vocal Latino workers, a practice common in the industry (e.g., Fink 1998; Gouveia

1994; Stull et al. 1995). When the situation in Albert Lea became too uncomfortable

for Seaboard, it moved to the Panhandle while its president continued to reassure

local residents of his company’s intention to remain in Minnesota (Karmatz et al.

1998).

The events which occurred in Cimarron County, Oklahoma provide a clear

example of the corporate exploitation of local contradictions to silence opposition.

24 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

In this case, the community problem was Cimarron County’s inability to adequately

operate its schools. Seaboard intervened with a donation to the public school district

combined with other commercial concessions which were described as “good faith

efforts” to restore the community well being. In return, the company requested the

community’s commitment not to oppose corporate plans. Also in this instance, the

appearance did not match past experience. Indeed, if the case of nearby Guymon

can be employed as an indication of the social consequences of this type of

presence, Cimarron County can look forward to an increase in the overall crime rate

in excess of 60 percent, an escalation of assaults and rapes of more than 90 percent,

and auto theft of 200 percent (Karmatz et al. 1998). More importantly, through a

relatively small donation, Seaboard was able to force community residents to

renounce some of their basic rights such as free speech and freedom of dissent, an

inexpensive yet very significant accomplishment in a country like the United States

in which democracy and freedom are considered among the most important values.

CONCLUSIONS

Classical sociologists and many of their contemporary followers stressed the

connection between socioeconomic growth and the strengthening of democracy. For

instance, Weber (1978) and Durkheim (1984) – albeit in significantly different ways

– pointed out the positive contributions that the advent of the industrial revolution

and the establishment of capitalist social relations generated for society. Warning

about the dangers of the system, they maintained that the capitalist expansion of the

economy lifted society away from repressive feudal social relations, dramatically

improved living conditions, and allowed the existence of individual rights which

became constitutive elements for the existence and exercise of democracy. Even

Marx (1997) and Marxist thinkers placed an emancipatory connotation to their

analyses of the expansion of the forces of production. In the Marxist tradition, the

growth of capitalism produced unsustainable and unequal social relations.

Simultaneously, however, it also improved the economic, political and social

conditions of subordinate groups as bourgeois democracy provided the context for

emancipatory struggles of oppressed classes.

The events of this case study speak directly to this longstanding sociological

tenet. The expansion of CAFOs is a move designed to enhance capital accumulation

and market control on the part of TNCs. Corporations employed a variety of

sophisticated strategies to respond to local resistance and enhance their image of

pro-environment and pro-socioeconomic growth agents. These strategies were able

to counter protest emerging from overt degradation of local living conditions and

economic expansion based on low wages and unstable jobs. More importantly,

TNCs’ promises of economic growth came with the request that communities forfeit

their rights to participate in democratic processes. The elimination of public

hearings for the establishment of CAFOs, the limitation of complaints to the

technical sphere, and the strategy of buying consensus through economic donations

are episodes which point to a situation in which the expansion of economic forces

demands a narrowing of democratic spaces. Departing from views which support

a much deregulated role for TNCs, this situation is telling of the consequences that

unchecked TNC’s actions can have for society.

If the scenario is correct and if the issue of coupling economic growth with

Bonanno and Constance 25

democracy is relevant, development plans should be formulated in ways that

transcend these past experiences. It seems clear that faced with a situation in which

hyper-mobility is accompanied by TNCs’ ability to affect the polity and legitimate

their actions, individual communities as well as society should move away from

strategies which assume competition among localities for the attraction of direct

investments. This developmental path tends to isolate communities and make them

vulnerable to the negative effects of corporate designs. One alternative way to

conceptualize resistance rests in the development of broader alliances spanning

across communities and regions which expands the boundaries of opposition to

match TNCs’ scope. While these options are available, the extent of local resistance

points to the difficulties that residents encounter in altering established patterns of

economic development. This is a situation which generates concerns about the

future of rural communities and democracy and, as such, it is one which deserves

further scrutiny.

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Alessandro Bonanno is Professor and Chair of the Sociology Department at SamHouston

State University in Huntsville, Texas, USA. His research focuses on the implications that the

globalization of the economy and society in general and the agro-food sector in particular

have for democracy and emancipatory options for subordinate groups. He has published

several books and articles on this subject.

Douglas H. Constance is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Sam Houston State University

in Huntsville, Texas, USA. His research focuses on the environmental and community

implications of the globalization of the agro-food sector. He has published a book as well

as numerous book chapters and articles on this subject.

* I wish to thank the organizers and participants of the Seventh Conference of the Agri-Food

Research Network, University of Sydney, 15–17 July 1999 for their feedback relating to an

earlier version of this paper. I also wish to thank Jane Dixon, Tracey McIntosh and Cate

Wilson for their invaluable assistance. Correspondence to: Dr Bruce Curtis, Department of

Sociology, Faculty of Arts, The University of Auckland, Private bag 92019, Auckland, New

Zealand; e-mail: b.curtis@auckland.ac.nz.

Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40), International Sociological Association.

REFORMING NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURE:

THE WTO WAY OR FARMER CONTROL?*

Bruce M. Curtis

University of Auckland

INTRODUCTION

This article has in its title a question about reforming agriculture in New Zealand:

The WTO way or farmer control? This formulation contrasts a neoliberal

agenda for agriculture championed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and

particular interests within New Zealand, with the agendas of farmer-run institutions,

most notably the producer boards. Here ‘farmer control’ is used as a shorthand

formulation for the nexus of institutional and fiscal arrangements by which

producers (farmers and growers) have been able to regulate the networks connecting

farm gates and foreign consumers. In this respect the export orientation of New

Zealand agriculture is very significant. The main elements of farmer control have

been the producer boards, each of which has had control over specific export

products: the Apple and Pear Marketing Board, the Dairy Board, the Kiwifruit

Marketing Board, the Meat Board and the Wool Board.

There can be no doubt that the producer boards and the farmer control they

engender have been under attack for many years. The election of the fourth Labour

Government in 1984 and its implementation of deregulation and neoliberal policies,

is a convenient marker for the beginnings of this assault. This condemnation of

farmer control has been pitched in terms of what Pusey (1993) calls ‘economic

rationalism’. With New Zealand’s entry into the WTO, international pressures have

been added to local criticisms of producer boards. The combination of the two may

well be decisive in annihilating the boards and any vestiges of farmer control.

Pusey (1993) rightly notes a tendency among economists for arguing from first

principles. Similarly Hirsch, Michael and Friedman (1990) deride the proclivity of

economists for ‘modelling’. More richly, Callon (1998) talks of economic rationales

as the exemplar of social construction or ‘framing’. Framing is understood to

involve the social construction of relationships through the very process of adducing

those interactions. In an earlier work, Callon and Law (1989) identify how such

attempts at framing result in the deployment of resources (which they call

‘investments of form’) which constitute the necessary efforts in the construction of

30 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

new networks of relationships. It is the contention of this article that the economic

rationalism that marks the critique of producer boards must be understood as an

example of framing. Hence the critique of the producer boards is assessed in terms

of the operation of a ‘politics of markets’ (Fligstein 1996).

In such a politics the WTO must figure as very significant indeed. The resources

and investments of form it brings to bear ensure that any struggle it has with

producer boards in New Zealand is likely to be one-sided. However, this is not to

say that the WTO is irresistible. As the recent edited collection from Lee and Willis

(1998) shows, globalisation and the putative liberalisation of international trade

remains a process that is networked, negotiated and implemented in different

geographic scales. Consequently there remain possibilities for agriculture and for

farmers other than the corporate ‘rule of law’ favoured by the WTO (World Trade

Organisation 1998).

ENTER THE WTO

The WTO is the only international agency overseeing the rules of international trade.

Its purpose is to help trade flow smoothly, in a system based on rules, to settle trade

disputes between governments, and to organize trade negotiations (World Trade

Organisation 1999c).

The Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation entered into force on

1 January 1995. New Zealand was one of 120 original signatories to this agreement,

and on signing it became a member of the WTO. At the time there was broad

support in New Zealand for joining the WTO and for its revolutionary agenda of

trade liberalisation. Those opposed were (and remain) a decided minority in New

Zealand (Small 1996). For the majority, the calculation of costs and benefits from

membership in the WTO and the policy of trade liberalisation was clear and

favourable. This, it can be argued, was largely because New Zealand agricultural

exports are unsubsidised and its domestic markets are unprotected. In this respect

it is crucial to remember that the Labour Government of 1984–1990 removed

subsidies to farmers. New Zealand farmers, unlike their foreign counterparts, now

operate without much in the way of direct or indirect support from the state

(Nottage 1997; Sandrey and Reynolds 1990).

The removal of subsidies was fiercely contested at the time, but in their wake an

accord has emerged about generalised benefits should other countries follow New

Zealand’s lead. In New Zealand the potential gains from trade liberalisation in

agriculture – or trade liberalisation in general – are considered to be enormous.

Here it should be remembered that the recent imposition of quotas on lamb by the

U.S. became front-page news in New Zealand (for example, The Dominion 1999;

New Zealand Herald 1999). Indeed such is the enthusiasm for advancing trade

liberalisation in other countries that political adversaries have spoken with one

voice about the WTO. Along these lines, Lockwood Smith, the former Minister of

Agriculture and International Trade in the National Government (1990–1999):

In 1995, New Zealand joined more than 120 of the world’s major trading nations in

a new organisation dedicated to freer, fairer international trade… Just as refrigerated

shipping opened up the world meat trade for New Zealand, and aerial topdressing

Curtis 31

unleashed the productive potential of our hill country farms, the WTO will mark a

major shift in the way New Zealand does business with other nations (Smith 1997).

A former chairman of the Dairy Board matches this enthusiasm for the rule of the

WTO:

John Storey today expressed delight at the WTO’s ruling regarding Canadian

discounted milk. ‘We are delighted with the outcome of the WTO panel’s

consideration of this complex matter… This confirms what we have always contended.

The attempt to get around the WTO rules controlling the use of such subsidies has,

therefore, been prevented… Mr Storey said the case was a ‘graphic illustration’ of the

importance of WTO processes to New Zealand. It has been possible to have raised and

considered objectively, an issue of major importance to our international trading

interests and have it resolved in a way which is legally binding on the parties

concerned’(Dairy Board 1999b).

In short the WTO has garnered broad support in New Zealand. Claims by Mike

Moore, director general of the WTO and former Deputy Prime Minister in the

Labour Government, that ‘the answer to poverty is more trade and business, not

less’ (Wheat 2000:89–90) are widely endorsed. Most significant in terms of this

endorsement is the degree of unanimity from both critics and supporters of producer

boards – those farmer-run institutions that control much of the export oriented

agriculture of New Zealand. Nevertheless, this endorsement of WTO-led

liberalisation in other countries belies real divisions in New Zealand domestic

policy. A shared desire for trade liberalisation and expectations about the WTO acts

to obscure rather than to resolve important issues in New Zealand. Specifically, the

WTO simultaneously provides a dynamic for the extension of neoliberal reforms

in domestic agriculture (albeit export-oriented agriculture) and reworks possibilities

for resistance to such an extension. In the playing out of this contest, what is central

is the fate of the producer boards and the forms of ‘farmer control’ they have

enabled (Curtis 1999a, 1999b; Hussey 1992).

At the same time struggles between neoliberal reformers and the supporters of

producer boards can no longer be understood as bounded by or within New Zealand

policy networks. As a member of the World Trade Organisation, New Zealand is

subject to new forms of rulemaking (McRae 1998). This rulemaking is already

affecting, and will increasingly impact on, the producer boards. McMichael (1998,

1999) suggests that the version of market liberalisation pursued by the WTO will

be critical in shaping local agricultures and the (mis)fortunes of farmers. Associated

with this claim is the notion that the WTO is a fraud perpetrated by the United

States and European Union on consumers and farmers in the Third World. Of

course, locating New Zealand and New Zealand agriculture in this type of scenario

is highly problematic. Further, farmers and their producer boards are enthusiastic

supporters of trade liberalisation and the WTO in terms of the impact they have on

other countries. What emerges from these contingencies is a range of possible

scenarios, the most likely of which is that the proponents of market liberalisation

will use the strictures of the WTO to revisit and promote what they consider to be

the ‘unfinished business’ of reform in New Zealand (Douglas 1993).

32 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

BOARDS BESIEGED

It is important to note that neoliberal reform of the type championed by the WTO,

is regarded for the most part as an accomplished fact in New Zealand. Successive

Labour- and National-led Governments have transformed the economy and the role

of the state. While there are a number of strands to this appraisal of the new ‘New

Zealand experiment’ (Kelsey 1995) these come together in any accounting of the

historic victory of economic rationalism over bureaucracy (Easton 1994a, 1999;

Gregory 1999; Pusey 1993; Schneider 1998). In this context Pusey (1993)

summarizes economic rationalism as the canon of market rule: ‘markets and prices

are the only reliable means of setting a value on anything, and… markets and

money can always, at least in principle, deliver better outcomes than states and

bureaucracies’ (Pusey 1993:14). In this respect, the process of reform is understood

by policymakers and critics as deregulation and the unleashing of market forces (for

example, Kelsey 1995; Rudd and Roper 1997).

Putting aside the rhetoric of reform for the moment, it seems clear that

agriculture is somewhat at odds with the broad thrust of neoliberal reform to date,

insofar as there have been decided limits to the deregulation of agriculture (Cloke

1989, 1996; Perry 1992). However, this exceptionalism is overlooked in most

accounts of neoliberalism and the reforms associated with it. It is found, however,

in the extent to which agriculture has been only belatedly subjected to ‘structural

reforms’ in the New Zealand economy (Easton 1994b). In this respect the

proponents of neoliberal reform and the ‘market juggernaut’ (Dennis 1995) they

front, has encountered real resistance, the most significant manifestation of which

is found in the retention of producer boards. Noting this, Scrimgeour and Pasour

(1996) have bemoaned the fact that:

There has been little substantive reform in international marketing of New Zealand’s

agricultural products. Today, marketing boards and export authorities heavily

influence marketing decisions for some 80% of New Zealand’s agricultural and

horticultural exports (in terms of value). Boards with statutory monopolies exert

control over about 30% of all exports. …impetus for change is slowed by actions of

the boards that use grower funds to convince growers that the boards are efficient and

essential for farmer success.

Nevertheless, the reformers have had their victories, even in agriculture. Reform

as deregulation has thus far secured: (1) the removal of very extensive direct and

indirect production subsidies to farmers; (2) the termination of generous tax breaks

to farmers and to their cooperatives; (3) the move by the Reserve Bank to charge

commercial rates on producer board reserve accounts; (4) the elimination of the

most obvious examples of rent-seeking by farmers (Scrimgeour and Pasour 1996);

(5) the introduction of the Commodity Levies Act (New Zealand Parliament 1990)

which made it possible for the creation of new or alternative producer bodies; (6)

and the introduction of the Dairy Board Amendment Act (New Zealand Parliament

1996) and the Apple and Pear Industry Restructuring Act (New Zealand Parliament

1999), which set in train a review of the structures and shareholding of two of the

most important producer boards (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 1999).

The greatest challenge to the producer boards is to be seen in changes to their

Curtis 33

1. Perhaps the clearest example of the continuing influence of farmers is found in the forced

resignation of the chairman of Dairy Board, as result of his losing the election for the NZ

Dairy Group’s Te Awamutu ward (Dairy Board 1999a).

constitution and governance structures (Weir 1992). This aspect of the reformist

agenda echoes that around the corporatisation and privatisation of state-owned

enterprises achieved by the neoliberal state in the 1980s and 1990s. It centres on the

creation of tradable shares in publicly owned entities. By these mechanisms, many

central government ministries and local governments assets were converted into

companies and sold to corporate interests (for example, Government Print, Housing

New Zealand, New Zealand Rail, Telecom, and the public transport boards, power

boards and water boards owned by various city councils) (Duncan and Bollard

1992).

The first example of what can be called a nascent corporatisation in agriculture

is a product of the Apple and Pear Industry Restructuring Act (1999). This Act has

resulted in the conversion of the Apple and Pear Marketing Board into a corporate

entity (ENZA Limited), with shareholding vested in individual growers. Individual

shareholding in the board was allocated on the basis of historic levels of production.

Shares can only be traded between growers and there is a 20 percent cap on

shareholding. However, such shareholding creates the potential for the

reconstitution of ownership beyond the initial holders (that is, growers) and into the

hands of corporates. Within four months of the restructuring of the Apple and Pear

Marketing Board, this possibility had become a reality:

ENZA said it was expecting an offer from a third party that would top the combined

bid for a controlling 40 per cent stake by Sir Ron Brierley’s Guinness Peat Group

(GPG) and investment bank FR Partners…Surrendering control to corporate

boardrooms was the fear of all other primary industry groups as they struggled under

the previous [National] Government’s instructions to split marketing from the

ownership of production. The kiwifruit industry, and the dairying industry – which is

in the throes of revamping its structure – are noting the lesson. One observer picked

that ‘the evolution’ would spread to the kiwifruit industry, while another said the dairy

industry had had a clarion call (Stevenson 2000).

Changes in ownership of the Dairy Board have been somewhat challenged with

the allocation of shares to processing companies rather than to individual farmers.

This reflects the fact that since 1936, dairy farmers have been compulsory members

of their local dairy cooperatives which, in turn, elected representatives to the Dairy

Board (Hill 1972, Morris 1993). While the vesting of shares to companies

precipitated the abandonment of an electoral process based on wards (electorates)

determined by the Dairy Board, in favour of wards constituted by dairy

cooperatives, there is no possibility for the trading of shares between individuals.

The scenario facing the apple and pear industry is still prohibited in the dairy

industry. Further the influence of farmers on policymakers in the dairy industry

remains undiminished.1

The legislative changes to date are insufficient to simply eliminate the producer

boards. The Commodity Levies Act (New Zealand Parliament 1990) may make it

34 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

2 ‘The really emotional issue at present is the prospect of the ‘single-seller’ producer boards

losing their monopoly selling powers. Apple growers have been particularly vocal about this,

but it is almost an article of faith among dairy farmers and probably still has majority support

from kiwifruit growers. They firmly believe that one export agency, set up by legislation, can

gain better returns for farmers than numerous unregulated marketers. Although superficially

attractive, this idea is wrong, and it is doing farmers and the country a good deal of damage’

(Thomson 1999:10).

3. ‘The sustained attack on the producer marketing Producer Boards is founded on ideology,

with the argument invariably beginning with theory and ending with the case for abolishing

legally possible for producers to establish new forms of association, but this process

is both extremely circuitous and relies on the initial support of producers.

However, as the Apple and Pear Industry Restructuring Act (New Zealand

Parliament 1999) has shown, the boards can – with a one-off approval of a majority

of producers – be converted into corporate entities with tradable assets. Certainly

there is now a sustained pressure on individual producers to sell their shareholdings

or to create the situation in which this transfer is possible.

To repeat, the pressures for the reform of agriculture in New Zealand are intense.

The ‘blitzkrieg’ approach favoured by reformers in the 1980s and 1990s (Easton

1994a, 1994b, 1999) has become a policy debate centred on the constitution and

governance structures of producer boards. This in turn problematizes the powers of

the boards, especially the single selling (monopoly) rules that have been enforced

by the Apple and Pear Marketing Board, Dairy Board and Kiwifruit Marketing

Board. These monopoly arrangements by which only the producers boards are able

to engage in export have long raised the ire of critics.2

THE POLITICS OF MARKETS

The assault on the producer boards is most actively pursued by several departments

of state, notably the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Treasury, and by

the New Zealand Business Roundtable. Their efforts have centred on discrediting

– with a view to dismantling – the producer boards and, to a lesser extent, farmers’

cooperatives. The proponents of reform have variously portrayed the producer

boards as examples of rent seeking, and as inadequate carriers of market signals

which stifle innovation and investment, and cause significant ‘dead weight’ losses

(Bates 1998; Crocombe 1991; Garway Investments 1988; Hussey 1992; Jacobsen,

Scobie and Duncan 1995; Scrimgeour and Thurman 1997). While each of these

(and other) commissioned reports has adopted a distinct focus, the body of work

portrays the producer boards as irredeemably inefficient and irrational.

A perception of inefficiency and irrationality on the part of the producer boards,

is unsurprising coming from economists (and all the report writers are economists)

whose paradigm is one of economic rationalism. Such accounts are systematically

blind to the politics of markets (Fligstein 1996). In other words, the critique of

producer boards must be understood as anchored in concrete interests. This aspect

of self-interest is generally overlooked by both the critics (for example, Thomson

1999) and the champions of producer boards (Moran, Blunden, and Bradly 1996).3

Curtis 35

the Producer Boards’ (Moran et al. 1996:172).

4. This view found an echo in the New Zealand context in the comments by the Commission

of Enquiry into the Meat Industry (1959:9), which stated that, ‘Broadly speaking, however,

the producer sees in a complicated field of processing and marketing of his raw material

many possible opportunities by… companies to exploit him. This is, of course, right, but is

not necessarily proof that he is so exploited’.

At times the proponents of reform give the game away. In doing so, the attack on

the producer boards is revealed as motivated not so much by a disinterested concern

with the inequities of rent seeking, etc., but by the interests of actors who are in

someway excluded from particular networks (Curtis 1999c). Thus, in the forward

to Farmer Control of Processing and Marketing: Does It Serve the Interests of

Farmers? Roger Kerr, Executive Director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable

claims:

It is possible that even after the removal of the statutory backing of producer boards,

unrealistic expectations and unwarranted fears will continue to exert an influence on

questions relating to farmer control. Any failure to make the best commercial decisions

will depress farmers’ incomes and constrain the economic opportunities available to

large numbers of other New Zealanders (Kerr cited in Bates 1998:v).

What Kerr signals is that the ‘economic’ well-being of particular industries or

sectors in agriculture may – and probably will – be at the expense of incumbent

actors. Among other things reform would allow new forms of entry and exit in

agriculture. If international and historical comparisons are any guide (for example,

Sanderson 1986), such heightened mobility of capital is likely to be to the detriment

of relatively immobile farmers. In this regard, the proposed, neoliberal, reform of

agriculture is largely about the problematics of old and new middlemen.

Stinchcombe (1961) has long since noted the suspicion of farmers toward

‘middlemen’ of all types.4 Indeed political mobilisations by New Zealand farmers

against middlemen originated the first of the producer boards. Hence, the Meat

Board and the Dairy Board were established in the context of a crisis (for farmers)

of agricultural prices in the early 1920s. This crisis was – in turn – stimulated by the

return to ‘free trade’ arrangements after the commandeer system used in World War

One (Roche 1992). Middlemen, in the form of processing and marketing firms,

were then able to exercise their refurbished ‘market power’ in order to drive down

prices so as to ruin and acquire the assets of their competitors and farmers (Curtis

1999a, 1999b; Roche 1992). As a result of mobilisations by farmers – in reaction

to this unfavourable politics of markets – the first of the producer boards were

constituted as farmer run ‘boards of control’ (New Zealand Parliament 1923:i)

Clearly, the circumstances and options facing producers and middlemen in the

early years of the twenty-first century are very different to those of the 1920s (Curtis

1999a, 1999b). For example, the threat to farmers of real subsumption by vertically

integrating middlemen has abated. Nowadays the modern middlemen – now more

commonly called agribusiness – tend to favour contracts in order to subordinate

farmers and horticulturalists (Curtis 1998; Watts 1994). What remains constant is

the perceived threat to producers from what economists mistakenly call free trade,

36 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

5 ‘Article XVII of the GATT 1994 is the principal Article dealing with state trading

enterprises (referred to as ‘STEs’) and their operations. It sets out that such enterprises – in

their purchases or sales involving either imports or exports – are to act in accordance with

the general principles of non-discrimination, and that commercial considerations only are

insofar as it unfetters the middlemen. Consequently, it is important to distinguish

the costs and benefits of trade liberalisation for farmers. Where liberalisation allows

them greater access to consumers (in New Zealand these are foreign consumers)

farmers are supportive. Where liberalisation allows middlemen greater influence (in

part, to come between producers and consumers) then farmers are wary.

The playing out of such alternative scenarios is a political process centred on

institutional arrangements. Thus, the producer boards may be said to make

interventions into markets or, more properly, the politics of markets, to limit or

channel free trade (Curtis 1999b). This is done to strengthen the position of farmers

vis-à-vis middlemen or agribusiness companies. In the New Zealand context, the

key to these interventions is found in the politics of ‘averaging’ (Hussey 1992;

Moran et al. 1996). Here ‘averaging’ may be understood as a form of aggregation

made possible by the producer boards to otherwise disaggregated actors

(producers). The rationale for such averaging is of course to secure farming and, in

particular, family-labour farming (Friedmann 1978).

The producer boards enforce forms of averaging in terms of returns, costs and

risks. There are several examples of this, with single selling merely the most

contested. Single selling, or the monopoly control of exports by producer boards,

is significant because it obviously impacts on the incomes of a range of middlemen,

by disbarring them from marketing arrangements. Other examples of averaging are

pursued by the other boards and have much the same effect. These include: (1) the

imposition of uniform grading and quality standards on export produce; (2) the

compulsory negotiation of freight rates and timetabling of shipping; (3) the

centralisation of research and development; and (4) the introduction of branding

initiatives. In this sense, when economists criticise producer boards for a lack of

market transparency, what they are pointing to are the intended rather than

unintended consequences of farmer control (Fleming 1999).

WTO: A NEW RULEMAKER

WTO member states no longer have a choice over whether or not they will be involved

in trade litigation (McRae 1998:222).

To date deregulation has eliminated all forms of fiscal support to farmers; what

remain are the rump institutional elements of farmer control. These elements, the

producer boards, are vital in constituting the politics of markets in the collective

interests of farmers. This collective interest is secured through the boards by a

politics of averaging. While producer boards have thus far weathered the storm of

neoliberal reform in New Zealand, the World Trade Organisation introduces a new

dynamic for reform. In short, the WTO constitutes yet another front in the assault

on producer boards. It does so because of the strictures it imposes on state trading

enterprises (STEs).5

Curtis 37

to guide their decisions on imports and exports. It also instructs that Members are to notify

their state trading enterprises to the WTO annually’ (WTO 1999b).

From the perspective of the New Zealand state, producer boards cannot be said

to be truly state owned enterprises. Rather, the boards are constituted as

autonomous bodies and are specified statutory powers in terms of raising levies and

rulemaking. As a result, they can act compulsorily on producers and middlemen.

What they are not are assets of the state, which is why the main policy tools of the

neoliberal reformers – corporatisation and privatisation – are comparatively

attenuated in agriculture. However, the World Trade Organisation does classify the

Apple and Pear Marketing Board, the Dairy Board, the Kiwifruit Marketing Board,

the Meat Board and the Wool Board as STEs. Further, as a signatory of the

Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation, the New Zealand state is

bound by such rulings (McRae 1998).

The WTO’s rules pertaining to STEs are fourfold: (1) non-discrimination,

commonly referred to as ‘most favoured nation’ (MFN) treatment; (2) no

quantitative restrictions; (3) preservation of the value of tariff concessions; and (4)

transparency (WTO 1999b). The focus of this WTO rulemaking is to maintain

access to markets and in this respect its goals are not inconsistent with those of the

producer boards and the farmers. Transparency is (or will be) the problematic issue.

Without transparency, ‘a significant area of potentially WTO-inconsistent practices

may be escaping WTO scrutiny and regulation’ (WTO 1999a). In order to enhance

transparency, all STEs are required as part of a process of notification, to detail

their annual activities to a specially constituted panel of the WTO. It is claimed that

this aspect of the ‘trade policy review mechanism’ (TPRM) benefits the (WTO)

member under review: ‘The TPRM has stimulated the internal evaluation of trade

policies in Members…The Review strengthens the hands of domestic agencies

promoting liberalisation, supports trade reforms and, thus, helps individual

Members to become better WTO citizens’ (WTO 1998 – italics added).

The point at issue is the extent to which the politics of averaging secured by the

producer boards are compatible with the goals of the WTO. It seems highly likely

that averaging and, in particular, single selling will be found to be in some way

discriminatory or non-commercial. As noted earlier, Roger Kerr, Executive Director

of the New Zealand Business Roundtable and other proponents of reform in New

Zealand, have already argued as much. Certainly the proponents of domestic reform

find in the WTO both a powerful ally and a rationale for liberalisation. Further, the

WTO casts the New Zealand state and neoliberal reformers in the role of Pontius

Pilate. Even without a ruling against the producer boards, reforms might be imposed

as if reformers were, in effect, ‘only following the orders’ of the WTO. A former

Minister of Agriculture gives some sense of this:

It is vital to New Zealand that WTO members accept the rules: that refusing to comply

is seen as a grave international offence. If WTO members get away with refusing to

comply, the system will break down and we will be back to pre-WTO days (Smith

1999).

38 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

DISCUSSION: INNOVATION AND THE

WORKINGS OF GLOBALISATION

The WTO presides over the most far-reaching attempt to level political, social and

environment protections in the name of efficiency and market freedom (McMichael

1998:97).

In New Zealand many claims and counter-claims have been made about the

producer boards and the outcomes they engender. To date the versions favoured by

reformers have failed fully to carry the day. Conversely, a body of work has been

produced which is supportive of the producer boards (Steel 1995, McKenna 1999).

This lack of agreement on the nature and role of the producer boards is symptomatic

of what Schon and Reid (1994:4) call an ‘intractable policy controversy’.

Intractable policy controversies are ‘immune to resolution by appeal to facts’

(Schon and Reid 1994). In such controversies, ‘economic agents can no longer be

kept at a distance from the investigations which by the same token, they help to

hamper’ (Callon 1998:263). However, beyond New Zealand’s boundaries the policy

debate appears significantly less intractable. As McMichael (1998) notes, the

agenda of WTO is both clear and global. Indeed, the vaunted rulemaking of the

WTO operates precisely to ascertain the ‘facts’ while appearing to be at arm’s

length from the protagonists (McRae 1998; WTO 1999d).

A fair degree of cynicism is warranted about the motivations and consequences

of the WTO. The promotion of trade liberalisation through the WTO is clearly

sponsored by big business and the economic powers (notably the U.S.). However,

this begs the question, when have such interests not dominated international trade?

Actually, what is more pressing is the extent to which the WTO regime closes off

possibilities for small states (and in the case of New Zealand, small producers) to

trade globally. Katzenstein (1985) has noted how some small states are highly

innovative in linking international trade and inclusive domestic policies. Mabbett

(1995) provides some confirmation for this in the New Zealand experience. What

she largely overlooks is the centrality of producer boards. In this respect, the

‘levelling’ attributed by McMichael (1998) and others (for example, Watkins 1996)

to the WTO would necessarily eradicate much of the historical basis of Katzenstein-

like innovation by New Zealand. This raises again the issue of middlemen and the

extent to which they control the networks of trade. Historically, producer boards

secured control for farmers and in doing so cemented a particular development path

for New Zealand (Font 1990). Reform (i.e. the dismantling) of the producer boards

would propel New Zealand down a very different path, one in which non-farming

interests have control of agriculture.

At the same time, McMichael’s (1999) argument for the WTO as the carrier of

‘globalisation’ in the form of the obliteration of the local is unsustainable:

The challenge of a global perspective such as this is its credibility. The world is far

more complex and messy than the theoretically-driven characterisation that I have laid

out here. Some argue that a global view imposes a singular, or categorical, logic on a

geographically and culturally diverse world (see for example Whatmore 1994). But

this is exactly what I am arguing (McMichael 1999:17).

It is important to remember that the process of globalisation is not pursued

Curtis 39

globally, so much as simultaneously at different locales. New Zealand is one such

locale and in agriculture, at least, reform by fiat is still not in the offing. What

Easton (1999:3–9) calls the ‘permanent revolution’ of neoliberal reform, which

carries with it the obliteration of the institutional bases for alternative policies, is not

worked through in agriculture. In short, the producer boards retain institutional and

statutory reserves sufficient to ensure an evolutionary aspect to neoliberal reform

for the foreseeable future.

CODA: TWO CAN PLAY AT CORPORATISATION

Tradable shares and corporatisation provide at least two scenarios by which the

producer boards can be dismantled, through: (1) their (re)constitution as state

owned enterprises and sale in toto; and (2) the individualisation of shareholding and

its diffusion beyond the farming sector. Yet corporatisation also offers farmers and

their producer boards real opportunities, which are being explored by all boards. In

this sense, corporatisation equates with the producer boards becoming more

company-like in their structure and operations (Meat New Zealand 1998:5–14).

How far this type of corporatisation can be pursued, while still advancing the

collective interests of farmers in the politics of averaging, is undetermined. One

prospect is that through corporatisation, producer boards will be transformed into

farmers’ cooperatives and as such, will be registered under the Companies Act of

1993 as limited companies. This type of transformation could disrupt attempts to

frame (and dismantle) the producer boards under the WTO rubric of state trading

enterprises (STEs). Therefore, it might allow both a version of deregulation and –

more importantly for farmers – the extension of a new form of farmer control.

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Bruce M. Curtis is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Auckland.

His research interests include the restructuring of the agricultural sector, boards and

cooperatives as important organisational forms in New Zealand, industrial relations and

labour processes, and the reworking of community.

* All correspondence in relation to this article should be directed to Stewart Lockie, Centre

for Social Science Research, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton QLD 4702,

AUSTRALIA. Phone: +61-7-49306539. Fax: +61-7-49306402. Email: s.lockie@cqu.edu.au.

Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40), International Sociological Association.

RENEGOTIATING GENDER AND THE SYMBOLIC

TRANSFORMATION OF AUSTRALIAN RURAL ENVIRONMENTS*

Stewart Lockie

Central Queensland University

Kristen Lyons

Griffith University

INTRODUCTION

The last decade has seen arguably profound cultural changes in Australian

agriculture. Land degradation and issues of environmental sustainability have

risen to the fore despite the productivist agenda that has dominated agricultural

politics and policy since European invasion of Australia two centuries ago (Lockie

1998b); while rural women have become increasingly politicised around a range of

environmental, community and production issues despite their widespread rejection

of feminist identities (Alston 1996). Agricultural landscapes are constructed

increasingly as more than sites of production, and farm women as more than

‘farmers’ wives’ and ‘off-siders’. Indeed, over 30 percent of Australian farm

businesses have become involved in community Landcare groups associated with

the National Landcare Program. Former National Landcare Facilitator Andrew

Campbell (1994:1–2) asks us to ‘imagine a country in which one person out of

every four belongs to a conservation group, actively seeking ways of improving

their environment’ and the possibilities this might hold for a whole range of

environmental issues, before pointing out that ‘in rural Australia this is already

happening’. Importantly, together with the more loosely defined Women in

Agriculture movement, Landcare groups have become one of the core foci for

Australian farm women’s increased involvement in agricultural politics and

organisations. For many, the parallel timing of these developments is no

coincidence – the nurturing of land and community implied by a recasting of

agricultural landscapes as places in need of ‘care’ being seen as congruent with

women’s perceived embodiment of nurturing and caring characteristics – the

sustainability agenda thereby promoting women’s participation in public issues and

vice versa (Beilin 1997).

According to Patricia Allen (1993), sustainable agriculture needs to be based on

a platform of social justice. Failure to address inequalities such as the economic and

political marginalisation of women and minorities is almost certain, she argues, to

lead to conflict that will ultimately undermine the social conditions of production

and promote increased social and environmental exploitation. Social justice is thus

44 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

1. Both these research projects were undertaken as part of doctoral projects concerned

broadly with relationships between agriculture and environment. Lockie’s (1996) study was

conducted in the mixed farming zone of south west New South Wales, and involved

ethnographic interviews with 51 people, a household-based sample survey involving another

133, participant observation and discourse analysis. Lyons’ (forthcoming b) study involved

organic farmers from both Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand) in over 70 ethnographic

interviews.

a necessary precondition for a sustainable agriculture, but it is not necessarily a

sufficient condition (Allen and Sachs 1991). The obvious question here is the extent

to which promoting social justice for women through their increased involvement

in agricultural politics and organisations will actually lead to changes in farming

practice and, if so, in what ways? Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with

participants in community Landcare groups and the organic farming movement1, we

argue that at issue is not only the question of who is involved in particular social

practices surrounding agriculture, but also the conceptions of human–nature

relationships embedded within those practices. While it is true that the symbolic

gendering of many practices has legitimated women’s exclusion from participation

in them, we argue that even as women’s involvement in these practices becomes

more publicly recognised, it is still the case that: firstly, the symbolic

masculinisation of farming practices acts on both women and men as they construct

their relationships to nature via the agricultural labour process; and secondly, that

this masculinisation is only one factor influencing the construction of farming

practices and their role in mediating human–nature relationships. In order to make

this argument a little more transparent, we will turn first to a brief outline of the

theoretical approach that will guide this paper.

SITUATED ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGES AND

THE GENDERING OF THE LABOUR PROCESS

While there is insufficient room in this paper to deal with them in depth, we think

it unhelpful to pursue essentialist arguments regarding the ‘natural’ relationships

between women, men and nature. Rather, we concur with Agarwal (1992),

Harraway (1991) and Sachs (1996) that the very different experiences of women

and men in the labour process and other spheres of activity do entail different

interactions with nature. The necessarily partial knowledge that women and men

develop is, to use Harraway’s (1991) term, ‘situated’ in these different experiences

and interactions. But it is also important to remember that any categorical

distinction between the experiences and knowledges of women and men is

problematic; potentially overstating differences between women and men and

understating differences among them (Connell 1987, 1995). This is most obvious

in relation to the experiences of people of different ethnic, racial, class and national

backgrounds and the ways in which all these dimensions of difference and

commonality interact in the development of more-or-less unique situated or

indigenous knowledges (Sachs 1996). Less obvious are the effects of ‘external’

agencies such as governments, agri-science agencies and agribusiness.

There is a tendency within agrarian sociology to deal with farming cultures and

Lockie and Lyons 45

indigenous knowledges as exclusively ‘localised’ phenomena (eg. van der Ploeg

1985, 1992), ignoring the extent to which the social relations in which

contemporary farming cultures and knowledges develop stretch in space and time

beyond the ‘local’ and through which ‘external’ agencies attempt to exert influence

over farmers ‘at a distance’ (Murdoch and Clark 1994). That environmental

knowledges are ‘situated’ in peoples’ unique experiences does not mean, therefore,

that these knowledges are bounded solely by the ‘locale’ in which most day-to-day

activity occurs. Thus, to the extent that farming practices are constructed in

masculinised terms, such masculinisation arises from the interactions of a complex

array of actors seeking to define farming practice and to shape environmental

knowledges in a variety of social contexts. By implication, seeking to understand

the relationships between the renegotiation of gender in the labour process and the

symbolic transformation of rural environments must entail a multi-focal

ethnographic approach (Marcus 1992) that moves between the understandings of

farm women and men and those agencies that seek to influence those

understandings, together with the discursive resources they have at their disposal

to do so.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE

MOVEMENT, LANDCARE PROGRAMMES, AND ORGANIC

FARMING IN AUSTRALIA

The Australian Women in Agriculture movement – also known as the rural women’s

movement – is a loose-knit collective of women linked through a variety of movement

events and networks. This movement coalesced in the mid 1980s when the Victorian

State Government appointed women’s advisors in the Department of Agriculture who

subsequently established the Victorian Rural Women’s Network and promoted annual

‘Women on the Land’ gatherings (Alston 1996). This model has subsequently been

adopted in most other Australian States. According to Liepins (1998a), while Women

in Agriculture participants vary widely in age, the majority are Anglo-Australian

women from owner-operator farm units. Although there is evidence that the interests

of Indigenous women and issues of native title and reconciliation have been positively

represented within movement publications (see for example the Summer 1998–99

edition of The Country Web, Special Koori Edition), activism has focussed more on

farm-based issues than on wider rural community issues. According to Liepens

(1998a), network activities, such as gatherings, have played a key role in transforming

the subjectivities of farm women; particularly in generating self-identities as farmers

in their own right, rather than as farmers’ wives, and as confident and legitimate

political activists. Their activism has focussed on two primary issues: firstly, reversal

of the historically invisible contribution women make to farming and to rural

communities; and secondly, a broadening of the rural policy agenda beyond

commodity issues to include social and environmental considerations related to

agriculture (Alston 1996; Liepins 1995). This combination of networking and activism

has spawned: formalised movement organisations such as Australian Women in

Agriculture and the Foundation for Australian Agricultural Women; a series of

International Women in Agriculture Conferences beginning in Melbourne in 1994;

and recognition and support from Federal Government for the representation of rural

46 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

women’s interests in policy making (Alston 1996).

The National Landcare Program (NLP) was launched in 1989; its centerpiece is

the promotion and support of a nation-wide network of community Landcare groups

based on localised watersheds or neighbourhoods. The emphasis of these groups

was on addressing local environmental degradation in a cooperative and integrated

manner, with governmental support available to assist with group coordination, trial

and demonstration projects and, increasingly, problems of particular regional

significance. Groups have tended to focus on educational activities, farm and

catchment planning projects, tree planting, and demonstrations and trials of new

practices (Campbell 1994; Curtis and De Lacy 1997). The consistency of Landcare

with the otherwise often competing discourses of ecological sustainability,

community empowerment and economic rationalism has seen it achieve almost

universal political support and widespread community involvement (Lockie 1997a).

Women’s rates of involvement in Landcare are considerably higher than in other

farm-based organisations (Lockie 1997c). Furthermore, it appears that high

participation rates among women is a feature of the most active groups (Curtis and

De Lacy 1997), even though women tend to be more concentrated in support roles

than in positions of leadership (Beilin 1997; Curtis and De Lacy 1997) and that

involvement in Landcare seems to act as a springboard for many women into a

range of other farming-related organisations (Lockie 1997c). The other remarkable

feature of Landcare is the extent to which it has facilitated a transformation in the

way land degradation is understood from a problem that many farmers did not

recognise, and which many more denied publicly, to one that is discussed openly

and addressed cooperatively (Lockie 1998b).

According to some critics, however, Landcare is more oriented towards

supporting current agricultural systems by addressing some of their more obvious

environmental impacts than towards any fundamental reassessment of the high-input

model on which these systems are based (Lockie 1999a). Organic agriculture, by

contrast, represents an opposition to conventional methods of agriculture. Organic

farming systems avoid the application of synthetically compounded chemicals,

while utilising natural biological systems, including crop rotations and biological

pest control, in an attempt to maintain both a productive farming system as well as

ensuring the long term viability of farm families (NASAA 1998). Importantly, this

organic agriculture movement – comprising both producers and consumers – which

began to expand worldwide during the 1920s, has sought to resist incorporation

within dominant systems of food provision and, therefore, marks a distinct shift

from dominant food systems (Belasco 1993; James 1993). Researchers and growers

concerned with the environmental and health impacts of agriculture and food

production drove initial research into organic production systems. This was

exemplified in Australia by the work of people like P.A. Yeomans – who in the

1950s was critical of artificial fertilisers and focussed upon building up the quality

of the soil naturally (Barr and Cary 1992) – and Bill Mollison who began research

Lockie and Lyons 47

2. Permaculture is based upon a philosophy of permanent self sustaining and regenerating

agricultural systems, based upon household and community self-reliance. Permaculture

principles have been embraced by many people in urban communities, who are unhappy with

the scientific and technological dependence predominant throughout contemporary

agricultural practices. (Mollison 1990).

and practice with permaculture systems2. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s,

formalised organic consumer and grower organisations began to expand worldwide

(Campbell 1996) and, by the early 1980s, organic certification systems began to be

devised in Australia to regulate this growing industry (Lyons forthcoming a). To

date there are seven nationally recognised organic certification organisations – the

Bio-Dynamic Research Institute of Australia, the Biological Farmers of Australia,

the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Organic Herb Growers of

Australia, Organic Food Chain, Tasmanian Organic Producers and Organic

Vignerons of Australia – as well as a number of smaller groups (Lovisolo 1997;

Lyons and Lawrence forthcoming). Alongside the establishment of these bodies,

interest is now beginning to be shown by food processing companies, including

Uncle Tobys (see Lyons 1999), Berrivale, Bunge, Sandhurst and Nugans (Monk

1998). These food-processing companies have facilitated significant changes within

the organic industry, including expanding distribution channels as well as the

variety of organic produce available. Importantly, many Australian organic products

now selling on international markets. In response, the Australian government has

recently devised a national organic standard, administered by the Organic Producers

Export Group in order to encourage international trade of organic products.

FEMINISING THE LABOUR PROCESS

Women in Landcare

The importance of reconceptualising farm women as ‘farmers’ to their

empowerment within the agricultural labour process and in public organisations is

difficult to overstate. This is in no small way due to the importance placed by farm

men and women on the ‘practical’ application of situated knowledge developed

through the labour process. The importance of this belief in shaping participation

in public forums was illustrated by one farm woman whose husband thought that

much of women’s lack of involvement in leadership positions within Landcare

groups resulted not from exclusion, but from their own reticence to take on such

roles. Explaining her own view this women commented that:

I also feel that I don’t know enough about certain aspects as far as Landcare is

concerned, so I don’t feel comfortable, I suppose, coming up with certain ideas … if

I did I would have more of a prominent role, for instance, if I was in my husband’s

position I would, but since I don’t have the knowledge I don’t (Lockie 1997c:84).

Her husband’s ‘position’, of course, refers to his higher level of involvement in

what was understood as ‘productive’ labour. While there were women who thought

that men were simply too chauvinistic to accept women in leadership positions

conversely, others believed that the legitimate male role was to lead while women

provided motivation and support. Women generally saw men as more knowledgeable

and were less interested than men in joining Landcare groups for the purpose of

48 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

accessing information and education. The unique experiences and perspectives that

many women may have been able to contribute were thus just as often invisible. The

manner in which this is manifest at the farm level is taken up below.

On-farm Decision-making and Environmental Management

As indicated above, one of the primary areas of activism for Women in Agriculture

has been in raising the profile of women’s contribution to agriculture. According

to Alston (1990, 1995), women have been rendered invisible by a failure within

public discourse to acknowledge: firstly, the extent to which the so-called domestic

activities to which they have been culturally relegated contribute to the profitability

of the farm business by reproducing and maintaining its labour force at minimal

financial cost; and secondly, the extent to which they are actually involved in the

supposedly more productive activities associated with on-farm labour. This

contribution has been marginalised through the labelling of women as ‘off-siders’

and ‘helpers’ and the tasks they perform as peripheral or supportive – such as

driving into town for spare parts – leaving power to make decisions largely with

farm men. In support of this, Lockie (1996) found that according to the results of

a household sample survey which quantified the levels of involvement among all

family members in those farm activities understood as ‘productive’, women were

substantially less involved than men in all areas of farm labour except for book

keeping, and in all areas of farm decisionmaking except for tree planting. The more

mechanised and input-intensive the practice, the less that women were involved in

either performing it or making decisions about it. Similar results have been reported

by Grasby, Lockie and McAllister (2000) based on a national survey of the

Australian sugar industry.

This may, of course, be expected to change somewhat because of both farm

women’s activism and a decline in the ability of many farms to employ labour due

to declining terms of trade. Nevertheless, Lia Bryant’s (forthcoming) recent study

of young women engaged in agricultural education with a view to becoming farmers

reveals some interesting insights into the continued hegemony of masculinised

constructions of the labour process. Bryant found that while feminism and the

Women in Agriculture movement had opened the possibility to take on greater

managerial responsibility for farms without transgressing the bounds of acceptable

femininity, the understandings young women had of their own bodies still precluded

the possibility of taking responsibility for much traditional “men’s work”. These

women sought to define farming in terms of ‘business management’. This allowed

them to construct their own subjectivities and bodies in ways that avoided their

masculinisation – which they constructed in relation to the masculine body’s ability

to perform hard physical labour – and maintain their femininity – the feminine body

constructed as softer, weaker and sexually attractive to men. Bryant’s participants’

emphasised the importance they saw of ‘maintaining femininity’ by ‘not competing

with men’ and by not repeating ‘the mistakes of those women who begin to dress

and act like men and lose their femininity’. Importantly, these constructions were

not solely of the young women’s making, but were reinforced by: firstly, constant,

and often physical, sexual harassment from the men with whom they studied; and

Lockie and Lyons 49

secondly, disparagement from those same men of women’s abilities to engage in

and learn from the labour process – to develop situated knowledge of farming as

opposed to ‘text-book’ knowledge. Similarly, Liepen’s (1998b) analysis of rural

media found a recurring discourse associating masculinity with hard physical work

in a challenging environment; a discourse drawn on by the rural press and farm

leaders alike. The gendered construction of the human body is linked to

constructions of the labour process in a variety of contexts, and thence to the

construction of knowledges through that process.

The question still remains then as to how women’s unique experiences of the

agricultural labour process may influence their knowledge and their conceptions of

the natural environment. Problematically, a number of authors have sidestepped this

issue of the situatedness of knowledge and assumed that women intrinsically

establish more harmonious relationships with nature and community. Liepins

(1995:122), for example, quotes as ‘findings’ from the first International Women

in Agriculture Conference the argument that:

women think more laterally than men and have a stronger stewardship ethic. Women

as educators and nurturers care about the land and are not embarrassed to show this

… Women have great enthusiasm and staying power. They operate more intuitively

and in a cooperative way – essential traits for resolving the complex issues presented

in working towards developing sustainable agriculture.

For Liepins (1995:123), this is leading women to reconceptualise agriculture;

exploring the linkages between ‘the economic viability of farming, environmental

care, consumer responsibility, community sustenance and political justice’. The

importance of such thinking is echoed by Campbell (1994:127), who states that:

It is usually the women on the land who are the first to express concern about the long-

term effects (on human health and the environment) of agricultural chemicals, or about

the loss of remnant vegetation and hence wildlife, or about water quality, landscape

values or the closure of schools, the ageing of rural populations and social

fragmentation … Furthermore, women are often more open and better able to

communicate about these issues, and they tend to have a wider network of confidantes.

Alston’s (1993, 1995) ethnographic study of farm women found considerable

levels of concern about agricultural chemicals and their effects, in particular, on the

farm men applying them and other members of their family, including unborn

children. Unfortunately these women also thought they had little choice but to

continue using these chemicals if they were to remain economically viable, with

several reporting largely unsuccessful attempts to either reduce or discontinue their

use. Despite this, Alston (1993) contends that increased participation among women

in decisionmaking would help to reduce chemical use.

There are two inter-related problems with this argument. Firstly, it adopts a

simplistic understanding of gender that assumes that women as a group are

categorically different to men as a group (similar conceptualisations are evident in

the quotes above from both Liepins and Campbell), meaning that differences among

women and similarities between women and men are ignored. Secondly, and

flowing from this, research with farm men in similar parts of rural Australia has

revealed almost identical concerns and beliefs (Lockie et al. 1995). The question

50 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

3. Location within the labour process need to be understood in a wide sense. For example,

Barbara Geno’s (forthcoming) study of attitudes towards financial management techniques

that ‘account’ for sustainability found that while women appeared more receptive to these

techniques than men, gender differences disappeared when corrections were made for

education, suggesting that the experience of higher education was actually the most

important factor influencing adoption of these techniques.

of why farmers have continued to intensify chemical – use despite the widespread

expression of concern is dealt with in more detail below, with the argument put that

pressures to intensify act on both men and women. The more immediate question

is whether women’s and men’s location in the labour process may have led to any

substantial difference in their responses to such pressures3. It is certainly of

importance that women at the forefront of Women in Agriculture believe this

movement to have played a key role in placing chemical-safety on the public

agenda. However, there is no evidence on a wide scale to suggest that this has led

to reductions in chemical-use or to changes in the constructions of nature and

environments implicit in such use.

Constructing Good Farming Practice and Managing Risk

According to writers such as O’Connor (1993) and Dryzek (1987), in the absence

of regulation there is a tendency within capitalist economies towards a declining

rate of profit and the externalisation of environmental and social costs of

production. Producers, in other words, faced by falling commodity prices and rising

input costs seek to increase production and efficiency in order to boost their own

market share and to reduce costs per unit of labour and land. Failure by individuals

to do so results in a loss of competitiveness and viability even though the overall

impact is to promote overproduction and further falls in commodity prices. Under

such circumstances, the incentive is for producers to ignore environmental and

social damage caused by this intensification in resource-use – particularly that

which is caused by off-site – despite the long-term damage to the productive

capacity of the resource base that may be caused. In very general terms, this is just

what has happened in Australian agriculture since the Korean War-fueled wool

boom of the 1950s (Lawrence 1987). Such outcomes are not inevitable, but are

mediated by a multitude of cultural and regulatory frameworks and the

constructions of human–nature relationships embedded within these. Of particular

relevance here are those constructions that pertain to the ‘right’ way to go about

farming, or about what it means to be a ‘good’ farmer. At the same time then that

there have been clear shifts evident through Landcare towards the association of

‘good’ farming with an open approach to dealing with land degradation – or to the

symptoms of unsustainable farming systems (Lockie 1998b) – there have also been

discernible shifts in the regulatory and market environment faced by Australian

farmers over the last decade or so that have encouraged the acceleration of

intensification of input and resource-use (Lockie 1999b). This is not to say that

farmers have simply been abandoned to the vagaries of the global marketplace, but

that while collective mechanisms for dealing with risk – such as statutory marketing

boards – have been progressively dismantled they have been replaced with a variety

of techniques that are promoted to farmers as means of calculating risk and

Lockie and Lyons 51

4. Lockie (1996, 1998b, 1999b) found that farmers in south west NSW who had undertaken

property planning applied more than three times as much lime (t=2.24, p=.030), and spent

twice as much per hectare on chemicals (t=2.47, p=.017), as farmers who had not undertaken

property planing. It also appeared that they spent about 50 percent more per hectare on

fertilisers, although this was not statistically significant (t=1.77, p=.082), reflecting the

relatively small sample size (n=63) and long history of fertiliser use in the area. In relation

to practices which had less direct production benefits, such as tree planting, there were no

significant differences between those farmers who had participated in property planning and

those who had not.

regulating their own behaviour. Such techniques include property planning, futures

marketing and contract farming (Higgins, Lockie and Lawrence forthcoming;

Lockie 1999b; Martin and Woodhill 1995).

While neoliberal policy constructs a picture of the ‘good’ farmer according to his

or her engagement with the abstract notion of ‘the marketplace’, farmers are

actually brought into relationships with economically powerful corporate actors

from the world of agribusiness. While this may lead to direct losses of control over

on-farm production processes (Rickson and Burch 1996), for broadacre agriculture

at least the implications of neoliberalism may be more profound in relation to the

technologies of knowledge on which farmers are increasingly dependent in order

to calculate and manage risks. When asked by Lockie (1996) to describe the major

changes he had seen during his own career in agriculture a District Agronomist with

NSW Agriculture responded:

Definitely the use of chemicals, and probably the philosophy that [farmers] are more

in control than they used to be, because we know more of the parameters that affect

what they do … there are more things that they can measure, and more things that they

have control and a choice in compared to what they used to have. So it should be more

predictable than it used to be, apart from the rainfall. All things being equal … there

are a lot more things that they can know about than when I started.

The point here, however, is that embedded within what ‘they can know’ are

specific constructions of the human–nature relationship and the way to manage that

relationship through agriculture (Lockie 1997b). The overwhelming bulk of

Australian agricultural research is directed either straight into increasing production,

or into supporting a high-input model of sustainability consistent with drives

towards intensification and the interests of agribusiness firms in selling farmers the

necessary inputs (Barr and Cary 1992). Applied technologies of knowledge, such

as property planning4, rely on the interpretation of data such as soil tests through

frameworks established as often as not through ‘input-requirement’ trials; ie.

through interpretive frameworks that take as their starting point the assumption that

production conditions can, and should, be controlled through the use of synthetic

chemicals and fertilisers. Organic alternatives, by contrast, have frequently been

ridiculed and discredited (Lyons and Lawrence 1999) due to the belief by

governments and state agencies that productivity cannot be maintained without the

judicious use of synthetic inputs (Barr and Cary 1992). Despite the unease that

many farmers feel towards high-input agriculture, ignoring or rejecting the

‘knowledge’ created by agri-science agencies is a risky strategy. For many

52 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

producers, farming is risky enough due to the uncertainties of weather and market

conditions without adding to that risk by adopting a fundamentally different

approach to their farming to that of their neighbours and the agri-science agencies

that support and advise them (Lockie 1997b, 1999a). In a discussion of diversity,

or lack of it, among farmers in their area, one male farmer from south west NSW

stated that:

Farmer: We help each other as individual farmers as well. I think a lot of decisions are

made like that; a lot really [of] keeping up with the Joneses. But I suppose you’re kept

within certain boundaries of decision making by what people in the district and other

farmers are doing, rather than going off and doing something completely different.

Interviewer: Why, because it’s been tried, or you know it will work, or some sort of

social pressure to … fit in with what everyone else does?

Farmer: Well yes, part those. I mean you know farmers are careful in what they are

going to do, they do not like taking risks – unnecessary risks. You’re involved in a

risky business with the elements alone, without going and exacerbating it by doing

something to further increase that risk factor.

Reinforcing constructions of what ‘normal’ or ‘good’ farmers do on their farms

are a plethora of agricultural media and texts that present to farmers pictures of

‘themselves’. Lockie’s (forthcoming) review of the representation of farm-inputs

in rural print media found a normalising discourse in which high-input approaches

were taken as the norm and constantly associated with images and quotes from male

farmers about what they were doing on their own farm; that is, linking this

normalising discourse to the situated knowledge of practicing farmers. Further, with

high-input agriculture presented as the norm, alternative approaches, such as

organic agriculture, were reinterpreted through the same frame. Organic producers,

where mentioned, were thereby represented as clever marketers responding to

consumer perceptions regarding ‘clean’ and ‘green’ foods, rather than as opponents

to chemicalised farming systems. Agribusiness advertisers, on the other hand,

attempted to associate fertiliser-use with scientific precision, and chemical-use with

reliability and effectiveness – all attributes that help farmers to reduce risk through

control over the farm environment. This control was itself reinforced frequently

with forceful, violent slogans and images such as ‘Win the war against wild oats

with Avadex BW’; a militaristic metaphor accompanied by a drawing of a battle-

ready soldier. Few advertisements made direct reference to farming as an

exclusively male domain, but the representation of chemical-based control in terms

of overtly masculinised attributes and behaviours (albeit socially constructed ones)

is consistent with a wider discourse of masculine agriculture. With print media

coverage of issues and information related to chemical-use and farming practice

accompanied overwhelmingly by photographs of male farmers pictured among

crops or livestock, farming is represented as an essentially male activity and

masculinity as the interpretive frame through which information and images about

farming may be rendered meaningful to audiences.

It therefore appears that there is some congruence between neoliberal agricultural

policy, the agri-science research agenda and farming culture. Such congruence is

not inevitable. It is pursued and reinforced through multiple arenas, texts and

Lockie and Lyons 53

practices. Although women’s experiences may lead them to develop alternative

situated knowledges to men through their marginalisation in the labour process, they

are still exposed to the same representations of farming practice and farmers

through rural media; the same technologies of knowledge developed by agri-science

agencies; and the same pressures towards risk minimisation. Changes in farm

practice are about much more then than the renegotiation of gender relations at the

farm or even community or industry level, but about the whole agri-science,

regulatory and cultural infrastructure that supports industrialised and masculinised

agriculture. In such a context, the gender dynamics of organic agriculture are clearly

of particular interest since organic farming is based to such a large degree on the

rejection of many of those technologies of knowledge that are currently driving

intensification.

ORGANIC FARMING AS A CHALLENGE TO INDUSTRIALISED

AND MASCULINISED AGRICULTURE

Before attempting to outline the extent of the challenge that organic agriculture

presents to masculinised and industrialised agriculture it is important to

acknowledge something of the diversity that exists within the organic industry. In

particular, the manner in which the industry profile has changed with the recent

entry of a number of relatively large-scale producers with close contractual

relationships with food processing firms (Lyons and Lawrence forthcoming). No

longer a small-scale alternative to industrialised food production, processing and

distribution methods – a ‘food counter-culture’ (Belasco 1993) – organic production

is fast becoming a key element in the strategies of a number of food processors and

retailers to supply high quality, safe, and premium-priced foods. In general terms,

these foods are targeted towards the creation and supply of high-value niche

markets, while more universal systems of Quality Assurance are becoming

increasingly widespread to ensure compliance with chemical application guidelines

and other safety and quality standards for foods destined for mass markets (Lockie

1998a). The primary motivation of these recent entrants to the organic industry

appears to be the price premium they receive for organic produce (Lyons and

Lawrence forthcoming; Burch, Lyons, and Lawrence forthcoming). Many of these

growers have been previously involved in conventional agriculture and have

recently converted only a portion of their land to organics in order to access markets

for high-value organic produce while avoiding the economic risk entailed in

converting all of their land to chemical-free production. For these farms, the

decision to convert at least some land to organic production has been primarily a

male one, although interviews with both women and men on these farms revealed

that women were very supportive of it, in part because it provided them with what

they perceived to be a ‘healthier’ environment in which to raise their children. In

relation to the labour process more generally on these larger farms there appeared

very little difference with the gender division of labour for conventional agriculture

discussed above, with men more involved in work involving farm machinery and

other outdoor activities, and in negotiations with field advisors and certification

officers, and women more involved in bookkeeping, childrearing and housework.

54 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

5. This is not to suggest, of course, that situated knowledge of the effects of chemical and

fertiliser does not influence such a decision to convert, nor that such situated knowledge is

not gendered.

While economic viability may still be important, the majority of organic growers

argue that their primary motivations for farming organically relate to health, the

environment and quality of life (Lyons and Lawrence forthcoming). It is this group

of growers – whose operations often are smaller in scale and supply either local or

generic marketplaces rather than marketing directly to food processing firms –

which challenge in many ways the traditional gendering of labour processes. This

is shown clearly in decisionmaking related to the decision to ‘go organic’ as well

as in the subsequent labour process. Interviews with both women and men on these

farms revealed that in many cases women made the decision to go organic, and were

more vocal in expressing the importance of practicing organic methods. Further,

while on those farms recently converted to organics due to the premium that may

be received for organic produce men were much more actively involved in decision-

making related to farm management, on those farms where issues related to health,

the environment and lifestyle predominated this was not the case. On the majority

of these farms both men and women shared many roles traditionally ascribed to

men. In particular, issues related to decisionmaking and farm management were

more equally distributed. Interestingly, on some organic farms women alone

managed decisionmaking and were responsible for the majority or all of the work

related to the farm. Often, in these cases, men had undertaken off-farm work to

subsidise the income from the farm. Women on these farms were much more vocal

throughout interviews.

It is probably reasonable to expect that all recent converts to organic production

would have limited situated knowledge of how to produce food organically and would

thus be dependent on external sources of advice5. In considering what information

sources both women and men access for growing organically there again appears to

be a bifurcation between those longer-term growers interested in holistic issues, and

the larger-scale recent entrants to the industry. Importantly, many recent entrants

obtained most of their information – including detailed production specifications –

from the agribusiness firms with whom they had their production contracts, thus

establishing a completely vertically integrated system of production, processing and

distribution (Lyons and Lawrence 1999). Field days, newsletters and visits with

company agronomists all provided information to these organic growers. In nearly all

these cases, men indicated that they dealt primarily with agronomists and with any

details related to the contract or with the firm. Women on these farms occasionally

attended field days and regularly read newsletters. Leipens and Campbell (1997) also

found this in New Zealand. This pattern appeared to be common across all organic

growers, with men participating more actively in information gathering that involved

talking with other people (such as representatives from certification bodies,

agricultural consultants, etc.), while women were much more thorough in reading

through various material sources. It is evident, therefore, that even those members of

organic farm partnerships that demonstrated little evidence of traditionally gendered

Lockie and Lyons 55

labour processes either maintained, or had difficulty challenging, the gendered

attribution of public and private roles in relation to information gathering activities.

CONCLUSION

There can be little doubt that women’s increasing visibility within the agricultural

labour process will serve as an important means of empowerment for them. In no

small part this is due to the recognition given to the situated knowledge they are

thus seen to develop and which is believed to be necessary to make decisions about

the farm and to participate in decisionmaking at Landcare group levels.

Nevertheless, is this enough to challenge the hegemony of masculinised farming

practice? So far the evidence seems to suggest not. The relative levels of

involvement of women and men is important, but so too are the increasingly

integrated relationships between the farm and the production of knowledge in agri-

science agencies and the processing, distribution and retailing of foods in an ever

more concentrated agribusiness sector. The situated knowledge of farm men and

farm women cannot be understood independently of this wider context of social

relations in which they are enmeshed. This does not mean that farm women and men

have no choice or agency, but it does mean that there are substantial risks associated

with deviation from the dominant trajectory of input-use intensification. Where

farmers have taken the risk to ‘go organic’ it is certainly of great interest that

women have been so central to the decision to take that risk and to the subsequent

operation of the farm. This represents a very small proportion – some two percent

– of the farms in Australia. Further, the current growth in organic farming and food

products seems fuelled by the (often partial) conversion of larger farms linked

closely to agribusiness, oriented towards the supply of high-value markets, and

dominated by traditional divisions of labour. While the increasing availability of

organic foods is welcome for those consumers who can afford them, it remains to

be seen just how widely available they become; the influence their production has

on mainstream, or ‘conventional’, agriculture; and the extent to which their

production comes to represent more than compliance with minimum standards.

Unless these occur, the organic industry will remain little more than a potentially

lucrative niche market for some, and a small-scale counter-cultural pursuit for

others. As yet there is little, if any, evidence to suggest that the symbolic

transformation of Australian rural environments as environments in need of care has

been translated into any large-scale project to fundamentally reassess and redirect

agricultural production. Our hope is that despite this, the renegotiation of social

relationships necessitated by a growing Women in Agriculture movement, a

growing organics industry and continued widespread participation in Landcare will

raise the questions necessary to stimulate such a reassessment.

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Stewart Lockie is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of the Centre for Social Science

Research at Central Queensland University, Australia. Current research activities focus on

the greening of food and agriculture, social impact assessment and coastal zone

management. Recent co-edited books include Critical Landcare (1997), Consuming Foods,

Sustaining Environments (2001) and Environment, Society and Natural Resource

Management (2001).

Kristen Lyons is Lecturer in Science, Technology and Society at GriffithUniversity,

Australia. Her current research interests include organic agriculture, gender, and science

and technology studies. She is co-editor of Social Change in Rural Australia (1996), and

has recently published articles on her research into the Australian and New Zealand

organic agriculture industries in Rural Sociology and Culture and Agriculture.

* I would like to thank Carol Zabin, Dawn Robinson, anonymous reviewers, and many

ejidatario and non-ejidatario participants in Durango and Quintana Roo’s community

forestry experience for their contributions to the work represented by this paper. I have full

responsibility, however, for any errors of fact or interpretation. Please direct correspondence

to me at: Department of Sociology, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins CO 80523 USA;

e-mail: Pete.Taylor@colostate.edu.

Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40), International Sociological Association.

COMMUNITY FORESTRY AS EMBEDDED PROCESS:

TWO CASES FROM DURANGO AND QUINTANA ROO, MEXICO*

Peter Leigh Taylor

Colorado State University

INTRODUCTION

Mexican community forestry has become widely known as a resource

management regime capable of effectively governing access to common pool

resources and organizing owners toward sustainable use of the forest (Bray 1997;

Klooster 1997). Nevertheless, more than a decade of neoliberal economic

restructuring, including entry into the GATT in 1986 and the NAFTA in 1994 and

profound changes in rural land tenure arrangements, have transformed agrarian

production (Harvey 1996). In the forestry sector, a new legal framework turns

forestry technical services over to the market and authorizes internal economic

groups independent of the ejido or agrarian community assembly. These

neoliberalism-inspired reforms undermine peasants’ hard-won organizational

capacity to deal with their own resource problems.

This paper examines two cases of peasant-based forestry organizations, the

Union of Forestry Ejidos and Agrarian Communities “General Emiliano Zapata”

(UNECOFAEZ) in the north central pine and oak forests of Durango and the

Society of Ejido Forestry Producers (SPFEQR) in the south-eastern tropical forests

of Quintana Roo. Both the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR are well-known for

promoting high quality technical services, supporting peasant-controlled processing

and serving as influential interlocutors on behalf of their members. Both

organizations face crises created by internal and external structural pressures.

Nevertheless, restructuring is peopled by social actors; the organizations’

trajectories are shaped by complex interactions between structural pressures and

social agency. Community forestry organizations, therefore, are best understood as

historical processes rather than as static arrangements of incentives and procedures,

and as being embedded in levels of context ranging from local to global.

COMMUNITY FORESTRY AND THE “TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS”

Garret Hardin’s famous 1968 article, “The Tragedy of the Commons” set off a

lengthy debate on collectively-held natural resources. Hardin (1968) posed a

60 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

1. Much of the Quintana Roo analysis draws on research presented in Taylor and Zabin

(2000).

hypothetical scenario in which rational calculation led animal herders to destroy

their common pasture rather than cooperate to avoid overgrazing because the utility

of adding an extra animal was appropriated individually while the ecological burden

was distributed collectively. Privatization proponents (see Alchian and Demsetz

1973) drew on Hardin’s individualistic model to claim that rational individuals

cannot cooperate to achieve rational collective outcomes.

However, critics of tragedy arguments such as Wade (1987) pointed out that the

tragedy scenario assumes that participants can only choose once what behavior to

engage in and that they cannot learn from experience that collective management

of resources can work in their favor. Other critics have observed that Hardin’s

approach assumes that collectively-held resources necessarily involve open access.

On the contrary, researchers have identified many common pool resource regimes

operating among communities of beneficiaries, limiting non-owner access and

governing use among co-owners (Feeny, Berkes, McCay, and Acheson 1990).

One of the most influential critiques of Hardin’s Tragedy is the “institutional

choice” perspective pioneered by Elinor Ostrom (1990). According to Ostrom,

individuals may develop successful common pool resource regimes when they share

a common understanding of their situation and strategies for change, they value the

benefits from collective activity relative to its costs, and they constitute a relatively

well-defined and stable group (1990:90, 211; 1999:4–7). The institutional choice

perspective’s focus on internal design principles is highly useful for understanding

and predicting the individual’s investment in rural change (McCay and Jones 1997).

Nevertheless, common property scholars now suggest more fully engaging the

dimensions across which management regimes operate. McKean (1997) advocates

moving “outside” to complement the institutional choice perspective’s “inside”

focus on specifying the institutional arrangements of successful management. Others

draw on economic sociology’s notion of “embeddedness” to place property regimes

in historical contexts of external and internal social relations (McCay and Jentoft

1998). Fortmann and Roe (1993) argue that community boundaries are often

ambiguous or based on diverse class, religious, ethnic and other characteristics

which give members different, often contradictory, relations to forest benefits.

Klooster (1997) recommends that common property theory “sally forth out of the

institutional details of organization and excessively parsimonious models of rational

choice” to focus on external and internal social contexts of struggle within forest

communities (1997:310–311).

This study is based on qualitative research during seven visits to Mexico over a

three year period. Field research1 included observation and over eighty interviews

in forestry communities and organizations. Below, I move back and forth between

discussing the political economy in which Mexican community forestry is

embedded and the case studies of its changing social institutional framework.

Mexican community forestry is an exemplar of common pool resource regimes

Taylor 61

2. Ejidos are communities formed by twenty or more ejidatarios who together work land

granted by the State. Comunidades agrarias have similar collective tenure characteristics,

but have roots in land claims dating as far back as the colonial period. Together, ejidos and

agrarian communities account for 48 percent of Mexico’s land surface (Cabarle, Chapela,

and Madrid, 1997:20).

(Richards 1997). About 80 percent of its forests are owned collectively by ejidos

and agrarian communities.2 In 1992 organized communities were responsible for 40

percent of total timber production and 15 percent of industrial wood products.

Today, Mexican community forestry organizations are among the world’s vanguard

(Bray 1997). As “nested enterprises” (Ostrom 1999:7), such secondary level

forestry organizations have institutional characteristics similar to those of

communities pursuing sustainable common pool resource use.

This study approaches the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR as “embedded

processes.” Peasant-based organizations, once the linchpin of Mexican community

forestry, are now being undermined directly and indirectly by a new legal

framework. Unprecedented combinations of communally organized forestry and

smaller local associations are emerging. New actors with diverse interests exert

influence over forestry at different levels. Both the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR

are pushed by internal and external pressures to reevaluate the arrangements which

researchers find necessary for viable common pool resource management (Ostrom

1990). They are reformulating common resource objectives, reworking the way they

provide benefits necessary to keep member support, and even redefining the

boundaries of their respective “communities” of stakeholders.

THE EMERGENCE OF MEXICAN PEASANT

FORESTRY AS EMBEDDED PROCESS

Mexico’s fifty-five million hectares of temperate and tropical forest comprise about

25 percent of its territory. Durango has some 10 percent of the forested area, with

5.5 million hectares of mostly pine and oak forest (see Figure 1). Quintana Roo

contains about 6 percent of forests, with 3.7 million hectares of tropical forest

(SEMARNAP 1996). Mexico’s forests are the world’s fourth most important

genetic reserve (Téllez Kuenzler 1994:75–76) and provide carbon fixing, micro

climate regulation, and hydrological watershed protection services (Merino and

Alatorre 1997). Though the forestry sector contributes only about 0.4 percent of

GNP (Téllez Kuenzler 1994:24), forests are home to 17 million of Mexico’s poorest

indigenous and mestizo peasants (Merino Pérez 1997:141). These forest dwellers’

economic needs have an important impact on the health of the forest. Deforestation

occurs at a rate as high as 700–800,000 ha./year (Chapela 1997), with rural poverty-

induced forest conversion to agriculture and animal-raising the major factors.

Despite being legal owners, Mexico’s peasants have struggled for genuine

control of their resources. Historically, Mexico’s forestry sector has been dominated

by concessionaire firms which have received exclusive exploitation rights to forests

in a given region (Bray 1997). In Durango, the parastatal PROFORMEX

(Productores Forestales Mexicanos) won concession to 2.5 million hectares of pine

and oak forest. In Quintana Roo, the parastatal MIQRO (Maderas Industriales de

62 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

Figure 1. United States of Mexico, by state

Source: INEGI (1994: ix)

Quintana Roo) was conceded 550,000 hectares of tropical forest containing

precious species such as mahogany and Spanish cedar. Required to provide roads,

schools, clinics, and waged jobs, concessionaires established the basic infrastructure

of Mexican forestry. Their critics, nevertheless, observed that inefficiency,

corruption and poor silviculture encouraged them to mine the forests (Argüelles

Suárez and Armijo Canto 1995:3). Timber represented practically no income for the

peasant as the parastatals paid only a minimal stumpage fee (Galletti 1992).

During the early seventies, seven ejidos and agrarian communities in

northwestern Durango began opposing PROFORMEX. In Quintana Roo, the first

peasant protest against MIQRO began in the mid-sixties in two ejidos (Merino and

Alatorre 1997). Incipient peasant resistance throughout Mexico to the concession

system (see Zabin 1998) began to find support from federal governments seeking

collaboration with their agrarian policies (Galletti 1994; Fox and Gordillo 1991).

This collaboration drew on the peasant movement’s “change in terrain” (cambio de

terreno) from its historic demand for land to the appropriation of the production

process (Bartra 1991). In many sectors, organized peasants began obtaining capital

and equipment, forming technical teams and assuming control over production,

processing and commercialization (Bray 1997).

Just as the parastatal concessionaires’ failings were becoming less acceptable to

policymakers beginning a neoliberal turn, peasants were arguing that they could

Taylor 63

organize forestry more fairly, efficiently, and in an ecologically sound fashion.

Officials and peasant forestry organizations negotiated to give peasants more

responsibility for their own technical support, extraction, processing and marketing.

In 1986, a new Forestry Law ended the concessions, removed technical services

from the parastatals’ direct control and allowed communities to arrange for their

own services and marketing (Merino Pérez 1997).

The year 1986 was the apex of Mexican community forestry and a turning point

for the worse as it marked both the new Forestry Law and Mexico’s entry into the

GATT. The North American Free Trade Agreement’s implementation in 1994

culminated over a decade of shift toward laissez-faire economic policies. Though

the forestry sector’s transformation cannot be entirely attributed to this new policy

environment, neoliberalism has had an important impact. To promote Mexico’s

integration into the global economy, Article 27 of the Constitution was modified in

1992. This and related legal reform not only ended more than 70 years of land

redistribution, but changed how collectively owned resources in Mexico’s rural

sector can be used. Ejido assemblies could vote to divide communal property into

individual parcels which could be purchased, sold, rented or used as collateral

(Harvey 1996). Most relevant to the peasant forestry organizations discussed here,

the reforms led to the reorganization of technical services and facilitated new local

organizational forms.

CASE STUDIES: THE UNECOFAEZ AND THE SPFEQR

The UNECOFAEZ is widely viewed as one of Mexico’s most successful

community forestry organizations (Chapela 1994). The UNECOFAEZ in 1999

encompassed fifty-eight ejidos and agrarian communities distributed over nearly a

million hectares in northwest Durango. The Union lies at the center of a

decentralized matrix of organizations, including a plywood factory, machine tool

shop, five independent forestry technical service units, a plant nursery, a credit

union, an agrarian input store, seven road improvement committees, and a training

center. The Union also represents members’ interests before official agencies and

shapes state timber prices by publishing production costs.

The SPFEQR is another of Mexico’s most prominent community forestry

organizations (Bray 1997). In 1997 the Society represented ten ejidos with 110,000

hectares of commercial forest, representing the state’s richest precious timber

stands. The Society provides technical services through its Forestry Technical

Department and sponsors a saw-sharpening workshop and a Wildlife project. The

SPFEQR represents members’ interests externally and helps resolve social and

political issues within its ejidos. The SPFEQR has also become a go-between

(gestor) for externally-funded projects.

Though they are secondary level “nested organizations,” these two peasant-based

forestry organizations established structures which resemble those of successful

community-level common pool resource management regimes (Ostrom 1999). Both

organized relatively stable groups of participants with a common interest and helped

them define collective objectives. Both managed to respond credibly to members’

resource management needs. Both organizations served as political instruments,

64 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

albeit at a federation level, for the definition of viable “communities” of

stakeholders in sustainable forestry.

Nevertheless, the Union and the Society are not finished organizations with

essentially static arrangements for individuals’ participation in collective resource

management. Rather, they are best seen as “embedded processes” in which

changing external and internal conditions introduce opportunities for action as well

as impose limitations. Below, I compare how the two organizations face three sets

of organizational problems as the changing policy and legal framework of Mexican

forestry simultaneously weakens their capacity to do this organizational work. First,

their collective objectives have been subject to change. Second, both the

UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR have been pushed to restructure to continue

providing the benefits necessary to ensure their members’ support. Third, both have

become involved in redefining the communities of stakeholders involved in their

project of sustainable forest management. Both organizations’ responses to these

problems occur in the context of internal crises of legitimacy.

DEFINING THE COLLECTIVE OBJECTIVE

Ostrom writes that successful common pool resource regimes tend to rest on a

consensual understanding of the collective resource situation and what needs to be

done (1999:4; 1990:211). Both the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR began with a

similar problem: members’ forests were being mined, with little local benefit. Yet

while the objectives of peasant mobilization in both regions were initially similar,

in Durango, a grassroots political movement underwent a difficult transition to an

organization in which competing social and business objectives introduce growing

distance from its original peasant constituency. In Quintana Roo, a largely top-down

initial process gave rise to a more broadly-based organization.

The UNECOFAEZ: Change in Terrain, Change in Objectives

For the first 15 years of its existence, the Union was primarily a grassroots political

organization which defended communities’ right to develop their own forest

resources. Over the direct opposition of PROFORMEX and its allies, twenty ejidos

and agrarian communities legally founded the Union in 1976 and obtained official

permission to begin their own harvesting and milling. Though not all of the

members’ local economies relied heavily on forest-derived income, the Union

helped define a collective objective to obtain direct peasant control over forestry,

large or small.

Though the Union’s most important support lay in the countryside, it also drew

on support from allies in the federal government, including a Sub-secretary of

Forestry who personally promoted community forestry in Durango. It also had

support from some of PROFORMEX’s own foresters. In an interview, one long-

time forester recalled that he and his colleagues had realized that “there was a

contradiction between PROFORMEX’s economic objectives and ours. It wanted

more volume. We looked for good management, environmental protection.”

Though the 1986 Forestry Law had ended the concessions, PROFORMEX

controlled forestry paperwork. The Union, now expanded to forty-four ejidos and

Taylor 65

agrarian communities, organized a series of roadblocks in 1987 to demand peasant

control of the documentation. A tense standoff ended with minimal violence when

the Agricultural Secretary reluctantly handed over the documentation. By 1989,

PROFORMEX was effectively paralyzed.

In 1990, over the strong opposition of the state governor and local timber

industrialists, the Union won the right to lease and then purchase PROFORMEX’s

plywood factory on behalf of its members. In 1999, the plywood factory had forty

share-owning ejidos and agrarian communities and its manager and many of its

employees were recruited from Union members.

Although the Union helped create space for members to develop their own

resources and established a material base upon which to build, acquiring the

plywood factory implied an important shift in the collective problem addressed by

the Union. The Union embarked on a transition to an industrial producer which

focuses much of its energy on its productive activities. Chapela (1994) notes that

the Union’s interests as a timber buyer now potentially conflicted with members’

interests as sellers.

The SPFEQR: Focusing on Forestry Services

Like the UNECOFAEZ, the SPFEQR’s organizers defined their collective objective

as helping peasants gain control over their forests. Yet the Society was originally

neither a principally grassroots peasant organization nor an instrument of political

struggle, though it drew on resistance to MIQRO and the new spaces opened by the

peasant movement’s “change in terrain.” However, despite a relatively top-down

origin, the SPFEQR’s continuing focus on supporting ejido-level production kept

it close to its original service objective.

Argüelles and Armijo (1995) report that by the end of its concession, MIQRO

extracted 400,000 m3 of precious timber, mainly mahogany and cedar. MIQRO’s

harvests (combined with federal government-subsidized colonization programs)

resulted in the loss of half the original forest cover of the concession area.

Nevertheless, the end of MIQRO’s concession came less as the result of organized

grassroots resistance than from an unusual configuration of higher level political

forces.

By the early eighties, MIQRO enjoyed relatively less official support than

PROFORMEX in Durango. In addition to inefficiency, corruption and resource

mining similar to that in Durango, MIQRO failed to diversify production. It

harvested 99 percent of its authorized volumes of precious species and only 4

percent of authorized volumes of other species (Galletti 1992). These problems, the

growing neoliberal policy shift and mounting pressures from a production-oriented

peasant movement elsewhere in Mexico led to MIQRO’s concession not being

renewed when it expired in 1982. Instead, a community-based alternative, the

Forestry Pilot Plan (PPF), was created.

The PPF was made possible by an unusual coalition of the federal Forestry Sub-

secretariat, the state government, ejidatarios and the German Agency for Technical

Cooperation (GTZ). The PPF aimed to “replace the traditional police role of the

66 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

forestry department with one that stimulated and promoted development” (Galletti

1994:160). A forestry technical team was organized in 1983, subsidized by the

federal Agricultural Ministry but enjoying operational autonomy. The PPF

foresters’ promotion of local timber extraction was facilitated by a rise in the first

year of the price ejidatarios received from $800/m3 to $19,000 m3 (Argüelles

Suárez and Armijo Canto 1995:35). Ejidatarios participated in delimiting

Permanent Forest Areas in their own communities, an innovation which recognized

the seriousness of poverty-driven land use change and countered the notion that

forests were empty, unused lands. Eventually, over 500,000 hectares in more than

fifty ejidos would be reserved for forestry activities (Galletti, Rosales Salazar, and

Argüelles 1997:10).

The Forestry Pilot Plan did not at first include intermediate-level forestry

organizations but explicitly maintained the autonomy of each ejido (Galletti

1994:160). However, the ejidatarios needed a united marketing front relative to

MIQRO, still one of the region’s most important timber buyers. PPF participants

also feared that the program might not survive a change in state government. In

1986, the PPF’s ejidos established the SPFEQR in the south and the Organization

of Forestry Ejido Producers of the Maya Zone in the central region. As Argüelles

and Armijo remark, these secondary level ejido federations, or forestry civil

societies, provided a way to survive the usual six year nature of most projects in

Mexico. In 1987, the societies established their political credibility by blocking a

new state government’s attempt to again require ejidos to sell to MIQRO (Argüelles

Suárez and Armijo Canto 1995:44–46). Though strictly speaking the PPF today no

longer exists, its technical and organizational principles still coordinate forestry in

the SPFEQR’s ejidos.

By contrast with the UNECOFAEZ, the SPFEQR never developed its own

income generating production activity. Rather, it retained its objective of providing

technical support for ejido-organized forestry production. It assumed increasing

importance as a conduit for external assistance from national sources such as the

Agricultural Ministry, and international ones, such as the GTZ. Despite the top-

down nature of its origin and its continuing dependence on external institutions, the

SPFEQR’s objectives have, therefore, remained relatively closer to its peasant

constituency than those of the UNECOFAEZ.

DELIVERING THE GOODS: RESPONDING TO MEMBERS’

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT NEEDS

Ostrom writes of the importance of “low discount rates” for successful common

pool resource organizations – that is, benefits must justify participation costs

(1999:4; 1990:211). Peasant organizations such as the UNECOFAEZ and the

SPFEQR are often described as rural democratic and ecological movements. Fox

and Gordillo argue that the “change in terrain” toward production has led toward

more democratic, “horizontal” peasant organizations (1991:69, 70). Toledo sees

organizations such as the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR as part of “a new

ecological movement of indigenous and peasant peoples” (quoted in Bray 1997:7).

While such organizations may have significant democratic elements, Hellman

Taylor 67

(1994) argues that the more successful peasant organizations are not those which

prioritize internal democracy, but those which provide concrete benefits to

members. Bray cautions that though community forestry organizations may

genuinely adopt an environmental discourse, they pursue sustainable exploitation

for its economic benefits (1997:8).

One of the most important of the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR’s benefits is

provision of forestry technical services. Foresters develop resource management

plans, negotiate harvest permits on the peasants’ behalf, mark trees for authorized

cutting and help combat forest disease and fire. Moreover, as technicians work

closely with peasants and carry information about the forestry organizations’

activities, they help generate solidarity between members and their organizations.

Technical services, then, represent crucial community-level organizing instruments.

Unfortunately, Mexico’s recent forestry laws undermine intermediate level peasant

forestry organizations’ capacity to deliver services directly to members.

The New Forestry Laws and the Reorganization of Technical Services

Soon after the 1986 Forestry Law was passed, private sector opponents began

pressuring to roll back peasant control over forestry (Wexler and Bray 1996). By

the early 1990s, neoliberal-leaning federal policymakers began “modernizing” the

sector. A new Forestry Law accompanied the economic liberalism-inspired reform

of Article 27 (Chapela 1997). It and a subsequent law eliminated “excessive” state

intervention, promoting private investment and creating free products and services

markets (Wexler and Bray 1996). They reduced harvest documentation to a permit

and a hammermark on authorized trees, eliminated the regional forestry service

providers and allowed communities to hire any certified forestry engineer (Cabarle,

et al. 1997). Critics point out that the technical services market promotes a quality

decline by encouraging cheaper bids offering only the provision of harvest permits

(Merino and Alatorre 1997).

UNECOFAEZ: Indirect Facilitation of Technical Services

Mexican community forestry organizations usually directly provide members with

technical services (see Merino and Alatorre 1997). Peasant control of services helps

prevent power abuses. Employee foresters usually provide their employers with

broader organizational support. The UNECOFAEZ, nevertheless, does not directly

provide technical services. When services were separated from PROFORMEX,

federal authorities organized them into independent Forestry Administration Units

(UAFs). The Union, nonetheless, coordinates closely with two UAFs based in

Santiago Papasquiaro. Besides their technical work, these UAFs assist the Union

with planning and institutional networking. As numerous interviewees put it, the

two UAFs also serve as the “eyes and ears of the Union” among members. Union

leaders lack the resources to visit widely-dispersed communities frequently. UAF

staff travel regularly to the most isolated villages, generating solidarity with the

Union by explaining its activities and answering questions. One technician

remarked that where UAFs coordinate less with the Union, ejidatarios “think the

Union isn’t necessary anymore and so don’t come to meetings and don’t pay their

68 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

quotas.” Another peasant interviewee remarked that “when the Union becomes

distanced, the power of the [timber] industrialists increases."

Post 1992 forestry laws placed the UAFs in chronic financial crisis as they now

compete with technicians who offer only permit paperwork. UAF competitiveness

is further undermined as declining volumes of large diameter timber obligate staff

to reduce authorized harvests. The Union supports these UAFs by helping persuade

members not to opt for lower-quality services and helps obtain external resources.

For example, the Union received in 1997 US$45,000 from the Ministry of the

Environment to support UAF technical programs. As one forestry staffer explained,

“The Union has the ability to request outside funds. We need good relations with

the Union. The government wouldn’t give it directly to us. They want to deal with

peasants.” With Union support, the UAFs have kept most of their clients, though

they have drastically cut costs, halving their staffs and curtailing fieldwork.

Thus, the complicating of the UAFs’ technical mission by the post 1992 forestry

laws weakens the Union’s direct relevance to members. To continue to provide

benefits necessary to keep members’ support, the Union has diversified into

regional development activities. With a new department of Project Management,

financed by government funds, the Union has extension agents supporting

agriculture, cattle-raising and other local development projects. Leaders explain that

they are “taking problems off the back of government” and helping address the

poverty underlying Durango’s deforestation, narcotic cropping and out-migration.

Yet diversification also responds to an organizational imperative to remain relevant

to a diverse and largely inactive membership.

SPFEQR: Direct Provision of Technical Services

By contrast, the SPFEQR provides technical services via employee foresters. This

technical team has supported sustainable harvesting while still retaining strong ejido

support. In 1997, most of the SPFEQR’s forestry staff were ejidatarios or sons of

ejidatarios and trained ejidatarios worked as auxiliary forest technicians.

Significantly, the Society’s technical staff has been lowering authorized harvests as

new inventories reveal lower actual mahogany populations than previously

estimated. For example, one ejido’s annual authorized harvest was recently reduced

from 1,500 m3 to 800 m3, with proportionate reductions in benefits (Argüelles

Suárez and Armijo Canto 1995:39). The ejidos’ acceptance of these reductions

underscores the Society’s local authority and credibility. As in Durango, the

SPFEQR’s technical services help generate solidarity between with its ejidos.

Foresters transmit information about the Society’s activities and help maintain

connections with members. Because technicians are Society employees, however,

the link ejidatarios make between their work and the SPFEQR is more direct than

in the UNECOFAEZ.

Nevertheless, the SPFEQR’s technical services are in serious financial crisis.

Though subsidies were available until the late 1980s, the Society is now wholly

responsible for financing its technical department. Most of the cost is charged to

mahogany extraction; the charge per cubic meter for mahogany is almost four times

that for tropical woods, though the actual costs of services is similar (Taylor and

Taylor 69

Zabin 2000). Economies of scale make service financing easier in ejidos with larger

Permanent Forest Areas and more mahogany. As in Durango, the Society’s

technical department now competes with foresters who bid low by offering only

harvest permits. Competitive pressures are intensifying as declining volumes of

precious timber lead staff to reduce authorized harvests. The SPFEQR has

drastically cut costs, including reducing its forestry staff. It recently lost one of its

two certified forestry engineers to the Ministry of Environment.

Outside advisors have urged the Society to diversify its activities to promote non-

timber forest product development, including ecotourism. It could then help address

the poverty underlying clandestine felling and land use change, particularly in ejidos

with little precious timber. Diversification could attract external funds, stimulating

local support and relieving the SPFEQR’s acute organizational and financial crises.

Nevertheless, the Society does not seek to diversify. Its leaders seek external

support for forestry services and focus shrinking resources on more prosperous

ejidos where timber generates the most revenue and political visibility. One

ejidatario who had helped found the SPFEQR explained in a 1998 workshop that

non-timber activities would overwhelm the Society’s organizational capacity.

“Diversification would be our death” he insisted.

INTERNAL GOVERNANCE AND THE REDEFINITION

OF “COMMUNITY” FORESTRY

Ostrom writes that common pool resource regimes are more likely to succeed if

those with rights to benefit from the resources are a relatively small, stable group

with well-defined boundaries (1990:90; 1999:7, 8). In Mexican community forestry,

that “group” represents the people with rights to participate in managing and

benefiting from the forest. For intermediate level community forestry organizations

such as the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR, “community” is the stakeholders who

benefit from and participate legitimately in the organization’s activities. Rather than

constituting a stable group once and clearly defined, the UNECOFAEZ and

SPFEQR’s communities of stakeholders have been continually redefined as

participants renegotiate internal governance. This at times conflictual negotiation

over who is to control the resource-related activity and how, has been peopled by

titled ejidatarios and comuneros, new groups emerging within the ejidos and

agrarian communities, and an evolving set of external support agencies.

The UNECOFAEZ: Centralized Leadership

For most of its turbulent years of struggle, the UNECOFAEZ was led by two

individuals elected by the delegates assembly to two consecutive three year terms

each. In 1997, though a new president assumed office, decisionmaking remained

concentrated in the hands of a relatively stable administrative board, with limited

direct participation by ejidatarios and comuneros. Many distant communities

delegate their vote to the President, ensuring a legal assembly quorum but

weakening institutional controls over leaders’ discretionary power.

Nevertheless, internal governance became contested after the Union acquired the

plywood factory. One interviewee complained that “after they won the battle with

70 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

PROFORMEX, the conflicts began. People wanted to seize control of the Union for

their own personal benefit.” For their part, dissenters have argued against re-

election, called for broader participation in the Union’s higher leadership and

advocated linking communities’ voting power to the size of their commercial timber

volumes. In 1992, an internal movement to prevent the incumbent president from

being re-elected failed after extensive assembly debate, when the incumbent

president won with 80 percent of the vote (UNECOFAEZ 1992).

Fernandez Villegas argues that with the peasant movement’s change in terrain,

the “half-caudillo agraristas, half compadres with a well-established clientele, who

based their power and influence on political mediation, have been displaced by a

new type of leader, more apt at economic management and administration, whose

influence and prestige rests on their management capacity” (1991:35). The stability

of the Union’s top leadership has almost certainly helped it form lasting networks

with policymakers. It has also helped the Union accumulate the experience

necessary to operate its income generating activities profitably. Interviewees in

Mexico City and in Durango admitted that power in the Union is relatively

concentrated, but characterized its elected leaders over the last fifteen years as

exceptionally honest and capable individuals. The Union aims to institutionalize

integrity and competence by giving new leaders experience in different activities

and finding administrative spaces for past leaders.

The SPFEQR: Strong Assembly

By contrast, the SPFEQR might be said to have more participatory internal

governance than the UNECOFAEZ as its general assembly of delegates exercises

closer and more frequent oversight over elected leaders. Indeed, the Society’s

frequent turnover of leadership inhibits the capacity to effectively develop policy,

administer projects and represent ejidos’ interests. The Society’s leadership is

elected from the assembly’s own ranks to one year terms and can be re-elected. In

practice, the president and usually the entire administrative committee, are replaced

annually, removing leaders just as they gain the experience to operate effectively.

According to interviewees, the frequent turnover stems from delegates’ fear that

elected leaders are susceptible to corruption. This suspicion and its results are

mirrored in the ejidos themselves, where elected authorities (comisariados) are

frequently replaced by the ejido assembly before their terms are ended. “Nobody

leaves looking good” one ex-comisariado complained. Second, except for election

procedures, the SPFEQR’s assembly lacks a formal means to evaluate performance

and if necessary impeach an incumbent leader. Ironically, a Society leader can be

removed if his home ejido withdraws his status as forestry delegate. This,

interviewees reported, has recently happened to two of the SPFEQR’s presidents.

Article 27 and Agrarian Law Reform and Work Groups

In addition to these electoral issues, a new problem of governance and the definition

of “community” was set in motion by the new Constitutional Article 27 and related

Agrarian Law. Before 1992, any activity employing collective resources had to be

open to all titled members and formally administered by the local assembly.

Taylor 71

3. Though peasants have long organized in small groups for some non-timber forest

production such as chicle (gum) extraction in Quintana Roo, interviewees in both field sites

were unanimous in characterizing timber extraction in groups as a post 1992 development.

Reforms permit smaller groups of peasants to carry out for-profit activities using

their share of the collective resource (López Nogales and López Nogales 1999). In

Durango and Quintana Roo, forestry work groups have emerged as a new way of

organizing extraction and processing.3 During the fieldwork periods, work groups

ranging from ten to one hundred members each had formed in five communities in

the UNECOFAEZ and in three in the SPFEQR. They compel the Union and the

Society to rethink the composition of their communities of stakeholders and the

ways in which they arrange governance.

Though facilitated by the new neoliberal legal framework, work groups also

emerged from peasants’ long-standing frustration with inefficiency and corruption

in collectively organized forestry. With the new model, ejidatarios and comuneros

form smaller groups, each allotted shares of the community’s annual cut. Each

selects a chief to coordinate technical services, allocate tasks, supervise harvest and

negotiate sales. Profits accrue only to group participants. Interviewees asserted that

smaller groups encourage more efficient, transparent operations because the

comisariado no longer manages funds. Taking operational decisions out of assembly

hands both broadens participation and distributes benefits more fairly than the

collective system, in which some factions controlled forestry and blocked access to

coveted jobs. In one Quintana Roo ejido, for example, profit distributions per

member reportedly rose four-fold in the first year of group work.

Nevertheless, the groups pose several existing or potential disadvantages.

Production costs can increase as economies of scale are lost. Now that forest funds

no longer pass through the comisariado’s hands, group chiefs find themselves

assuming responsibility for members’ social welfare. Vital community expenditures

are often neglected. Existing collective facilities such as sawmills become more

difficult to maintain and capitalize when operated by multiple groups. The cost of

technical services rises, for the UAFs in Durango, and for the SPFEQR in Quintana

Roo, as technicians make multiple trips to a community and become involved in the

often conflictual allocation of timber volumes. Collecting technical and membership

fees becomes more difficult as groups market timber and pay quotas separately.

With the work groups, the social boundaries of the UNECOFAEZ and SPFEQR’s

communities of stakeholders are effectively being redrawn. Some participants spoke

of their groups as a nascent form of representative government. Others feared they

were participating in the political disintegration of the ejido and community.

Though still few in number, the groups significantly challenge the formal

governance structure of intermediate forestry organizations designed to serve and

be controlled by undivided ejidos and communities. At a minimum, groups require

that the Union and the Society deal with several local leaders rather than a single

elected authority. More significantly, one community with groups in the

UNECOFAEZ and another ejido with groups in the SPFEQR have demanded, thus

far unsuccessfully, separate assembly delegates for each group. Both organizations

72 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

4. Though formally dividing the forest is illegal, one large agrarian community in Durango

has divided into eleven subcommunities called “annexes.” By internal agreement, the forest

plots of each annex are claimed by individual families who receive most of the profits from

the “collective” resource.

are reluctant to agree as the change would drastically alter existing distributions of

power in favor of ejidos and communities with groups and encourage the formation

of groups for political rather than technical motives. Moreover, Union leaders and

some peasant interviewees concurred that a community’s internal division makes

it more difficult to attract outside project funds. Another danger, some critics insist,

is that the groups may encourage the parcelization of forests.4

Neither the UNECOFAEZ nor the SPFEQR directly oppose the work groups.

The Union view them as a matter internal to member ejidos and communities. The

SPFEQR’s policy currently is to engage the groups to reinforce their generally

positive goals of efficiency and professional management while minimizing their

disadvantages. Nevertheless, significant tensions are emerging as both organizations

struggle to incorporate this new form of participation. The phenomenon underscores

that community forestry confronts a new set of pressures distinct from those of

earlier years when it mainly sought to win a radical expansion of participation in

forestry. Declining volumes of wide diameter pine in Durango and precious species

in Quintana Roo, plus the inefficiency problems of much collectively-organized

activities, mean that the economic benefits of community forestry no longer fulfil

participants’ expectations. Significantly, the peasants are not waiting for external

solutions, but actively seek new answers to their forestry problems.

The Role of Outside Agencies: Donors and Stakeholders?

Internal conflicts over internal governance and the redefinition of the communities

to which the UNECOFAEZ and SPFEQR are accountable are also shaped by their

ties with external support institutions. According to Bartra, such external

relationships potentially compromise the autonomy of peasant-controlled

organizations. Understanding “autonomy” to mean “political indefinition,” he

argues that when peasant organizations are dependent on national agencies, they

become more subordinate to gain access to development funds (1991). Though

outside government, donor and NGO institutions lack a formal role in the

UNECOFAEZ and SPFEQR’s internal governance, by granting technical and

financial support they gain influence in management and, thereby, represent part of

the organizations’ communities of stakeholders (see Ostrom 1999:preface).

The UNECOFAEZ has received little international support but has relied heavily

on federal funds. The Union has received assistance from federal sources such as

the Ministry of Environment, the National Reforestation Program, the Secretariat

of Development and Solidarity, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Bank of Mexico,

and others. According to NGO interviewees in Mexico City, the UNECOFAEZ is

widely identified with the ruling PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). Because

the federal agencies supporting the Union are PRI-controlled, this perception of

partisanship is unsurprising. Though the PRI still controls Durango’s governorship,

Taylor 73

5. Armijo and Robertos (1998) point to still-overlooked stakeholders in Quintana Roo’s

managed forests, who include young people, women and non-ejidatario residents who also

use the forest and contribute to pressures on it.

the PAN (National Action Party) won the municipality of Durango in 1994 and in

1998 gained control of Santiago Papasquiaro municipality. Given the evidence of

movement in Mexico toward a multiparty system, the Union may find that its

identification with a single party becomes a liability both in Durango and in the

nation’s capital.

These party considerations aside, the Union’s external ties influence its trajectory

and introduce new constituencies. For example, the Bank of Mexico, Nacional

Financiera and the Agricultural Ministry assisted the Union in establishing a Credit

Union in 1993. Instead of exclusively serving peasants, the Credit Union’s

beneficiaries include urban businesspeople. The road committees organized by the

Union with federal and state funds include participation by private landowners and

local timber industrialists as well as peasants. The National Program of

Reforestation and the Ministry of Development and Solidarity helped the Union

establish its nursery, whose services are available to the public. The UNECOFAEZ

agricultural and animal husbandry extension project is funded via the latter Ministry

and targets not the Union’s traditional peasant foresters but farmers and housewives.

These activities, then, represent not only outside agency involvement in key Union

services but the broadening of the community the Union serves and the range of

stakeholders to which it is accountable.

External assistance to the SPFEQR, by contrast, has emphasized timber-related

activities. The SPFEQR has received support from Mexican government agencies

and NGOs such as the Environmental Ministry, the Ministry of Development and

Solidarity, Ecosur, and the University of Quintana Roo. The Ministry of

Development and Solidarity, for example, has financially supported forest

inventories and the Society’s involvement in timber marketing.

Unlike the UNECOFAEZ, the SPFEQR has also received significant assistance

from international agencies concerned with tropical forest conservation. The GTZ

long provided crucial financial and technical support to the PPF forestry societies,

including the SPFEQR, by financing inventories, forestry training, and alternative

timber species development. Today, ex-GTZ advisors still influence the Society’s

activities because of their experience and institutional memory. The British

Department for International Development has supported extraction infrastructure

and advised the SPFEQR on organizational matters. The MacArthur Foundation

funds a wildlife monitoring project in the Society, through which it supports an eco-

tourism project in one of the ejidos. Because of Quintana Roo’s tropical forests, the

SPFEQR operates in more of a fishbowl than does the UNECOFAEZ, attracting

significant international attention. By contrast with the Union, most of the external

assistance channeled through the Society has consistently benefited titled, mostly

male forestry peasants in its four most timber-rich ejidos rather than creating new

beneficiaries/constituencies.5

74 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

Nevertheless, in both the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR, controversy over how

the organization is to be controlled and by whom remains largely in the peasant

hands. Governance issues are frequently revisited, especially with the appearance

of the work groups. Despite the influence of external institutions, the UNECOFAEZ

shapes its own trajectory through autonomous choices of projects to pursue. Though

the SPFEQR operates in the bright light of external interest in tropical conservation,

it has resisted pressures to diversify and, for better or for worse, concentrated on its

traditional strength – supporting precious species timber exploitation. In both

organizations, but especially in the UNECOFAEZ, the “communities” of

stakeholders who require accountability have been renegotiated over time. They

include today not only peasants involved in traditional forestry activities, but

beneficiaries of the organizations’ non-timber projects, the new economic

associations emerging within member ejidos and agrarian communities, and the

external agencies that provide funds and technical assistance.

CRISES OF LEGITIMACY

Both the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR face crises of legitimacy brought on by

their internal restructuring, the shifting boundaries of the communities they serve,

and external pressures from changing policy and legal frameworks. The Union’s

transformation into a production organization with business-oriented objectives has

encouraged growing distance from its member base. Though the plywood factory

is legally owned by shareholding ejidos and communities, one interviewee remarked

that the Union “concerns itself mainly with the plywood factory.” Another claimed

that the Union has become “a timber buyer like any other.” One comisariado

complained, “[the Union] doesn’t do anything for us…,” though he then added,

“except we do have the radio [a Union-sponsored network].” When asked about

some members’ concern about the factory, one senior leader replied “those who are

too far away don’t understand the business. They’re not willing to take the risk [of

participating]."

When it was a grassroots political organization, the Union’s task was simpler:

uniting ejidos and communities around the objective of gaining control over forestry

production. Today, the Union’s major emphasis is on its business, and communities’

material interests in its activities vary widely. Some ejidos and communities have

substantial forest resources and experience but forestry is economically irrelevant

for many member communities. Most rely heavily on agriculture and animal raising

or are quite impoverished; their Union ties are consequently weak. The

UNECOFAEZ has no direct role in delivering forestry technical services to bind its

members to it and few members have appreciable direct contact with the Union’s

plywood factory. Its roles in lobbying, keeping road committees operating,

maintaining the radio network and influencing timber prices, are not readily visible

to most peasants.

The Union’s reluctance to grant work groups separate delegates has caused a rift

with one of its largest agrarian communities, which has eleven annexes. One Union

leader explained: “if the annexes legally convert to independent agrarian

communities, we will be happy to have each as separate members with their own

Taylor 75

6. This fear is not far-fetched, despite legal barriers to division. In Durango, in at last one of

the agrarian community annexes referred to above, the forest has been mapped and fenced

into “individual” plots by internal (albeit extra-legal) arrangement.

delegates. Until then, we can only deal officially with the legal agrarian

community.” From the perspective of one comunero from that community: “the

Union fears that with forty-four delegates, we could take over the organization.”

While this controversy remains unresolved, Union relations with other ejidos and

communities in the same area have also become strained.

The SPFEQR also faces a crisis of legitimacy. Its internal financial problems and

external structural pressures undermine its capacity to deliver concrete benefits. The

disarray of the Society’s technical services is serious, as they are vital not only to

forest conservation but to the survival of the organization itself. Zabin (1998) notes

that the privatization of forestry technical services appears to be triggering the

disintegration of secondary regional organizations of ejidos throughout Mexico.

The Society’s four resource-rich ejidos have long complained that they subsidize

services to the poorer ejidos. In 1996, nearly 80 percent of the Society’s revenue

came from these four communities (Taylor and 2000). In reality, the SPFEQR’s

technical team devoted most of its attention to its timber-rich ejidos. Nevertheless,

the Society’s leaders have feared that these members might emulate one Mayan

ejido which left its forestry society, the OEPFZM, in 1995 to hire its own technical

services. Their fears were realized in 1998 when the SPFEQR’s most prosperous

ejido left the Society and contracted its own services from a private firm established

by members of the PPF’s original technical team. Ejidatarios from less financially

well-off ejidos express discontent, too: one complained recently that the SPFEQR

“does not approach the ejido, perhaps because it is considered small and simple”

(Armijo Canto and Albrecht Arellano 1998:68).

There are also signs that the SPFEQR’s credibility with key external support

agencies has been weakened. Interviewees in several of these institutions criticized

the Society for not firmly opposing the forestry work groups. They feared that the

groups represent the breakdown of PPF principles, signal the political disintegration

of the ejido, and lead to the eventual physical division of the forest.6 They have

suggested that the forestry civil societies no longer possess the distance to

effectively advocate their conservation agenda. Significantly, at the 1997 Forestry

Agenda Forum, a plan to institute municipality-based technical services in the Maya

Zone was originally supported by some public agencies though quickly denounced

by the forestry societies (Galletti, et al. 1997). In a 1998 workshop on the role of

forestry support agencies, one government representative proposed that the

responsibility for delivering technical services be removed from the forestry

societies.

Neoliberal policy reform contributes to these crises of legitimacy by helping

popularize the notion that it is the collective tenancy of the forest itself which has

permitted “disproportionate, anonymous depredation” (Cabarle et al. 1997:28). A

World Bank Sector Review states that ill-defined ejido and agrarian community

boundaries create tenure insecurity, forest management is rarely a community

76 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

priority, technical support for sustainable systems is lacking, and mutual distrust

between private industries and communities discourages joint venture investment

(1995:xi, xii). Constitutional reforms have created a “legal framework for a

redeployment of institutional power that seeks to bypass existing rural organizations

by dealing directly with the individual (usually male) ejidatario” (Harvey

1996:152). Indeed, as an influential policymaker put it, “one of the principal

objectives of the new forestry policy is to establish conditions so that the economic

agents involved in the activity will be the principal custodians of the forest

resources” (Téllez Kuenzler 1994:268). Wexler and Bray (1996) suggest that this

statement indirectly advocates “private stewardship of forests” (1996:238).

CONCLUSION

Common pool resource management regimes can be fruitfully approached as

historically embedded processes rather than as static legal and organizational

arrangements. This approach makes possible a more textured assessment of the

external structural pressures and social agency shaping local organization. In

Mexico, neoliberal reform has direct and indirect influences on how collective

forest resources are managed by reorganizing technical services and facilitating

more individualistic forms of local organization. Nevertheless, these external

pressures’ impact is mediated at the local level by human actors who grapple with

their own political, social and technical issues. Mexican community forestry

organizations are historical processes in which collective objectives, management

arrangements and the social boundaries of cooperation are periodically

renegotiated.

The variety of possible agentic responses to structural pressures helps account

for why two community forestry organizations began with similar problems of

parastatal control of local timber resources yet developed into quite different

organizations. The UNECOFAEZ modified its collective objective as it moved

from a political movement to a production organization with a strong focus on

business profitability. The SPFEQR has maintained a primary focus on supporting

members’ timber activities. Unable to directly provide technical services, the Union

developed a diversified array of services which are, however, less effective in

generating local participation. The Society’s technical services allow it to exercise

a direct role in local level forestry but its financing crisis threatens its ability to

deliver the benefits that maintain its social base. Both organizations have struggled

with issues of who is to govern the organization and how; the Union has developed

relatively stable yet centralized control while the Society’s assembly intervenes

frequently to replace its leadership. These governance questions are complicated by

shifts over time in the stakeholder communities to whom both organizations are

accountable.

Both the Union and the Society risk ceasing in future to be peasant organizations

effectively controlled by peasants. The Union’s very success with a growing range

of productive activities is a source of pressure away from the service orientation

necessary to keep its social roots. The Society’s fall back to emphasis on its most

prosperous members and within those ejidos, smaller groups increasingly assuming

Taylor 77

political and social functions beyond their original forestry mandate, are likely to

weaken the effective control a more broadly representative assembly of delegates

can exercise. The loss of their social bases could make these organizations

vulnerable to outside threats, from their traditional enemies to changing policy

conditions.

One question the crises of legitimacy raises is whether the historical moment of

intermediate level peasant-based forestry organizations has passed. What would be

lost in Durango and Quintana Roo if the peasant-based forestry unions and societies

were to disappear? Experience in Mexico and elsewhere suggests that neither top-

down, repressive state enforcement nor privatization can promote forest

conservation where trees and large numbers of poor people exist side by side

(Fortmann and Bruce 1988). Community forestry emerged from the insight that

forests can be best protected by first, encouraging forest dwellers to view trees as

renewable resources and second, genuinely involving them in managing those

resources (Bruce and Fortmann 1991:481). While neoliberal forestry reform has

ostensibly aimed to improve competitiveness (Téllez Kuenzler 1994:268), it is

likely to prove counter-productive economically, socially and environmentally if it

undermines peasants’ capacity to participate effectively in managing their forests.

Neither the UNECOFAEZ nor the SPFEQR are likely to disappear in the short

run. Both the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR still enjoy significant credibility and

support among their members. The UNECOFAEZ can meet international

competition, its plywood factory is a revenue generator and it exercises significant

influence in official policy circles. Interviewees expressed pride in their Union’s

achievements, even as they criticized it for its growing distance. Most associated

ejidos and communities have followed the Union’s advice to continue paying for

comprehensive technical services from the UAFs rather than opting for cheaper,

limited services. Though the SPFEQR’s crisis appears to be the most severe and

immediate, it still enjoys strong grassroots support. The Society answers a strongly

felt need for technical assistance and for peasant political representation in Quintana

Roo. The Society remains at the center of current debates over the future of the

state’s forestry policy. Despite its top-down origin, it has become a more

participatory and broad-based organization.

Without their peasant members’ active commitment, the UNECOFAEZ and the

SPFEQR would have long ago become merely paper organizations, like others in

Mexico (see Hellman 1994). However imperfect, these two organizations are still

run by peasants and remain committed to creating and consolidating the conditions

necessary for community-managed forests. Forestry communities have been

controlling their own resources and production for less than twenty years, with less

support than that given to other branches of agrarian production (Merino Pérez,

1997:73). Even so, the UNECOFAEZ and the SPFEQR have served as effective

advocates for their peasant members and for an ecologically sustainable forestry.

They have promoted effective technical assistance and facilitated a real transfer of

skills and knowledge to several generations of community leaders and technical

staff. They have been of key importance in bridging and coordinating the interests

78 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

of peasants and outside agencies. They represent, in sum, a significant augmenting

of the local governance capacity essential for sustainable common pool resource

management.

Their experiences with forestry are also relevant to broader issues of agrarian

production because timber, agriculture and animal-raising activities have long been

closely related in Mexico. This relationship has often been associated with

deforestation as policies promoting colonization, federal subsidies of agriculture

and animal raising (Galleti 1994), geographical isolation and forestry’s inefficiency

problems (Merino and Alatorre 1997) create incentives toward land use change

from timber to food production. Nevertheless, forestry, agriculture and other

agrarian production activities do not necessarily involve zero sum resource

management relationships. As one Durango Union leader put it: “People here have

always been farmers and done a little cattle raising as well as forestry. For

subsistence. They never stopped being one for the other.” The overall economic

strategies of many peasant families and communities include forestry, agriculture,

animal raising and wage labor. An important question is whether those diverse

economic strategies represent sustainable activities which allow peasants to remain

in the community or unsustainable production which eventually propels peasants

outward as permanent migrants. Both the Union and the Society have begun to

realize that they need to consider timber in a broader context of the rural

development of Durango and Quintana Roo, respectively. Viable timber production

and viable food production will together result in less pressure toward land use

change and in more opportunities for rural families to meet their needs in their own

communities.

Despite strong outside interest in Mexico’s forests, today the peasant producer

carries nearly all the cost of forest conservation. External support of peasant

forestry is customarily derided as “subsidy,” unquestionably anathema in the

neoliberal globalizing world in which community forestry operates. Yet Mexico’s

forests are not privately owned and appropriated resources, but represent important

means for community livelihood, a constitutionally protected national heritage, and

a source of vital ecological services to Mexico, the region, and the globe. In other

words, the “community” with a stake in Mexico’s forests includes public and

private actors at state, national and international levels. Assistance to forest owners’

efforts to be responsible stewards might best be seen not as “subsidies” but as co-

investments in a common sustainable future. Such co-investment is needed to assist

with the physical and technical infrastructure necessary for a healthy forestry sector,

including financial, technical and other organizational support for peasant-based

forest management. Despite their weaknesses, the peasant forestry organizations are

one organizational means by which peasants exercise real control over their

resources. The history of the parastatal era, marked by social injustice and

environmental devastation, suggests that when local people are denied effective

participation, they, and with them the forest itself, suffer. Mexico and the other

stakeholders in its forests may find that the sustainability of local people’s

commitment to their communities and their environment is too valuable to entrust

wholly to the global market.

Taylor 79

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Peter Leigh Taylor is an assistant professor of sociology at Colorado State University. His

research interests include common pool resource management and peasant natural resource

organizations in Mexico.

* I am grateful for the comments and suggestions of two anonymous reviewers. Please direct

all correspondence to the author at College Eight, University of California, Santa Cruz CA

95064, USA; e-mail: friedla@cats.ucsc.edu.

1. The nomenclature in this field has not yet settled down. Three terms can generally be

found that encompass what has been designated as _commodity systems_ analysis. The

PEWS (Political Economy of the World-System) Group refers to commodity chains

(Hopkins and Wallerstein 1986; Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994). The French, who initiated

studies in this arena prior to others, refer to “filieres” which can be translated as “channels”

(Bertrand, Laurent, and Laclerc 1984; Lauret 1983). I can detect no clear conceptual

differences between these three terms and, in this paper, will use all three interchangeably.

A fourth term, “systems of provision,” is also probably equivalent; see below and Fine 1994.

2. See, for example, CGPRT Centre (1988).

Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40), International Sociological Association.

REPRISE ON COMMODITY SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY

William H. Friedland*

University of California, Santa Cruz

INTRODUCTION

This paper urges the elaboration of commodity systems methodology based on

inductive methods in empirical research. Expanding an earlier suggested

methodology (Friedland 1984), three new methodological arenas are identified: the

scale of commodities, sectoral organization and the state, and commodity culture.

Before turning to these three arenas, the paper examines the current state of

commodity and commodity systems studies, theories, and methodologies.

While agricultural commodities and commodities systems have become, in recent

years, an increasing foci of study by sociologists, this has not always been the case.

If one examines the two “pioneer” books that helped to crystallize the sociology of

agriculture, Rodefeld, Flora, Voth, Fujimoto, and Converse (1978) and Buttel and

Newby (1980), a reader would be hard put to find either commodities or commodity

systems as a preoccupation of the contributors to the two volumes. Similarly,

Newby’s assessments of rural sociology (1978; 1980; 1983), while noting the rise

of the sociology of agriculture and beginning to summarize material on

commodities, contain no mention of commodity systems. This area of study had not

yet appeared upon the scene.

The analysis of commodity systems 1as part of the sociology of agriculture is now

an accepted part of the field. Agricultural economists have long focused on the

economics of particular commodities but have been less interested in studying

commodity systems, let alone social, political, or cultural aspects of commodities.

A notable exception is Goldberg (1968) but most commodity chain studies by

economists are usually devoid of human beings.2

Friedland 83

In contrast, rural sociologists had, for the most part, abandoned research on

agricultural matters (Friedland 1982) and, as a consequence, devoted little or no

attention to agricultural commodities and their production. This changed once the

sociology of agriculture became an accepted part of rural sociology during the

1980s.

Buttel, Larson, and Gillespie (1990), summing up The Sociology of Agriculture,

recognized commodity systems analysis as a significant segment of the “new”

sociology of agriculture. A decade later, Buttel (2000:9) sees commodity studies as

“one of the major emphases of 1990s agrarian studies.”

A survey of the literature indicates that, while there has been a significant volume

of empirical research over the past two decades, more has been on specific aspects

of commodities rather than on commodity systems. Commodity analyses often

utilize some approaches taken from commodity chain studies but rarely attempt to

take on the totality of a commodity. There is good reason for this; even simple

commodity filieres are very complex and their analysis can involve considerable

time and space. As Dixon (2000:14) puts it, “a single commodity could consume

a life-time’s research ….”

One way to understand the difference between a commodity study vs. a

commodity systems analysis would be to compare processing tomato harvest

mechanization and lettuce harvesting. A cluster of tomato studies (Friedland and

Barton 1975; Thompson and Scheuring 1978; de Janvry, Leveen, and Runsten

1980) are essentially commodity studies focused on one particular aspect of the

commodity, mechanized harvesting and its social consequences. Similarly, one

study of lettuce harvesting (Thomas 1985) examines the effects of citizenship and

gender on the labor process. An earlier lettuce study (Friedland, Barton, and

Thomas 1981), in contrast, considered lettuce as a distinctive system, projecting the

social consequences of potential mechanical harvesting. To make the projections,

the authors examined the network of social relationships in the lettuce industry and

relationships of production to nonagricultural aspects of life.

Yet another way of considering the distinction is to examine how several

different researchers have focused on particular aspects of commodities, sometimes

being system analytic, but in other cases focusing on a particular aspect of a

commodity. Wells (1996), for example, centres her strawberry commodity analysis

on labor but also deals with ethnicity, grower types, worker-grower relations, and

patterns of paternalism. Other aspects of the strawberry commodity system are not

dealt with, especially strawberry distribution and marketing. Morgan’s (1980) study

of the grain complex overlooks labor and contains barely any mention of growers;

instead Morgan concentrates on the “merchants of grain,” the global trading

companies that dominate the world grain trade. On the other hand, by focusing

attention on the state, the transition from fordism to postfordism and environmental

issues in their tuna study, Bonanno and Constance (1996) make their study more of

a commodity system analysis than a commodity study. The same can be said for

Stanford’s (1994) examination of Mexico’s cantaloupe export sector.

There is no intention to make invidious distinctions between commodity studies

84 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

versus commodity systems analyses. The latter takes far more time. Further,

analysis of commodity systems will often depend upon clusters of commodity

studies. It is important to encourage the systematic comparative analysis of

commodities, something that the Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS)

group undertook in their 1992 conference (Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994).

If commodity and commodity systems analyses are now an established part of the

sociology of agriculture, less attention has been given to methodology. Working in

a very different tradition of agricultural administration, McGinity (1979) argued for

the use of a systems approach to manage agroindustrial development, setting out

seven stages: farm supply, farming, consolidation, processing, wholesaling,

retailing, and consumption. Friedland (1984) set out the first sociological attempt

at methodology. Hopkins and Wallerstein (1986), possibly anticipating the

emergence of actor network theory, see commodities as networks of labor and

production crossing multiple frontiers and resulting in a finished commodity. Busch

(1990), addressing the French filiere approach, sets out a methodology centred on

the role of science and technology and, by emphasizing the actor, began the

application of actor network theory to agricultural matters. Among other things,

Busch suggests eleven rules to guide commodity systems analyses: there is nothing

natural about nature; there is nothing natural about society either; production neither

starts nor stops at the farm gate; commodity chains have values embedded in them;

the weakest link in the chain will stop commodity production; science, technology,

and bureaucratic decisions can create and recreate commodity chains; commodity

chains have histories; commodity chains have geographies; the power relations in

commodity chains change when an actor in the chain attempts to modify it; and

finally, commodity chains do not exist (they are conceptual creations).

Two recent researchers – Dixon (1999a; 1999b; 2000) and Wright (1999) –

agree that the omission of consumption in Friedland’s original methodology leaves

an important gap. This leads each independently to emphasize consumption and

culture in studying discrete commodities. Dixon calls for inclusion of two additional

dimensions: regulatory politics and state-producer relations, and product design, as

well as setting out five components of consumption: tertiary production practices,

the means of access, delivery dimensions, the eating environment, and the

experience of consumption. More will be said about Dixon and Wright below.

A peculiarity of commodity and commodity systems studies has been that they

often begin with either an empirical or a social problem. It is the problematic that

drives the research more often than theoretical preoccupations. The various tomato

and lettuce studies, for example, developed out of agricultural mechanization and

its social consequences, an issue which preoccupied agricultural engineers and

social scientists during the 1960s and which led to a suit against the University of

California for its enthusiastic support for mechanization research (Friedland 1991).

Many studies have their impetus from technological change and its consequences.

Some studies have focused on labor or the environment or the state, or another

particularized aspect, in some cases, based on theoretical concerns generated

elsewhere in the social science literature. Methodologies tend to be drawn

Friedland 85

eclectically from a variety of sources. In other words, methodology has been built

more on empirical concerns – how should one study strawberries or cotton or

kiwifruit? – rather than from theoretical preconceptions. Methodology has been

inductively developed rather than, as is sometimes the case, with research focused

on theoretical issues where methodologies tend to be deductive.

The advantage of a priori or deductive approaches is that they stand on their own.

This is an advantage when compared to empirically derived approaches, which

usually require expansion or elaboration based on new empirical findings. In this

respect, there is a need for an expansion of the methodological framework set out

in the 1980s based on studies of iceberg lettuce and processing tomatoes.

Friedland’s (1984) paper set out five basic foci for research: production practices

or labor process; grower organization and organizations, how growers organize the

labor process and organize themselves with respect to other actors; labor, the

character of the labor market, labor supply, and the ways in which workers organize

themselves with respect to production; science production and application, how

scientists are mobilized and conduct their research and how this affects commodity

production; and marketing and distribution, how commodities are handled once they

pass beyond the farm gate.

Before turning to the three new methodological arenas, a review of research

relevant to filiere analysis will be undertaken.

COMMODITY STUDIES AND COMMODITY SYSTEMS

ANALYSIS: THE STATE OF THE ART

This section examines research developments bearing directly or indirectly on the

evolution of commodity and commodity chain analyses. Directly concerned are

studies by Dixon and Wright and globalization studies. Less direct are two other

developments: Ben Fine’s “systems of provision” and Actor Network Theory.

Growing interest in commodity studies and commodity chain analysis has, in all

likelihood, been a consequence of two major developments: the industrialization of

agriculture and the globalization process. The past two decades have witnessed a

growing literature on various aspects of commodities although there has not been

much of a focus on methodology.

The cluster of studies that is most impressive is that utilizing specific

commodities to analyse a particular problematic. For example, globalization has

been a central problematic in a number of studies from apples to shrimp, sugar, and

tomatoes. Antipodean researchers in Australia and New Zealand – most often

geographers and sociologists – as a result of being proximate to export-oriented

agriculture, have been particularly enthusiastic in this respect. As well, several

studies have used commodity chain analysis, either explicitly or implicitly, to

examine commodities historically. Notable in this respect is Mintz’s (1985) study

of sugar and Roche’s (1999) examination of the frozen meat trade.

86 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

3. Nor, of course, are other similar agricultural products such as coca leaf or opium poppies.

4. Dixon (2000) has an expanded and empirically detailed version in her dissertation, which

is summarized in more accessible sources (1999a, 1999b). It is to be hoped that both

researchers will make their empirical findings available in book form in the near future.

AMPLIFYING AND EXTENDING COMMODITY

SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY

Research by Dixon (1999a; 1999b; 2000) and Wright (1999), respectively on the

chicken filiere in Australia and burley tobacco in Kentucky, while utilizing

Friedland’s (1984) methodological suggestions, found significant omissions and

suggested elaborations and augmentations.

Wright demonstrates how the entry of new actors – nonconsumers – into the

tobacco filiere has involved the state in contradictory representations. The state has

had historic relationships with tobacco to encourage accumulation as well as to

provide an important source of state revenue. Having served the accumulation

function historically, the state has responded to anti-tobacco forces thereby fulfilling

a contradictory legitimation function. Wright and Dixon have demonstrated the

importance of following the filiere from producer to consumer. Dixon, in particular,

shows the importance of intermediaries between production and consumption and

their effects on consumption. Both argue for following the commodity through to

its final denouement when the commodity is “destroyed” in consumption.

Wright (1999:13) raises interesting issues around commodity culture – or, as she

prefers to call it, the “culture of commodity production.” The peculiar status of

tobacco should perhaps be noted at the outset: tobacco is an agricultural commodity

but agriculture is often defined as the production of food and fibre – of which

tobacco is neither.3

Wright demonstrates the powerful economic and cultural components among the

producers of burley tobacco. Burley “tobacco remains the ‘golden leaf’ in Kentucky

because no other legal crop approximates its economic value [whose] production

and processing approximates nearly six percent of the state’s entire economy” (p.

300). Further, “…tobacco was the commodity that shielded many small farms from

the national farm crisis of the 1980s” (p. 295). Thus, the material base of the

commodity is economically and socially important. In addition, there are the

producers’ cultural commitments: “it is firmly etched into local communities and

marks a long-standing legacy” (p. 300).

Change has been produced in the tobacco system less by consumers than non-

consumers who consider tobacco an addictive carcinogen, a threat to consumers but

also to nonsmokers. While one might quibble with Wright about the influence of

nonconsumers on consumption, there is no gainsaying their effects on the tobacco

filiere.

Dixon (1999a; 1999b; 2000) pursues the limitations of Friedland’s methodology

even further (as well as beyond the paper delivered in 1997 from which the present

paper has been derived).4

Friedland 87

Calling for an elaboration of Friedland’s original five areas, she includes two new

components of production: product design and regulatory politics. Besides calling

generally for attention to consumption, she specifies five distinct arenas of research:

tertiary production practices, means of access, manner of delivery, the eating

environment, and the eating experience (Dixon 2000:Table 3.2, p. 67).

Dixon’s problematic is: where does power lie in the Australian chicken complex?

Dixon conducted interviews and perused literature through the length of the filiere,

from growers to processors, commodity organizations, supermarkets and other retail

outlets including fast food chicken stores, and on to nutritionists, researchers and

others who influence chicken consumption (and other foods), and regulators and

politicians. This is, without doubt, the most comprehensive commodity chain

analysis I have seen, probably made feasible because Australian chickens are an

“enclosed” commodity, almost entirely isolated from global food circuits and

because of the comparatively small size of Australia’s population.

Rejecting “the authority of the consumer” approach of Keat, Whitely, and

Abercrombie (1994), Dixon shows that effective power and control are neither at

the beginning of the filiere with growers or processors or at its end, with consumers.

Power is located in between, with supermarket retailers and, to a more limited

extent, with fast food producers but taking into account nutritionists, market

researchers, and specialists in cultural symbol manipulation.

Dixon concludes her research by making a dual argument for a possible ‘third

regime of reflexive accumulation’, adding to Friedmann and McMichael’s (1989)

two-food regime argument. She also promulgates the need for incorporating a

cultural economy perspective to parallel Marx’s three circuits of capital

(production, realization, and reproduction) with three circuits of culture

(commercial, social, and emotional) (2000:Table 10.3, p. 253).

Space does not permit an extended discussion or critique of Dixon’s theoretical

and methodological suggestions. Suffice it to say that her empirical data have

generated an important contribution to commodity systems analysis.

BEN FINE AND “SYSTEMS OF PROVISION”

The argument to include consumption in commodity systems analysis is compelling

but there are significant problems inherent in its inclusion. One major argument for

a consumption focus has been made by Ben Fine (1994) and his associates. A later

work (Fine, Heasman, and Wright 1996) demonstrates the difficulties that can be

encountered.

In his 1994 paper that generated a storm of criticism, Fine broke with the main

approach in British consumption studies of the 1980s. That approach considered any

and all forms of consumption to be the focus of analysis. A good example of this can

be found in the special issue of Sociology, the journal of the British Sociological

Association, on the sociology of consumption (Vol. 24, No. 1, February 1990). This

issue contained analyses of consumption of tourism (Urry 1990), medical care

(Busfield 1990), housing (Savage, Watt, and Arber 1990), control of money and

household spending (Pahl 1990), and food (Beardsworth and Keil 1990).

88 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

This approach, which considers all forms of consumption, Fine regards as

“horizontal” and specifically rejects (Fine et al. 1996:62) in favour of “vertical

systems of provisions” (SoPs) (seemingly the equivalent of what we have been

referring to as commodity systems). Whether Fine would argue for vertical SoPs in

all commodities is unclear but he makes the case for vertical analysis of food

because of its “organic” character, i.e., because of its biological character, food is

subject to spoilage. Fine sees food production linked to consumption through

vertically integrated chains of activities beginning with inputs to agriculture and

including processing, transportation, distribution, marketing, and consumption.

While he includes agriculture in the food SoP, he rejects the idea of a political

economy of agriculture “decisively” because “…agriculture and rural restructuring

[are]… heavily determined by factors further, possibly much further, along the food

chain, whether these be in banking, processing, retailing or even consumer concerns

over health and the environment (Fine 1994:520).

While anyone knowledgeable about agriculture would agree that sectors other

than agriculture are important, the cavalier dismissal of a political economy of

agriculture is hardly sustainable especially since Fine uses research based on

agriculture to provide material for his analysis of SoPs.

Fine et al. (1996) explore three SoPs: sugar, meat, and dairy. The first problem

surfaces with the meat system: “Is it appropriate to differentiate between the

separate meats as SoPs – the poultry, beef, pork and sheep systems – or do these

constitute a single SoP…?” (p. 202). To answer this dilemma – where there are

differences in the agricultural processes between the four commodity forms – Fine

and his colleagues initially consider vegetarianism and conclude that “meat is

heterogeneous.” “Paradoxically, then, while criticizing the existing literature for

homogenizing meat at the level of consumption,” Fine et al. treat meat as “a single

SOP, encompassing a variety of meats and meat products” (p. 202).

When we turn to the chapter on the meat system, we learn only fragments about

its agricultural components let alone anything about its inputs. Fine delineates two

distinct meat SoPs in Britain “separated by the Second World War” (p. 202).

Focusing on agriculture, we learn that, in the first SoP, beef was Britain’s “core

meat.” In the current meat SoP, we are informed that poultry has been industrialized

but not what this means at the point of production. The authors turn immediately to

consumption providing no information about other segments of the meat SoP. Later,

brief mention is made about “a tendency toward specialization (most obviously in

chicken and pig ‘farming’…” (208) but we learn nothing about what this

specialization is, how many “specialists” there are, occupations, or stratification.

Although the chapters on sugar and dairy vary somewhat from the meat chapter,

a similar truncation of agriculture is maintained. Thus, the insistence by Fine that

there is a need to encompass the totality of SoPs turns out, empirically, to be an

illusion.

There is no question that researchers are free to define research problems in any

way they choose. Making claims for inclusiveness without empirical delivery,

however, leaves grounds for concern. This suggests a second critique of Fine’s SoP

Friedland 89

5. Korzieniewicz, Goldfrank, and Korzeniewicz (1995) challenge the south-to-north

argument by showing the trade in fresh fruits and vegetables and wine still occurs primarily

between northern core nations. Undoubtedly accurate, this approach does not give adequate

approach. The social relationships embodied in any commodity are complex,

especially if we are dealing with commodities that are in broad production and

consumption. There are undoubtedly simple commodity systems in the United

Kingdom but meat, sugar, and dairy are hardly simple. Fine and his colleagues

provide useful information about some aspects of their commodities but any claim

for comprehensiveness or inclusiveness is overwrought. It can also be argued that,

while events within agriculture are substantially determined by forces outside it, this

hardly means that a political economy of agriculture (initial production) is unworthy

of consideration. Precisely because agriculture represents the initial stage of being

“organic,” agriculture has its own rhythms, dynamics, and problems and its political

economy can contribute to the analysis of the political economy of food. Self-praise

in describing this research as “landmark” and constituting “a bold claim” (p. 3)

hardly seem justified.

GLOBALIZATION

Changes in the distribution and marketing of some agricultural commodities as they

have become globalized suggested another look at filiere methodology. It is true,

of course, that some agricultural commodities have been in wide spatial circulation

historically. Sugar, for example, spread spatially with the development of

mercantilism and colonialism (Mintz 1985). But colonial production was geared

primarily for metropolitan markets of the colonial powers and not for global

distribution: British islands in the Caribbean fed sugar to Britain; French production

in the Caribbean and Africa was intended for France; Cuban production was linked

to U.S.

Hopkins and Wallerstein (1986), utilizing historical periodization, indicate the

utility of historical analysis of commodity chains, anticipating “turning points” (p.

230) of economic expansion and contraction when change might be taking place in

the chains.

To the extent that there was distribution of agricultural commodities until

recently beyond metro nations, it was either limited (high quality and expensive for

very wealthy people) or bulk commodities such as grains (for example, wheat

produced in Russia and eastern Europe and exported to France and Britain; wheat

from Argentina, Australia, California and later the midwest U.S. and Canada

exported to Europe and elsewhere).

During the 1980s a new global process developed in foods: the globalization of

fresh fruits and vegetables grown in a variety of locations (Mexico and Central

America, South America, New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, and South

Africa) for markets primarily in the northern hemisphere (Cook 1990; Friedland

1994). This phenomenon is primarily south-to-north with production from the

southern hemisphere feeding markets in the northern hemisphere although, in the

last few years, some reversal in movement has begun.5

90 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

recognition to the counter-seasonality of the south-to-north fresh fruit and vegetable trade.

Chilean table grapes began the first mass development of this new market

extension. Where table grapes were unavailable in North America and western

Europe between November and May, Chilean production marked the elaboration

of a global production/distribution system; table grapes became available year-

round.

Expansion of growing seasons has been going on for a long time. After the

Second World War, California grapes became available to U.S. and Canadian

markets in late June. With the development of early varieties and plantings in the

desert valleys of California, the table grape season began at least a month earlier.

Better storage capability and late varieties extended the table grape season into

December. Beyond December, there were, until the early 1980s, relatively few table

grapes available except for specialty grapes grown for high-cost markets. Chilean

production “massified” grapes to a commodity available year-round.

Globalization spread during the 1980s with the elaboration of nontraditional

export agriculture in locations such as Costa Rica producing broccoli for the U.S.,

Kenya and Zimbabwe producing mange tout (snow peas) for Great Britain, New

Zealand producing kiwifruit for Europe and North America, to mention only a few.

And the banana system, which had originally tied colonies to metro areas underwent

a transformation as banana companies such as Chiquita, Dole, Del Monte, Fyffe,

Pomona, and others shipped bananas to locations beyond their original metro

markets.

These developments have encouraged considerable research on agricultural

commodities and their long-distance movement. Globalization, and the increased

scale of commodity distribution, has also increased the extensiveness of food safety

problems. As commodity systems have extended beyond the local or regional or

national levels, when a food scare such Mad Cow disease, e-coli contamination, or

hoof-and-mouth disease occurs, what was once considered to be a local problem

now becomes global in character. This process is amplified by the extensiveness of

media coverage which brings news of food safety problems to larger and larger

audiences.

ACTOR NETWORK THEORY AND METHODOLOGY

By the late 1980s, what had emerged was a very different system of

production/distribution and, hence, very different sets of social relations. These

changes restructured production/distribution systems, suggesting additional arenas

of research in commodity systems. Here I turn to new theoretical developments that

some scholars have argued could enhance commodity chain studies: actor network

theory (ANT).

Actor network theory (henceforth ANT) has generated a substantial literature in

recent years. I will utilize one summary (Law 1992) to consider the potential utility

of ANT to commodity systems analysis. Essentially, actor network theory (ANT)

is a theoretical approach to the specification of institutions with one major

Friedland 91

augmentation, the inclusion of nonhuman things. Law (1992:381) states that “the

social is nothing other than patterned networks of heterogeneous materials

…[including] machines, animals, texts, money, architectures – any material you

care to mention” (emphasis in the original).

When undertaking the analysis of a filiere, researchers will find that even simple

ones involve an enormity of things: humans, organizations, the state, the biological

character of the “thing.” Certainly all of these elements are bound up in commodity

chain analysis. The question a researcher must ask is: how much importance should

one give to this element or that factor?

ANT researchers have used the approach for the analysis of scientific networks.

Does this mean that ANT will provide stimuli to commodity researchers that will

open areas they might not have thought of? Certainly any commodity in modern

society is enmeshed in a network of entities to get produced; but what particular

benefit does the theoretical approach yield to justify any claims to its application to

filiere analysis?

In attempting to assess the potential value of ANT approaches, an examination

was made of one such application to the study of rapeseed/canola, a seed of limited

utility until a scientific network was mobilized to remove certain negative qualities

which then converted rapeseed into a major globalized commodity (Juska and

Busch 1994; Busch and Tanaka 1996; Busch and Juska 1997; and Tanaka, Juska,

and Busch 1999).

Busch and Juska (1997) are particularly helpful in setting out an actor network

methodology (ANM) which I would distinguish from ANT itself. Busch and Juska

(1997) develop two distinct network analyses. The first (p. 697) sets out four

institutional networks: military, pharmacology/nutrition, agriculture, and chemistry

which include formal organizations, laboratory animals, pharmacological and

chemical “things” and processes, and the rapeseed plant itself. The second network

(p. 700) is based on five institutions (Agriculture Canada, the University of

Manitoba, the University of Alberta, Svalof AB of Sweden, and the University of

Guelph) but is composed of individual scientists who did the research necessary to

make rapeseed into edible canola. Busch and Juska provide a useful exercise which

examines the individuals and institutions that took an agricultural product of limited

utility and converted it into a widely used commodity. At the same time, several

things become clear as limitations of ANM.

First, ANM works best at the micro level. At the macro level, Busch and Juska’s

“first network” is more amorphous than at the micro level, their “second network.”

Second, ANM works best when a system is undergoing change. When a system is

“stable,” the network is taken for granted and reconstruction of its creation can be

difficult. Third, ANM works best when a change is successful; when an attempt at

change fails, it is not always possible to determine which people, organizations,

institutions, or “things” failed to be enlisted. Finally, ANM cries out for visual

summarization, i.e., making charts and diagrams that show principle institutions and

individual actors, a significant aide in conveying complex analyses to readers.

92 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

6. This is, of course, the classical societal dichotomy set up by the founders of sociology.

In summary, ANT appears to be more useful as methodology than as theory.

But ANT and its methodological application raise a second issue because of its

inclusion of entities beyond human beings, in particular with respect to agricultural

commodities, the question of ‘nature’. Agriculture, as has been noted by many

scholars, involves the interaction of nature and human beings. I will not attempt to

subsume the extensive literature on this matter; suffice it to note that a claim has

been made that the political economy approach has depriviliged nature in its

emphasis on humans, institutions, economy, and society. FitzSimmons and

Goodman (1998), for example, call for “nature” to be brought “back in” to social

theory by contesting its abstraction from “society” (p. 194). This is unexceptional

advice. Anyone who studies commodities such as tomatoes, lettuce, cherries,

grapevines and their various commodity forms, or citrus, must take account of the

fundamental biological characteristics (“nature”) of the commodity. Some

agricultural products are vulnerable to spoilage whereas others are storable for

considerable periods. Cherries are determinate (all become ripe at the same time)

whereas tomatoes, in their “natural” state (not manipulated by human beings) tend

to be indeterminate (ripen sequentially). Anyone contemplating mechanized

harvesting must first overcome the “natural” indeterminacy of the tomato vine.

Similarly, each of the three main commodity forms of the grapevine – fresh table

grapes, raisins, and wine – has very different biological characteristics. Human

beings manipulating natural biological systems must take “nature” seriously – as

must the social scientists who undertake to study agricultural

production/consumption systems.

Nature doesn’t have to be “brought in” if a commodity study is done properly.

While all of the things human beings manipulate have “natural” elements, in

agriculture this is particularly the case. This is not to argue that ANT or “nature

back in” theorists are incorrect; rather that theoretical parsimony argues that one

does not use more theory than one needs to explain or examine a particular

empirical phenomenon.

We turn now to a consideration of three arenas that augment Friedland’s original

methodological suggestions.

ELABORATING THE METHODOLOGY: SCALE

As research began on globalization of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV), one new

dimension, scale, became significant for filiere analysis. Scale (Wilson and Wilson

1968:25–30) refers to a geographic or spatial dimension and to social relationships

and their intensivity. In traditional societies, for example, range or physical

spatiality is usually limited while social relationships are direct, primary, intensive,

with high salience for actors. In complex modern societies, scale is much more

extended, indirect, and involves much greater numbers, but the salience of

relationships is attenuated.6

Applying scale to agricultural commodities reveals the differences which can be

Friedland 93

seen by comparing several commodities. Bananas, a tropical fruit, are produced in

a great many locations but are distributed in two very different ways: many bananas

are produced for local distribution and consumption but others are involved in long-

distance global circulation, from Caribbean, African, southeast Asian, Central and

South American production locations to North America, western Europe, and Japan

(often via U.S.-based transnational corporations). In contrast, apples are a temperate

zone commodity mainly in local or regional distribution. Because they grow widely

in both northern and southern hemispheres and storage techniques are well

developed, there is some counter-seasonal movement of apples from the southern

hemisphere to the north but it is relatively limited compared to bananas. New

Zealand and South Africa are the two primary locations for this movement; New

Zealand has been particularly successful in this trade because of its “new” varieties

that have not traditionally circulated in the northern hemisphere (McKenna, Roche,

and LeHeron 1999; McKenna 2000). Washington State is also a specialist in

supplying apples outside the U.S. to markets in Japan and elsewhere in Asia but,

like South Africa, has lagged in introducing new varieties (Sonnenfeld, Schotzko,

and Jussaume 1998).

Other commodities provide different examples. Potatoes are hardly in any global

movement, being produced nationally for national markets with some trade across

national boundaries to adjacent national markets. Some Canadian potatoes can be

found in the U.S. and vice versa or British and Dutch potatoes may be exported to

France or Germany – or vice versa, but, on the whole, the movement of potatoes is

circumscribed. In contrast, after many decades of pure localism, kiwifruit globalized

during the 1980s from New Zealand but rapidly relocalized with production in Italy,

Spain, the United States, France, and elsewhere.

Because bananas move internationally over long distances and are perishable,

they require close (“just-in-time”) integration of growing, harvest, ground

transportation, shipping, and “ripening” near the point of retail sale. Social

relationships in the banana commodity system are spatially more extensive than

with apples because of the necessity to coordinate many different dispersed

activities. Social relationships may be more intensive in apples but are more limited

in range than bananas. In movement through space, some agricultural commodities,

impose qualitatively different levels of social organization and social relations than

other commodities which are more limited in circulation.

There is an historic dimension to this phenomenon. As previously noted, it was

not until the 1980s that table grapes became “massified” on an annual basis. In the

U.S., citrus became a massified commodity a century ago when technological

developments in storage and transportation and a national distribution and

marketing system was organized. By the end of the second world war, fresh oranges

were an established “national commodity” in the U.S. This was also the period in

which orange juice became converted into a quotidian commodity as the technology

of concentrating juice and transporting it in frozen state was resolved.

Each commodity system, in other words, develops a distinctive history as

distribution, marketing, and scale change, a process characterized by uneven

94 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

7. In Europe, cherry production in Norway comes relatively late in Europe’s summer

permitting export of cherries well after the harvest of cherries further south has been

completed (Eurofruit Magazine, 9/93:35–39).

development. In the eastern U.S., for example, consumption of iceberg lettuce on

an annual basis began much earlier than tomatoes. By the end of the second world

war both commodities were in year-round distribution. Other commodities were

available during short seasons; cherries and stone fruit, for example. Many

commodities have now moved into year-round availability through the extension of

growing seasons, the development of new varieties, or new production locations.

Others, such as cherries, have seen some extension of their seasons but are still

largely limited temporally.7

As production seasons are extended or production locations develop in different

hemispheres, marketing requires the establishment of reliable and predictable

financial and social relationships.

A commodity, in other words, if it is to be analysed, should be studied

historically and its spatial and social relations dimensions must be examined.

SCALE AND COMMODITY “COMMUNITIES”

One consequence of differentials in scale is the variability in the organization of

commodity communities. Community has two meanings, spatial and functional;

while community often refers to people living in a common space, especially one

with political dimensions, it also refers to groups of people sharing a common

function or interest such as the “financial community,” “academic community,” the

“global” or “human community.”

One way to examine commodity “communities” is to consider communities

constructed around commodity systems that share a common plant. The grapevine,

for example, contributes to three interrelated but distinct commodity chains: table

grapes, raisins, and wine.

In table grapes, the community of growers is dispersed over some distance

(approximately 300–400 miles). It consists of growers and grower-shippers;

workers in preparatory activities, harvesting, and packing; buyers (mainly

supermarkets but also buyers at great distances such as Asia); and regulatory

bureaucrats. Growers and grower-shippers constitute a coherent and organized

grouping even though they are involved in competitive economic relations. Workers

are organized to a degree as a community since the packing of table grapes and

some parts of the growing process (girdling) require considerable skills. Workers

became more of a community when they were organized by Cesar Chavez in the

1960s who made their social relationships vis-a-vis growers more coherent. Buyers

constitute a vaguer community since they usually purchase many different fruits and

vegetables and deal with many growers and shippers. Buyers’ major point of

reference, or “primary community” are the supermarket chains (or other

organizations) for which they purchase grapes. In contrast, regulatory bureaucrats

are a very tight community; their numbers are small and they are in continuous

contact with one another protecting and elaborating the organizational system that

Friedland 95

maintains relationships between growers, workers (especially when workers are

organizing), transportation, and other entities in the filiere.

Raisin grapes display a very different picture. Because raisins are not perishable

like table grapes and because all raisins in the U.S. (constituting 40 percent of world

production) are produced in a small geographical space in California’s San Joaquin

Valley within a 50 mile radius of the city of Fresno, spatial contiguity makes for a

relatively tight grower community which has been divided historically along ethnic

lines (although this has faded considerably in the past several decades). Raisin

grape workers are a much vaguer community than table grape workers since raisin

harvesting requires very large numbers of workers for brief intensive periods.

Because raisin harvesters are both local and long distance, the basis for worker

solidarity is attenuated. Since raisins are used in a great variety of ways, the market

relationships beyond production are dispersed and it is difficult to talk about a

“community” of raisin buyers. As with those involved with table grapes, regulatory

bureaucrats are tiny in number and are in continuous and intensive relationships

with one another and with growers.

Wine shows the greatest amount of spatial and social dispersion. California is by

far the main wine producer but wine is currently made commercially in over 45 of

the 50 U.S. states. If we limit ourselves to California to simplify the analysis, we

can see different communities among wine grape growers and wine makers. Despite

several campaigns by an organization of winegrape growers to create a joint effort

with winemakers to expand the consumption of wine, the differential interests of

these two groups have precluded such organization.

Because some regions in California make premium and ultra-premium wines

while others make only ‘ordinaries’, community among winemakers is limited.

Wine producers such as Gallo in the San Joaquin Valley see little community of

interest with tiny ultra premium boutiques in the Napa Valley. The Napans, in

contrast, are able to cooperate and create a Napa winemakers’ community for some

purposes (promotion of Napa wines) while competing in marketing (Conaway 1990;

Lapsley 1996). Wine grape workers also have differential interests from winery

workers precluding common activities. Field workers work in fields seasonally

whereas winery workers usually live in urban circumstances working under factory

conditions. Field workers are presently not organized (for the most part) into a

union whereas winery workers are.

The wine market is highly differentiated. The various marketers included wine

specialists, supermarkets, liquor stores, state alcohol authorities, direct sales to

consumers from wineries, etc., and preclude coherence as a community. The

regulatory apparatus is complex and dispersed because the legislation that

eliminated Prohibition provided that, in addition to the federal government, each

state could set regulations with respect to alcohol consumption. Finally, wine

industry organizational bureaucrats are divided by the various functions of their

organizations so that this community is more tenuous than found in table grapes or

raisins.

96 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

ELABORATING THE METHODOLOGY: SECTORAL

ORGANIZATION AND THE STATE

Sectoral organization refers to the political economic location of a commodity.

Every commodity, agricultural or nonagricultural, exists in some economic sector

which differentially involves the state. This methodological issue represents an

attempt to “bring the state back in” to filiere analysis.

The state has usually been present in empirical analyses of commodities but its

role has been more implicit than explicit. However, the state should never be taken

for granted, especially since its intervention and involvement in regulation and

support are ubiquitous in modern capitalist economies. State intervention in

commodity production, and its consequences, has long been present. In Great

Britain, for example, the export of grain was forbidden as early as the fourteenth

century to keep prices low. The battle in English politics over the corn laws of the

1800s involved the state first favouring agricultural landowners and subsequently

industrialists (Barnes 1930).

In the United States, tariffs represented an early example of state involvement in

agricultural production. Later forms of state support to agriculture came through

legislation such as the Homestead (1862), Morrill (1862), Hatch (1887), and Smith-

Lever Acts (1914). However, it was not until the 1930s, during the administration

of Franklin D. Roosevelt, that systematic and continuous involvement of the state

began with the elaboration of support to basic commodities, the installation of

marketing order legislation at the federal and state levels, and the elaboration of

federally-supported irrigation programs.

In considering sectoral location of specific commodities, it is useful to utilize the

economic sectors set out by O'Connor (1973): competitive, monopoly, and state. In

agriculture, while most commodity systems ostensibly belong in the competitive

sector, a closer examination of specific commodities raises questions as to how to

accurately characterize different segments of each.

If we consider grain, for example, a commonsensical consideration would

position grain as consisting of several competitive commodity systems; corn and

wheat alone involve tens of thousands of agricultural producers. At the level of

production, wheat and corn should be characterized as competitive. However, as

Morgan (1980) makes clear, at the level of distribution, five transnational

corporations dominate the global trade in grain, placing distribution in the

monopoly sector.

If we consider the three commodity forms of the grapevine, table, raisin, and

wine, the complexities of economic sectors are again revealed. Table grapes are

very much in the competitive sector although state-subsidized irrigation, science,

and a marketing order play a significant role in the organization of the commodity.

Raisins, like grapes, are produced by some 4,000 growers which would indicate

belonging in the competitive sector. Yet raisins are organized by the growers in two

organizations (Sun Maid, the Raisin Bargaining Association) and two marketing

orders (one of which became extinct recently) so that the commodity operates

essentially as a monopoly. This is because one marketing order, the Raisin

Friedland 97

Administrative Committee, regulates flow to market thereby establishing order

where, otherwise, raisin prices would be chaotic.

Wine poses similar complications. At the level of production and retail, wine is

undoubtedly competitive. Historically, however, there have been periods in which

wine functioned as a monopoly. Currently, wine production is oligopolistic with a

handful of companies producing the overwhelming percentage of wine. This has not

yet created a monopoly situation although at one period prior to Prohibition, wine

marketing was dominated by a single company, and, between 1939 and 1974,

because of the wine marketing order, a private California trade organization – the

Wine Institute – monopolized two segments of the industry: the direction of

scientific production and the shape of legislation affecting wine.

Sectoral organization creates considerable dilemmas for some commodities.

Tobacco is a good case in point. This is a commodity in which one sector of the

state provides a powerful regulatory apparatus while another sector of the state

raises questions about the social value of tobacco. Burley tobacco’s producers are

many, small, and family-based while its processors are firmly in the monopoly

sector (Wright 1999). Empirical reality confounds the neat placement of an entire

commodity into a single sector.

It will undoubtedly be noted that, in the preceding discussion, no empirical

examples of agriculture in the state sector were set out. This is because, in the

American experience, no agricultural commodity exists solely in the state sector.

Yet, the degree of state involvement in an agricultural commodity – and how it

became involved, whether it remains involved, and its character – is an important

element in the analysis of a commodity filiere.

As one example of how state involvement affects a commodity system, one might

consider the ban on the importation of rice which the Japanese state maintained

until recently even though domestic rice was far more costly than imported rice.

This ban was only in part a function of concern by state bureaucrats about food

security (that is, maintaining a certain level of local production so that a basic staple

would not be overwhelmingly dependent on foreigners). Equally as important were

the thousands of small-scale rice growers who constituted a backbone of support to

the ruling Liberal Democratic party.

State involvement in commodity systems can be extremely variable. In the U.S.,

some basic commodities (wheat, corn, soybeans, tobacco, sugar, etc.) have

benefited for decades through state involvement in the form of direct subsidies,

price supports, or restrictions on acreage. Other commodities have received very

different forms of support. It is always amusing to hear California growers complain

about government support to Midwest commodities while being oblivious to their

own forms of state support of subsidized water and science and the maintenance of

legal structures that facilitate commodity organization. Indeed, it was not until

federal and state marketing order legislation was adopted during the 1930s that

powerful commodity organization emerged. This form of organization in milk,

cotton, vegetables, and fruit was structurally dependent on the adoption of

marketing order legislation.

98 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

Marketing orders in the U.S. can be established if 65 percent of growers or those

with 50 percent of acreage (or vice versa) in a specific commodity agree by ballot

to establish or continue a marketing order. Growers who want to establish a

marketing order must therefore create organizations and organize other growers so

that they will vote to accept the order. Marketing orders, it should be remembered,

allocate limited powers of the state to organized groups of agricultural producers.

This structural form of state involvement is often “invisible” to growers,

nevertheless it represents a significant element of state involvement in a filiere.

ELABORATING THE METHODOLOGY: COMMODITY CULTURE

Not every agricultural commodity – or nonagricultural, for that matter – generates

an elaborated culture. Some commodities such as wine, tobacco, olive oil, for

example, develop elaborate commodity passions and give rise to unusual aspects

of commodity life. Other commodities might be characterized as ordinary,

quotidian, or indeed, perhaps being even “uncultured.” In all likelihood, producers

of every modern commodity generate some cultural elements; even broccoli,

ostensible a quotidian vegetable, drew a reaction from its producers when then-

President Bush admitted that he disliked the vegetable.

In addition, a distinction should be made between producers of a commodity and

its consumers and, in some circumstances, in agents in the filiere between producer

and consumer. Producer culture may involve not only beliefs about the processes

of production but also symbolic meanings. For consumers, although there may be

differential interest or curiosity about production processes, the symbolic apparatus

may partially overlap that held by producers but may also have distinctive elements.

Mothers/housewives, as a result of their belief system, may be concerned to feed

broccoli to their husbands and children because it is “healthy.”

This view may be shared by broccoli growers who also may have cultural beliefs

about the optimal conditions under which the vegetable can be produced. Broccoli

harvesters may be totally disinterested in any of this but might think broccoli is a

fine crop because they don’t have to stoop to harvest it. And the truck drivers who

convey the vegetable from its source in the Salinas Valley to consumption in

Philadelphia may be completely indifferent to the vegetable they are toting 3,000

miles. At the same time, while broccoli may “sell” itself when displayed on a

supermarket shelf, an automobile will generate a lot of culture for those responsible

for selling it as well as those that produce and consume it. Each commodity, in other

words, has varying degrees of culture and the elucidation of that culture is part of

the problem of conducting filiere analysis.

The comparative cultures of some commodities reveals the empirical differences.

Wine is an example of a highly cultured commodity; it has a long historical record

in many different cultures and societies. Wine’s culture is related not only to the

wine itself but to the symbolism of grapes in art, architecture, and literature. While

wine publications – trade journals, consumer magazines, winemaker publications,

coffee table books, how-to books, wine tourism guides, and wine computer

programs – can be found in profusion, similar publications are sparse for other

Friedland 99

8. While photographs carrying the symbolism of wine invariably show someone holding a

wine glass, it would look peculiar if someone were to be holding a bunch of grapes.

Similarly, in artistic renderings, the bunch of grapes is found far more frequently than the

glass of wine.

9. Henderson (1999) makes the circulation of capital in agriculture a central element of his

analysis of California. He deals with capital circulation in agriculture generally rather than

focusing on any specific commodity chain.

commodity forms derived from the grapevine; table grapes and raisins get scarce

cultural recognition. Other agricultural commodities like broccoli, Brussels sprouts,

or celery, generate relatively little or no cultural interest.

Wine culture is exceptionally rich. Not only can one find a complex of producer

and a plethora of consumer organizations, but also a rich panoply of cultural forms.

Considering only the ways in which grapes and their vinous form have appeared in

art alone would require encyclopaedic research, and if all the architectural stones

chiselled into the shape of grape bunches were collected, it would provide a volume

equal to that found in art.

Of the various commodities that have been have researched, wine and tobacco

can be said to have developed extensive cultural apparatuses. Grapes are widely

found in artistic expressions but I would argue that such grapes clusters are used

symbolically to represent, like the cornucopia, the abundance of nature; moreover,

grape bunches have great symbolic association with wine.8

In contrast, raisin grapes generate little culture. Tomatoes stimulate a small

amount of cultural interest – witness the posters showing various tomato forms and

the occasional bar of soap smelling of tomato essence and shaped like a tomato and

various other tomato forms in art. But iceberg lettuce generates no interest

culturally; it “gets no respect.”

In cultural manifestations we can see a hierarchy of commodity statuses. It is

useful to understand the degree to which commodities generate cultural apparatuses.

CONCLUSION

It was originally suggested that the analysis of commodity systems involved five

major areas of consideration: labor process, grower organization, labor, science,

and marketing and distribution. The present paper calls for an augmentation of these

five to include scale, sectoral organization and state involvement, and culture.

Empirical examples have been provided as to the potential utility of these new

areas.

That post-factum empirical research has suggested additional areas for

consideration in the methodology of commodity chain analysis, also suggests the

possibility that additional empirical research will open yet other areas for inclusion.

Let me anticipate at least two in addition to the suggestions discussed earlier of

Wright and Dixon: the financial organization of a commodity9 and the length of

commodity systems.

Commodity financial organization has been avoided not because it is unimportant

100 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

but because of the difficulties of conducting empirical research. It should be

obvious that there are differential financial considerations in different commodities;

although all involve financial matters, annual crops require lower levels of

investment than trees and vines. A grower can plant tomato or lettuce acreage with

much lower investments than grapes or olives since growers of the latter two must

wait three and seven years respectively before returns can be realized. Similarly,

wine production requires greater capitalization than table grapes or raisins since

heavier capital requirements (machinery, storehouses, wine casks, etc.) are

necessary and, except in unusual circumstances (for example, beaujolais nouveau

and other “nouveau” wines), red wines must be aged thereby tying up capital for

long periods of time.

This kind of financial analysis in commodities is possible. What is more difficult

is obtaining data on costs in the various segments of production, distribution, and

marketing. Some agricultural economists have done relevant analyses. What cannot

be found, however, is what the Bank of America or Wells Fargo or other banks have

invested in specific commodities and how these investments are broken down either

by specific commodity forms or by area/region.

A second area of concern has already begun to emerge: the length and shape of

commodity systems. Several critical papers relating to commodity and food systems

analyses have suggested the need for amplification of the five areas Friedland

originally set out.

Three topics, in particular, will probably need fleshing out in the future. One is the

actual process of consumption and how this relates to the production, distribution, and

marketing arrangements of the commodity, something in which the contributions of

Dixon and Wright will prove useful. Secondly, as FitzSimmons and Goodman (1998),

and Goodman (1999) and others have pointed out, most food studies take nature for

granted as a “black box” having some relationship to commodity filieres but paying

little attention to how commodities interact with nature.

The third is the internal dynamics of the commodity system: in the complex of

actors and activities in any commodity chain, who does what and where are the loci

of control (the problem that preoccupied Dixon). A recent report on how Costco, the

“big-box” retailer, is now handling inventory control, a critical element in retailing,

is suggestive. Nelson and Zimmerman (2000) point out that Costco has passed the

responsibility of resupply of diapers, a paper product, to their supplier, Kimberley-

Clark. Because Costco – and other “big-box” retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and

J.C. Penney – can track sales of particular products as they are sold, that information

can be passed on to suppliers immediately so that shortages in supply can be

anticipated. The head of supply chain activity for Proctor & Gamble is quoted as

saying: “A shopper buys a roll of Bounty paper towel, and that would trigger someone

cutting a tree in Georgia. That’s the holy grail.” The retailers have, through this

process, relieved themselves of yet another responsibility in their drive to cut costs.

While this suggests that control has passed from the retailer to the manufacturer-

supplier, this is likely far from the case. Future filiere analyses will, in all probability,

yield new areas for the further elaboration of commodity systems methodology.

Friedland 101

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104

ABSTRACTS / RESÚMENES

Alessandro Bonanno and Douglas H. Constance

Corporate Strategies in the Global Era: The Case of Mega-Hog

Farms in the Texas Panhandle Region

Employing the case of the expansion of mega-hog operations in Texas Panhandle region, this

paper illustrates relevant strategies that agro-food transnational corporations (TNCs) employ

to maximize capital accumulation and address locally-based resistance. Salient literature on

socioeconomic trends in the global era underscores that through hyper-mobility and by

pitting localities against each other, TNCs take advantage of communities’ desires to attract

external investments to stimulate local growth. This literature also points out that the growth

of TNCs creates limits for the maintenance of democracy. The events of the case indicate

that agro-food TNCs moved to the Texas Panhandle region to capitalize on favorable socio-

political conditions. However, anti-corporate local resistance developed on the grounds that

newly created mega-hog operations contaminated the environment and exacerbated social

problems in the area. TNCs responded by adopting postures which transcended hyper-

mobility strategies and involved actions at the legitimative, political and economic levels.

At the legitimative level, TNCs presented an image which stressed conformity to existing

environmental regulations, narrowed the definition of environmentally sound agricultural

activities and delegitimized opposition. At the political level, TNCs were able to control

local environmental agencies and depoliticize environment evaluation procedures.

Economically, growth, the creation of new jobs, but also large monetary donations to

communities, were all employed to solicit acceptance of corporate postures. The paper

concludes with some brief reflections on the impact that the development of TNCs has on

democracy.

Estrategias corporativas en la era global: el caso de las mega

granjas de cerdos en la región Panhandle de Texas

Este artículo ejemplifica, a través del estudio del incremento de las operaciones de granjas

de cerdos en la región Panhandle de Texas, las estrategias que utilizan las corporaciones

transnacionales agroalimentarias (TNCs) para maximizar la acumulación de capital y para

enfrentar a la resistencia local. Literatura importante sobre las tendencias socioeconómicas

en la era global enfatiza que las TNCs se aprovechan, a través de la hiper-movilidad y de

generar enfrentamientos entre localidades, del deseo de las comunidades por atraer inversión

externa y por estimular el crecimiento local. Esta literatura señala también que el crecimiento

de las TNCs genera límites para la conservación de la democracia. Los eventos en el estudio

de caso señalan que las TNCs agroalimentarias se cambiaron a la región Panhandle de Texas

para aprovechar las condiciones sociopolíticas favorables. Sin embargo, surgió resistencia

local contra las granjas de cerdos bajo el argumento de que éstas contaminan el medio

ambiente y exacerban los problemas sociales del área. Las TNCs respondieron a estas críticas

adoptando posturas que trascendían las estrategias de hiper-movilidad y que involucraban

acciones a los niveles legal, político y económico. Al nivel legal, las TNCs presentaron una

imagen que enfatizaba su apego a las regulaciones ambientales existentes, estrecharon la

definición de actividades agrícolas sensibles al ambiente y deslegitimizaron a la oposición.

Al nivel político, las TNCs fueron capaces de controlar las agencias ambientales locales y

de despolitizar los procedimientos de evaluación ambiental. Económicamente, las TNCs

emplearon el crecimiento, la creación de nuevos empleos, así como donaciones monetarias

a las comunidades, para solicitar la aceptación de las posiciones de las corporaciones. El

artículo concluye con algunas reflexiones breves sobre el impacto que tiene el desarrollo de

las TNCs sobre la democracia.

International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 105

Bruce M. Curtis

Reforming New Zealand Agriculture: The WTO Way or Farmer Control?

The article contrasts a neoliberal agenda for agriculture championed by the World Trade

Organisation (WTO) and interests within New Zealand, with those of farmer-run institutions,

most notably the producer boards. The resources the WTO brings to bear ensure that any

struggle it has with producer boards in New Zealand is likely to be one-sided. However this

is not to say that the WTO is irresistible. Globalisation and the putative liberalisation of

international trade remains a process that is networked, negotiated and implemented in

different geographic scales. Consequently there remain possibilities for agriculture and for

farmers other than the corporate ‘rule of law’ favoured by the WTO.

Reformando la agricultura de Nueva Zelanda: ¿por la via OMC

o por el control del agricultor?

Este artículo contrasta una agenda neo-liberal para la agricultura promovida por la

Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) y los intereses dentro de Nueva Zelanda con

los intereses de las instituciones encabezadas por agricultores, principalmente con los

comités de productores. Los recursos que la OMC provee generan que cualquier conflicto

que ésta tenga con los comités de productores de Nueva Zelanda estén, muy probablemente,

inclinados hacia la OMC. No obstante, esto no quiere decir que la OMC sea invencible. La

globalización y la liberalización putativa del comercio internacional continúa siendo un

proceso que está conectado, negociado e implementado en diversas escalas geográficas. En

consecuencia, todavía existen otras posibilidades para la agricultura y para los agricultores

además del “estado de derecho” corporativo favorecido por la OMC.

Stewart Lockie and Kristen Lyons

Renegotiating Gender and the Symbolic Transformation

of Australian Rural Environments

A notable feature of contemporary approaches to ameliorating rural environmental

degradation (such as Australia’s National Landcare Program) is the involvement of women

to a degree not witnessed in other mainstream farming issues and organisations. At the same

time, rural women’s networks are calling for greater recognition of the contribution women

make to agriculture and rural communities – to recognise women as ‘farmers’ in their own

right – and for a broadening of the agri-political agenda to give greater recognition to non-

‘production’ issues such as social services, workplace health and safety and environmental

care. Given the traditional construction of agricultural labour processes in highly

masculinised and phallocentric terms, this raises a number of questions regarding the degree

to which rural environments are undergoing a sort of symbolic transformation. More

specifically, we might question the degree to which these developments provide evidence

that human relationships with rural environments – as embodied in the labour process and

other day-to-day activities – are being reconceptualised and restructured. To explore this

question, we explore data from a variety of sources including ethnographic research

conducted with community Landcare groups and organic farmers, and textual analysis of the

popular rural press. We conclude that while the renegotiation of gender relations in the

labour process is in itself culturally and socially profound, a range of other sociocultural

processes may stand in the way of fundamental transformation of the relationships with rural

environments implied in those labour processes.

Renegociando el género y la transformación simbólica

de los ambientes rurales en Australia

Una característica importante de los enfoques contemporáneos para disminuir la degradación

106 International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

de los ambientes rurales (como el Programa Nacional para el Cuidado de la Tierra en

Australia –Australia’s National Landcare Program) es la participación de las mujeres a un

grado no observado en otros asuntos y organizaciones agrícolas dominantes. Al mismo

tiempo, las redes de mujeres rurales están tratando de aumentar el reconocimiento a la

contribución que las mujeres hacen a la agricultura y a las comunidades rurales –para que

se reconozca a las mujeres como “agricultoras” por sí solas- y están abogando por una

expansión de la agenda agro-política que dé un mayor reconocimiento a los aspectos “no

productivos”, tales como los servicios sociales, la salud y la seguridad en el lugar de trabajo,

y el cuidado ambiental. Dada la construcción tradicional de los procesos laborales agrícolas

en términos altamente masculinizados y falocéntricos, esto genera diversas preguntas sobre

el grado al que los ambientes rurales están pasando por una transformación simbólica. Más

específicamente, uno se puede preguntar el grado al que estos desarrollos proveen evidencia

de que las relaciones de los humanos con los ambientes rurales – personificados en los

procesos laborales y otras actividades diarias- están siendo reconceptualizadas y

reestructuradas. Para resolver esta pregunta, exploramos datos de diversas fuentes,

incluyendo un estudio etnográfico conducido entre grupos comunales de Landcare y

agricultores orgánicos, y análisis de texto de la prensa rural popular. Concluimos que

mientras que la renegociación de las relaciones de género en el proceso laboral es en sí

profundo cultural y socialmente, otros procesos socioculturales diversos pueden dificultar

la transformación fundamental de las relaciones con los ambientes rurales que están

implícitos en esos procesos laborales.

Peter Leigh Taylor

Community Forestry as Embedded Process:

Two Cases from Durango and Quintana Roo, Mexico

Recent neoliberal economic restructuring and related legal reform undermine the peasant-

based organizations underlying Mexican community forestry. Technical services have been

relegated to markets and new economic groups within communities authorized to use forest

resources. Researchers have found that individuals may develop successful management

regimes when they agree on resource problems and change strategies, they value benefits of

cooperation relative to costs, and they constitute a relatively well-defined and stable group.

But examination of two peasant-based, intermediate level forestry organizations in Durango

and Quintana Roo reveals that internal and external pressures lead the organizations to

reformulate objectives, rework how they “deliver the goods” to members, and redefine the

boundaries of stakeholder “communities.” Peasant-based organizations remain key actors

in the pursuit of sustainable forestry and merit support in adapting to new conditions.

Common pool resource research might fruitfully view such organizations as historical

processes embedded in structural contexts ranging from local to global.

Silvicultura comunitaria como un proceso enclavado:

Dos casos de Durango y Quintana Roo, México

La reciente reestructuración económica de carácter neoliberal y la reforma legal relacionada

debilitan las organizaciones campesinas que subyacen la silvicultura comunitaria mexicana.

Los servicios técnicos han sido relegados a los mercados y a nuevos grupos económicos en

las comunidades autorizadas para explotar recursos forestales. Los investigadores han

encontrado que los individuos pueden desarrollar regímenes administrativos exitosos cuando

ellos coinciden en cuáles son los problemas de recursos y las estrategias de cambio, valoran

los beneficios de la cooperación por sobre los costos, y constituyen un grupo relativamente

bien definido y estable. Sin embargo, la exploración de dos organizaciones campesinas de

nivel intermedio en Durango y Quintana Roo revela que las presiones internas y externas

International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 107

llevan a las organizaciones a reformular sus objetivos, a replantear cómo “distribuyen los

bienes” a los miembros, y a redefinir las fronteras de las “comunidades” involucradas. Las

organizaciones campesinas continúan siendo actores centrales en la búsqueda de una

silvicultura sostenible y merecen apoyo para adaptarse a condiciones nuevas. La

investigación sobre la forma en que los recursos se comparten puede ser fructífera para

entender tales organizaciones como un proceso histórico enclavado en contextos

estructurales que varían de lo local a lo global.

William H. Friedland

Reprise on Commodity Systems Methodology

Set out over a decade ago, a methodology of commodity systems analysis described five

basic foci of research: production practices, grower organization and organizations, labor,

science production and application, and marketing and distribution networks. Recent

empirical research on several commodity systems in California and on the globalization of

fresh fruits and vegetables has indicated the need for an elaboration of the original

methodology. A review is made of existing literature relevant to commodity studies and

commodity systems analyses as well as assessing several related systems of provision and

actor network theory as potential contributors to commodity and commodity systems

analysis. Three additional research foci are proposed: scale, sectoral organization and the

relationship of the state to the commodity, and commodity culture. Scale refers both to the

spatial character of the commodity and the forms of social interaction of actors within the

commodity system and also includes the character of the community or communities –

spatial and functional – that are part of the commodity system. Sectoral organization deals

with whether and how the commodity is organized in or around the competitive, monopoly,

or state sectors and how the commodity is regulated or the degree to which the state

regulates, intervenes, or supports commodity development. Commodity culture refers to

cultural forms found either among commodity producers or consumers, a variable

phenomenon with strong cultural elements found in some commodities and absent in others.

Empirical cases explore the utility of these augmenting research foci.

Una re-evaluación de la metodología de los sistemas de mercancías

Una metodología de análisis de los sistemas de mercancías diseñada hace más de una década

describía cinco áreas de investigación básicas: prácticas de producción, organización y

organizaciones de los productores, prácticas laborales, producción y aplicación científica, y

redes de comercio y distribución. Estudios empíricos recientes sobre diversos sistemas de

mercancías en California, y sobre la globalización de frutas y vegetales frescos señalan la

necesidad de replantear la metodología original. Este artículo hace una revisión de la literatura

sobre los estudios de mercancías y de sistemas de mercancías existente, y evalúa la contribución

potencial de varios sistemas de provisión y teorías de redes. Se proponen tres áreas de

investigación adicionales: escala, organización sectoral y la relación del Estado con la

mercancía, y la cultura de la mercancía. La escala se refiere al carácter espacial de las

mercancías y a las formas de interacción social de los actores dentro del sistema de mercancías,

así como el carácter de la comunidad o comunidades –espaciales y funcionales- que son parte

del sistema de mercancías. La organización sectorial tiene que ver con sí, y cómo, se organiza

la mercancía en o alrededor del sector competitivo, del monopolio o del Estado, y con cómo

se regula la mercancía, o el grado al que el Estado regula, interviene o apoya el desarrollo de

la mercancía. La cultura de la mercancía se refiere a las formas culturales encontradas entre los

productores o consumidores de mercancías. La cultura de la mercancía es un fenómeno

variable, con elementos culturales fuertes encontrados en ciertas mercancías y ausente en otras.

La utilidad de estas nuevas áreas de investigación se explora con varios casos empíricos.

RC40 has a new electronic mailing list to

further communication among research

committee members and other colleagues who

are interested in the sociology of agriculture

and food. This is a moderated list hosted by

the Ryerson Polytechnic University in

Toronto, Canada and only members are

allowed to send messages. We encourage

members to share news about forthcoming

conferences, recent publications on the

sociology of agriculture and food (both their

own and those of others), information

sources, and funding opportunities. To avoid

heavy e-mail traffic the moderator will collate

these messages and send periodic bulletins to

list subscribers. We intend this mailing list to

replace RC40’s twice-annual newsletter

(although printed bulletins will be mailed to

those members who lack access to e-mail).

Your commentaries and responses are most

welcome.

To join the mailing list, send an e-mail

message to:

majordomo@ryerson.ca

In the body of the message type:

subscribe isarc40

Readers of this journal are invited to join the Research Committee on the

Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40) of the International Sociological

Association. Our active, collegial members are involved in a range of fascinating

research, some of which will be showcased in 2002 at the International Sociological

Association’s quadrennial congress in Brisbane, Australia. RC40 members are

routinely active at the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society (U.S.), the

European Society for Rural Sociology, the joint annual meetings of the Association

for the Study of Food and Society and the Agriculture, Food and Human Values

Society, and at related meetings and conferences worldwide.

Our world is changing profoundly, perhaps nowhere more rapidly than in

agriculture and food. There is a strengthening of alternative movements concerned

with such issues as agricultural and environmental sustainability, food quality and

safety, and new forms of social organization at both the micro and macro scales.

Issues of rurality and rural livelihoods remain very much in the foreground. There is

much research and action to be done, and RC40 has an important role to play. Our

operating principle is to be as international as possible, and to build a truly global

network of persons working in this area. We would like this network to function as

an information exchange, both (and all) ways. We are building the network through

nodes of Regional Representatives whose tasks include conveying information about

RC40 to other scholars and recruiting them as members, disseminating information

about RC40 conferences, special journal issues and research, and transmitting

information to the executive committee about research and conferences underway in

their regions. We seek to expand our regional network and are looking for volunteers

to work in their regions to recruit new members, inform us about new developments,

conferences and events. If you want to volunteer, or if you have a contact in a region

where you think we should be represented, then please contact Philip McMichael,

RC40 President.

RC40 Executive Committee (1998-2002)

President: Philip McMichael pdm1@cornell.edu

Secretary: Mustafa Koc mkoc@acs.ryerson.ca

Members: Monica Bendini rtbendin@uncoma.edu.ar

Douglas Constance soc_dhc@shsu.edu

David Myhre d.myhre@fordfound.org

Laura Raynolds Laura.Raynolds@colostate.edu

Past President: William Friedland friedla@cats.ucsc.edu

Past Secretary: Raymond A. Jussaume Jr. rajussaume@wsu.edu

RC40 Regional Representatives

North Africa: Alia Gana agana@gnet.tn

South Asia: Kalyan Sankar Mandal ksmandal@hotmail.com

East Asia: Yoshi Taniguchi tani@air.akita-u.ac.jp

Australia/New Zealand: Geoffrey Lawrence g.lawrence@cqu.edu.au

Iberian Europe: Manuel Moreira mbelomoreira@isa.utl.pt

Northern Europe: Reidar Almås Reidar.Almas@allforsk.ntnu.no

Southern Europe: Mara Miele mielemar@deag.unipi.it

United Kingdom: Behrooz Morvaridi B.Morvaridi@Bradford.ac.uk

Latin America (Spanish): Luis Llambí llambi@ivic.ivic.ve

Brazil: Salete Cavalcanti cavalcanti@npd.ufpe.br

The Research Committee on Food and Agriculture

(RC40) is a world wide organization of social

scientists who are interested in the study of

contemporary food and agricultural systems. RC40

publishes the International Journal of Sociology of

Agriculture and Food. RC40 exists under the

auspices of the International Sociological

Association. For information about RC40 activities

and membership, and subscriptions to this journal,

point your web browser to the RC40 web site:

http://www.acs.ryerson.ca/~isarc40/

or contact the RC40 Secretary:

Mustafa Koc

Department of Sociology

Ryerson Polytechnic University

350 Victoria Street

Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3

Canada

Fax: (416) 979 5273

E-mail: mkoc@acs.ryerson.ca

C RC40 Taylor

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