Back to the Land
The Paradox of Organic Food Standards
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5136156 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J Guthman (0000-0002-5529-0805, Department of Community Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 511-528 |
| Publication date | 2004-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1068/a36104 |
| OpenAlex | W2029737510 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 89 |
| References cited | 35 |
This paper examines how the rent-creating conventions that regulate organic food production undermine growers' abilities to farm in a less intensive manner. The paper builds on a growing literature on food governance which points to the unintended consequences of standardization and their verification. The argument is based in theories of rent, with specific attention to how the constructed scarcity of organic food creates rents that are competed away or appropriated. The author also discusses how organic regulations may manifest in monopoly ground rents, especially given the attention paid to land in organic certification. Insofar as these rents pass through to land values, they contribute to a broader pattern of land valuation that pushes farmers to grow the most valuable crops in the most productive ways-an imperative that is not necessarily conducive to organic farming as it is generally envisioned
Agriculture · Business · Economic rent · Economics · Geography · Lease · Market economy · Natural resource economics · Organic certification · Organic farming · Political science · Scarcity · Unintended consequences · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law · Organic Food and Agriculture · Finance
Cultivating what is ours
Vulnerability and Transformation of Indonesian Peatlands
Balancing Barriers to Entry and Administrative Burden in Voluntary Regulation
Food for thought
Heritage in Danger or Mission Accomplished
Place and civic culture
Beyond Europeanization
Imag(in)ing ‘good’ Swedish meat
Common property regimes in participatory guarantee systems (PGS)
Negotiating the Value Chain
How Much Does Property Cost Up There?”
Standard fare or fairer standards
(Un)intended lock-in
Seeking justice, eating toxics
Cultural biodiversity unpacked, separating discourse from practice
Contested agri-food futures
Indigenous worldviews and Western conventions
Exploring member trust in German community-supported agriculture
Participatory organic certification in Mexico
Organic” rice
Certifying rural spaces
Rural revitalization through territorial distinctiveness
Why working conditions are a key issue of sustainability in agriculture? A comparison between agroecological, organic and conventional vegetable systems
Resisting the vineyard invasion
Between technocracy and democracy
The effectiveness of contemporary Geographical Indications (GIs) schemes in enhancing the quality of Chinese agrifoods – Experiences from the field
Building alternative agri-food networks
Quality certification, regulation and power in fair trade
Politics in participatory guarantee systems for organic food production
The role of the state for managing voluntary food sustainability standards democratically
The agrifood system policy agenda and research domain
Organic rural development
The quality of sustainability
Local alternatives to private agricultural certification in Ecuador
Environmental certification of forests
Cultural ecology (and political ecology) in the ‘environmental borderlands
Geographies of food
Moving beyond the impasse in geographies of ‘alternative’ food networks
Rural geography
Geographies of exchange and circulation
An industry viewpoint on the role of farm assurance in delivering food safety to the consumer
A century of biodynamic farming development
Nested relationships and the spatially distanced consumer in alternative pet food movements
The paradoxes of purity in organic agriculture in Burkina Faso
The work of environmental governance networks
Will Weed for Food”
Revealing the hidden geography of alternative food networks
Neoliberalism and the making of food politics in California
Privatizing farm worker justice
Tomato dry farming as an agroecological model for California’s drought resilient future
Fat in food & environment justice
Local Organic Food for Local People? Organic Marketing Strategies in England and Wales
Le label AB, dispositif de promesse ou de jugement
What are the ‘Values’ in alternative food systems? A systematic review
The private provision of public environment
The Value of Rents
The Polanyian Way? Voluntary Food Labels as Neoliberal Governance
Lost in the Supermarket
Environmental Certification of Forests in Mexico
We grow earth
Private regulation, public policy, and the perils of adverse ontological selection
Place, food, and agriculture
From Ethical Consumerism to Political Consumption
Countering agribusiness
Conventions in Cross-Border Trade Coordination
The 'Conventionalisation' Thesis Reconsidered
Hybrid food networks and sustainability transitions
Fighting Standards with Standards
Humane dog food? caring and killing in the certified humane dog food value chain
The Moral Economy Is a Double-edged Sword
From the Social to the Economic and Beyond? A Relational Approach to the Historical Development of Danish Organic Food Networks
Auditing the subjects of fair trade
Re-thinking the Transformation of Organics
A just price is future
The Trouble with 'Organic Lite' in California
In Goodness We Trust. The Role of Trust and Institutions Underpinning Trust in the Organic Food Market
Good Farmers' as Reflexive Producers
Green Lungs
Dialectics of Disassembly
Cultivating Compliance
Sustainability and Scale
Transplanting, plotting, fencing
The Ambiguous Ecologies of Agri-Alternatives
Mobilising the Past
Decoding Worker 'Reliability
Can a Plantation be Fair? Paradoxes and Possibilities in Fair Trade Darjeeling Tea Certification
The natural wine phenomenon and the promise of sustainability
The rentierization of food
Green grabbing at the 'pharm' gate
The ‘organic commodity’ and other anomalies in the politics of consumption
Consumption
Globalisation and Unequalisation
The World of Consumption
Market Niches, ‘Cul de Sacs’, and Social Context
Presidential Preface to Volume 30, Issue 1
Towards a political economy of food
Agroecology versus input substitution
Raising organic
Regulating agriculture
Family farming
Culture, conventions and colonial constructs of rurality in south–north horticultural trades
On Marx's theory of agricultural rent
The Social Accountability Contract
Urban Ground Rent
Regulating Meaning, Appropriating Nature
Recent Development and Political Acceptance of Organic Farming in Europe
Organic vs. conventional agriculture
The moral economy of grades and standards
Cleaning up down South
Trojan Pig
Taming Nature, Taming Workers
From Farm to Table
The Number is the Beast
The New Industrial Agriculture
The Social Construction of International Food
The Political Economy of Federalism
Farm Real Estate Values in the United States by Counties, 1850-1959
Fast food/organic food
Consumer/Producer Links in Fair Trade Coffee Networks
Strawberry Fields
The World On a Plate
On Marx's theory of agricultural rent∗
Reconfiguring the rural or fording the divide
| Unique citing works | 89 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,05 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2025 (22) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 87 |