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Changing Agriculture University of Fribourg I Faculty of Science and Medicine Department of Geosciences I Unit of Geography Changing agriculture Southland farmers’ struggles to reconcile neoliberal production demands with increasing environmental regulation Master Thesis in Human Geography Supervised by Prof Dr Olivier Graefe By Anna Geiser (14-203-038) Bürglenstrasse 53 3006 Bern [email protected] Fribourg, the 10th of February 2020 I dedicate this study to everyone who is dealing with the flooding of Southland right now. Kia kaha. I Abstract Southland, New Zealand, farmers are stuck in between two opposing poles: They need to increase the profitability of their farming operations in a completely deregulated economy, while simultaneously dealing with the pressure from an increasing public awareness of how intensifying agricultural practices are harming the natural environment. This study takes the perspective of Bourdieu’s ‘theory of practice’ in order to research how farmers deal with this predicament. Based on interviews with ten farmers, it shows first that different types of motivation for farming in Southland exist: While for some, their paramount reason to farm is carrying on the family legacy, for others it is the ‘lifestyle’ of farming. And others yet, see farming as a way to make a lot of money. But all of these farmers are at the mercy of the same paradoxes. Apart from the economy vs. ecology dilemma, they face the contradictory situation of orienting their values and motivations towards farming in view of their local community, but actually, they produce for anonymous consumers in far away overseas markets. These fields of tension inform the farmers’ questioning of the legitimacy of the policy makers of the most recent agri-environmental plan introduced in Southland. Indeed, the plan fails to address farmers' concerns by restricting their ability to accumulate cultural capital through the demonstration of skilled farming. But farmers show great potential for the creation of social capital, because although they are competitors in the market, they are successfully unifying in catchment groups in order to critically engage with policy makers. However, the paradoxes in the field of farming cannot be resolved from the level of the farmer alone. It is also required that their dilemmas are clearly recognised and addressed in the policies themselves. Keywords: farmers, theory of practice, deregulated economy, agri-environmental policy- making, New Zealand II Acknowledgements This study has been a long time in the making and accordingly, there are many people I would like to thank for their support during this time. I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof Dr Olivier Graefe, for his ability to concretise my thoughts and simultaneously unsettle any progress I had made by presenting a number of additional angles to look at my research problem. I have never read so much in my life, thank you for making this master’s thesis into a great learning experience. I would like to thank my interview partners in Southland. Thank you for briefly welcoming a stranger into your life and letting me probe you with questions. Your openness has been the heart of this study. I would like to thank my Kiwi mum and dad. Thank you for once again hosting me and loving me and most of all, thank you for your patience with my countless calls of distress, when my car had once again broken down in the middle of nowhere… Aroha nui! I would like to thank my comrades-in-thesis-writing, Lea and Shqipe, for their unwavering belief that we would eventually finish our theses. And thank you for the innumerable discussions of just what Pierre Bourdieu was trying to say! I would like to thank my friends – you know who you are! – who have never stopped asking how my thesis-writing was going, and gave me pep talks (and coffee!) when my replies were more apathetic rumblings than coherent answers. I would like to thank my Mum and my brother for being my biggest cheerleaders and giving me feedback from the perspective of their respective fields of expertise, opening unexpected windows into my research problem. I will now officially stop bothering you with samples of ‘but do you understand what I’m trying to say here?’! And finally, I would like to thank my Dad for being the most patient of them all, for letting me bounce many blurry ideas off you and showing me how to structure the jumble of thoughts in my brain. Thank you for demonstrating the potential of human geography; if I can only muster one percent of the excitement you hold for this career, I will be a very happy geographer! III Table of contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... II Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... III List of figures ............................................................................................................................. VI 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 2. Background – farming in Southland ..................................................................................... 6 2.1 The colonisation of Murihiku .......................................................................................... 8 2.2 The end of subsidies .......................................................................................................... 9 2.3 Playing catch up in a free market system ..................................................................... 12 2.4 The Dirty Dairying campaign – water issues ............................................................... 14 2.5 Agri-environmental governance politics ....................................................................... 17 3. Changing agriculture – theoretical framework .................................................................. 20 3.1 Ways of understanding agricultural change ................................................................ 20 3.2 Why Bourdieu? ............................................................................................................... 23 3.3 Bourdieu’s key concepts ................................................................................................. 25 3.3.1 Field ........................................................................................................................... 25 3.3.2 Habitus ....................................................................................................................... 27 3.3.3 Capital ........................................................................................................................ 28 3.4 Critique of Bourdieu ....................................................................................................... 30 3.5 Applying Bourdieu to farming ....................................................................................... 31 3.5.1 Field, habitus and capital in farming ......................................................................... 32 3.5.2 A Bourdieusian look at agri-environmental policy ................................................... 36 4. Research problem and questions revisited .......................................................................... 38 5. Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 39 5.1 Data collection ................................................................................................................. 39 5.1.1 Secondary Data .......................................................................................................... 39 5.1.2 Primary Data .............................................................................................................. 42 5.2 Data analysis .................................................................................................................... 44 5.3 Positionality and limitations ........................................................................................... 44 6. Understanding farmers’ predicament ................................................................................. 47 6.1 On the obscure illusio of farming in Southland ........................................................... 47 6.1.1 The family farmer ...................................................................................................... 47 6.1.2 The lifestyle farmer ................................................................................................... 50 IV 6.1.3 The investor farmer ................................................................................................... 52 6.1.4 The illusio of Southland farmers ............................................................................... 56 6.2 The demands of a changing field ................................................................................... 58 6.2.1 How the farmers frame change .................................................................................. 59 6.2.2 Paradox 1: Economy vs. ecology and the farmer in-between ................................... 61 6.2.3 Paradox 2: Local values vs. overseas markets ........................................................... 66 6.2.4 Paradox 3: Alienation in neoliberalism vs. self-organising farming communities ... 71 6.2.5 Interim conclusion ....................................................................................................
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