Exploring Farm Development Strategies on the North Island of New Zealand

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Maxime Veenhoven Exploring farm development strategies A study on organic farming strategies of farmers located in the North island of New Zealand

MSc Thesis: International Development Studies Department: Sociology of Development

Exploring farm development strategies

A study on organic farming strategies of farmers located in the North island of New Zealand

Date: October 2019

Name of Student: Maxime Veenhoven

Name of Supervisor: Dr. Dirk Roep

Name of Second Assessor: Han Wiskerke

MSc Program: International Development Studies

Specialization: Sociology of Development

Thesis Code: RSO-80436

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This research thesis could not have been done without the help of 19 farms in New Zealand. Therefore, I want to draw special attention to the hospitality, kindness and enthusiasm of all the farmers and people who helped me with the fieldwork. The farms shared amazing stories, showed me around and made my time in New Zealand unforgettable. Thereby, I want to thank Sita Venkateswar in special, as she was my mentor and friend during my time in New Zealand, and back in the Netherlands. Her network in NZ and knowledge helped me launch the research in the right way. Furthermore, I would like to thank Dirk Roep, my supervisor, for his enthusiasm, quick and honest feedback and general support. Without him, Sita and all the farms, this research was not possible.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The environmental damage, due to agricultural farming practices, is a lively discussion in the global political spheres. Discussions on polluting water sources, global warming, soil degradation and the decrease of biodiversity are an upcoming threat to our food systems. A counter movement to these industrial agricultural food industries is the organic agricultural trend, which started around the 19th century, as pioneers and visionaries gathered and demonstrated against the dominant agricultural order. Since then, many streams of organic farming started, such as the so-called Organic 1.0 , 2.0 and 3.0 movements. This thesis is exploring the diversity in organic agricultural patterns by studying farm development strategies. Focus is on farmers located on the North island of New Zealand. Moreover, the country New Zealand is chosen as agricultural activity there is largely present and has an extensive history. In order to explore farm development strategies in this study, 19 farms were visited, whereby three elements were studied; the cultural repertoire, the farming practices and the resource relations. These elements were investigated through qualitative ethnographic research methods which included semi structured interviews, participant observation and discussions. The findings were analysed, which resulted in four fully defined farm development strategies, illustrating the current situation in the organic sector. This study emphasises the diversity in the farm development strategies of farmers on the North island of New Zealand.

Key words: organic agriculture, farm development strategies, cultural repertoire, farming practices, resource relations, diversity

CONTENT

CHAPTER 1: Introduction 7 The origins of organic agriculture 8 Current situation organic farmers 9 Problem statement 12 Research objective 12 Research questions 13 CHAPTER 2: Theoretical framework 14 Farm development strategies 14 Organic development strategies 19 Conclusion 20 CHAPTER 3: Methodology 21 Introduction 21 Study site: North island of New Zealand 22 Study population: organic farmers 23 Methods of the research questions 25 Analysis of empirical data 32 Ethics 32 CHAPTER 4: Context of organic agriculture in New Zealand 34 Introduction 34 Agriculture in New Zealand 34 Organic agriculture in New Zealand 36 Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI): regulation and standards 39 Certification bodies 43 Organic undercurrents 47 Conclusion 51 CHAPTER 5: Emergent cultural repertoires of organic farming 53 Introduction 53 The investigated farmers 54 Cultural repertoires of organic farming 59 From personal to shared cultural repertoires 65 Conclusion 70 CHAPTER 6: Farming practices and farm business strategies 71 Introduction 71 Farming practices of dairy farmers 72

Farm business strategies and certification of dairy farmers 76 Farming practices of fruit and vegetable farmers 80 Farm business strategies and certification of fruit and vegetable farms 83 Farming practices of meat and egg famers 87 Farm business strategies and certification of meat and egg farmers 89 Conclusion 90 CHAPTER 7: Webs of internal and external resource relations 92 Introduction 92 Common relations; internal (family) relations and the bank 93 External resource relations per farming pattern 95 Conclusion 106 Chapter 8: Conclusion and Discussion 108 The four farm development strategies 109 Diversity in organic agriculture 111 Discussion of the research questions 113 Discussion of methods 115 Input substitution versus integrated farming systems 117 Recommendations for future research 118 REFERENCES 120 ANNEX 125 Farming practices Interview Questions 125 Resource relations Interview Questions 127 Cultural Repertoire Interview Questions 128

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Agriculture is the primary source of food production on the earth, without agriculture, humanity cannot sustain itself. However, since the industrialization of agriculture, the global food production has become one of the biggest threats to humanity, as agriculture is one of the key players contributing to environmental degradation and climate change (Novotny, 1999). Agricultural practices cover 40% of the earth’s surface and is responsible for 70% of consumptive water use. Thereby, farming creates a form of income for 40% of the global population. Hence, agriculture has a huge impact on the environment and on humans (Kleinschmit, 2009). This environmental impact increased after the second World War, when the agricultural sector reinforced its power. Only this time, new technologies like synthetic fertilizer, new crop varieties and pesticides were discovered and expanded over the world as, for example, the Green Revolution. In the beginning, these new technologies boosted the food production intensively. However, it didn’t take long to discover that the intensive use of chemicals had a major impact on the soil, water and air (Anandaraj, 2019).

Nowadays, the environmental degradation due to agriculture is openly recognized and discussed. The main forms of degradation are; decrease in soil fertility, erosion of soil, decrease of biodiversity, pollution of water sources (ground water, rivers and seas), pollution of the air (emissions), growing human health problems, socio-economic problems and so on (Novotny, 1999; FAO, 2009; Anandaraj, 2019; Chandini et al, 2019). In response to these developments, people established organic farming counter movements. This started with a so-called hippie movement but grew so fast that a global organization for organic agriculture (OA) originated in 1972: Internal Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). This federation has been coordinating the organic movements worldwide and is gathering scientific and experimental data about organic farming. Moreover, the IFOAM produces standards and guidelines for organic farmers and retailers. The amount of initiatives that joined the IFOAM grew from 25 to more than 500 initiatives in the year 2000.

As many organic initiatives follow the IFOAM standards, their definition of organic farming is globally recognized. IFOAM defines organic agriculture as:

‘An agricultural system that promotes environmentally, socially and economically sound production of food, fiber, timber, etc. In this system, soil fertility is seen as the key to successful production. Working with the natural properties of plants, animals and the landscape, organic farmers aim to optimize quality in all aspects of agriculture and the environment.’ (IFOAM, 2005)

However, OA is practiced by farmers in different ways. Within the organic agricultural movement, farmers have found their own priorities and have gathered in different groups. For instance, there

7 are farmers who follow permaculture, agroecological or regenerative farming principles. These forms of OA strive for an environmentally friendly way of farming. This growing organic farming trend is also noticed in New Zealand (NZ). This country could be described as an agricultural heaven; soft winters, fertile soils and a wet climates. After the war, large numbers of migrants came to NZ to start a farm and brought their ideas about organic farming. Now, decades later, OA in NZ went through different stages and is still developing. This thesis is about these organic sectors and looks at the different farm development strategies that organic farmers obtain to sustain their livelihood. Before, going deeper into the case, some background information about the history of OA is provided.

THE ORIGINS OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE

The origins of organic farming go back to the end of the 19th century when concerns about the condition of the earth started to rise and organic movements emerged. Visionaries described new ways of living and started to preach that the current way of living would not benefit the earth (IFOAM, 2016). Besides visionaries, life reform movements stood up and disapproved the dominance of the industries and the modern technologies. Both parties acknowledged the direction that agriculture was taking and asked for a radical change. These movements visualized a world of ‘going back to the land’ and a new diet with healthy nutrition-rich food (Vogt, 2007). The start of the organic movements is called Organic 1.0 and stands for the first phase of OA.

Since these first steps, OA started to grow not only under social movements but also under other entities such as researchers, governments and economies. This is partly because of the social and political upheaval around the 1960s as the environmental threats were becoming more visual. For instance, when the Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) chemical spread worldwide as pesticides and birds and other species were treated. Environmental externalities were globally recognized and thereby the public awareness increased. Environmental and organic activists rose up and created a worldwide platform against large chemical companies and firms (Lockeretz, 2007). Furthermore, research on agriculture and biologically oriented science started developing. Research on, for instance, bacteriology and soil fertility gave insights in the balances and relations between plant roots and soils, and this increased the understanding of OA. Moreover, these pioneers recommended the use of organic fertilizers and techniques, as it was not damaging biological processes (Vogt, 2007). Besides, the financial support for organic research expanded which stimulated the amount of knowledge produced (Lockeretz, 2007). Next to social movements and researchers, farmers themselves also recognized the damage of chemicals to their lands and livestock. This was for many farmers an important reason to shift from conventional agriculture to OA. Besides the environmental

8 motive, farmers kept economical and idealistic motives to shift to OA (Fairweather, 1999; Lauwere et al., 2004).

The rising attention from research and public parties caused a tremendous increase in organic farming, and therefore certain guidelines for organic farming were established. Organic organizations produced and codified the visions of the pioneers and visionaries into standards and guidelines for organic farmers. Certification schemes were created and legally regulated all over the world (IFOAM, 2016). This certification enabled the recognition of organic products and thereby developed a new market for these products. Organic products were exported and imported all over the world and many producers and consumers were able to benefit from it. This new development in OA is called Organic 2.0 (IFOAM, 2016). However, as organic farming is widely accepted by many countries as an alternative farming system, there are still more conventional farmers than organic ones. This could be related to the institutional and economic context that is influencing the decision making of most farmers. Institutional in the sense that most organic farms need to have a certain certification to become an ‘organic farm’ and economic in the sense that this certification and rulemaking is delivering high costs for farmers (Fairweather, 1999).

CURRENT SITUATION ORGANIC FARMERS Since the rise of certification, the global trade of organic products increased and therefore also the complexity of the chain. The organic food industry expanded with an enormous rate as big companies such as Heinz were transitioning to organic production (Campbell & Liepins, 2001). Organic producers were held to a minimum of requirements to become organic and were checked by governments and private organizations. In this way, OA was becoming a manifestation of capitalism, a corporatized food system in which the efficiency and profit rates became the main goal (Campbell & Liepins, 2001). Therefore, the original idea of organic farming was left unchanged, as the global trade and large-scale production were back on track. The economic forces placed a lot of pressure on farmers, which was not beneficial for their organic techniques as farmers had the tendency to go back to the specialized mono-cropping (IFAOM, 2016). Furthermore, the rules and regulations have resulted in an exclusion of many producers who cannot not afford an organic certification such as peasant farmers and women. Moreover, Organic 2.0 excludes and limits the opportunities for other sustainable initiatives to connect with organic production as it is bounded to standards and guidelines. Therefore, initiatives like agroecology, community supported agriculture and other organic smallholders are left out (IFOAM, 2016). The exclusion of these people and other initiatives led to the fact that OA was not even is 1% of the total agriculture. Therefore, IFOAM (2016) created a new concept Organic 3.0, in which OA is recognized as a divers and heterogenic form of agriculture,

9 not particularly bound to a set of rules. The core of this concept is to look at the relationships between producers and consumers which include the stories of the products and production and the multiple benefits of OA (IFOAM, 2016, p. 3). There are still some minimum standards, but local context and culture is taken into consideration. In this way, more practices and systems can be seen under the umbrella of ‘organic’. Therefore OA can be seen as a mainstream solution to environmental challenges instead of only a niche (IFOAM, 2016).

The diversification in farming practices has been studied and framed by Van der Ploeg. Van der Ploeg (1994) was a researcher at the Wageningen University and Research and created frameworks such as the one on farming styles. This framework describes agriculture as a social construction which is based upon and depends on social actors. Moreover, every farm has its own farm development strategy based on the cultural repertoire of the farmers, their farming practices and their sets of relations (van der Ploeg, 1994; Vanclay et al., 2006). A set of farm development strategies form a farming style, a certain culture within agriculture. Therefore, Van der Ploeg (1994), illustrated that diversity and heterogeneity of agriculture was reproduced by these different farming styles. This is also referred to by authors like Darnhofer et al., (2005), Duram (1999), Sulemana & Harvey (2014) and Kalftoft (1999).

A diversity of farm development strategies can be recognized in NZ. In the past century, lots of new initiatives related to organic farming rose up and therefore new farm development strategies for organic farming have been established. This thesis will focus on farm development strategies of organic farmers on the North island of NZ (NiNZ). Before elaborating on the farm development strategies, the OA history of NZ, will be outlined.

New Zealand In NZ, organic farming is being practiced for more than 70 years. In the begin, organic farming was not certified, and organic production was based upon ‘trust’ principles. The consumers trusted the organic production processes of the farmers and knew them through the participation in organic movements. Organic was therefore defined by the farmers themselves (Campbell & Liepins, 2001). Moreover, in the begin, organic farming slowly spread through small local networks and movements (NZFSA, 2008). Around the 1970s OA had a boost and the first organic agriculture social movements originated, because of four historical developments. Firstly, small movements arose due to the upcoming scientific agriculture. Secondly, the upcoming environmental movements in the USA (hippie movement) blew over to NZ. Thirdly, there was the arrival of European migrants with their organic ideology. Lastly, we have seen the upcoming development of alternative agricultural production processes and lifestyle farming. The alternative way of producing has become more popular under the population of NZ (Campbell & Liepins, 2001).

In the 1980s, the popularity of organic products grew with such an extent that authorities started to provide guidelines and recognition for organic production and practices. Three different associations came together and established the NZ Biological Producer Council (NZPBC), nowadays called Bio-Gro. This council was originated to establish a concept of organic production, range a set of organic practices, create production standards and establish a trademark for certificated organic production (Campbell & Liepins, 2001). This certification of organic farming production caused an escalation in organic food production. Bio-Gro originated in 1983, expanded in 10 years’ time to 233 licensed farmers and became a member of the IFOAM. Besides, two large companies Heinz Wattie’s Australasia and the NZ Kiwifruit established an organic farming production and became a certified member of Bio-Gro (Condron et al., 2000). These two companies boosted the export market of organic products as they started to produce organic beans, corn, carrots and kiwis. Hence, the OA is mainly originated from social movements and associations who wanted recognition and an identity.

Since the origins of Bio-Gro and other certification bodies, the organic sector is rapidly growing. In 2008, the sector was estimated at a value of 250 million dollars and an export market of more than 120 million NZ dollars (NZFSA, 2008). The organic food products are mainly spread through supermarkets, food boxes, health stores, and local networks. In this way, one could say that organic products have become part of the global trade tendency and are being commodified as there is such a vast production and large scale standardization process. The export of products going to Asia, Europe, and North America also display a globalization trend in which organic products are globally distributed to supermarkets (Campbell & Liepins, 2001). Hence, capitalism entered the social movement of organic farming and took over the organic market. This is the direct opposite of the idealistic alternative OA originated in 1930, the movement which directly opposed the environmental externalities of the capitalistic economy. Some organic farmers even choose for OA as it is more profitable than conventional agriculture, the organic products are sold for a much higher price and the public demand is still increasing. However, that is not the case for all farmers as some are still practicing OA because of their beliefs, values, and ideology. Hence, there seems to be a bifurcation in organic farming between commodification and ideology (Campbell & Liepins, 2001). Moreover, there is a growing discussion about the motives’ farmers adhere and the practices that they follow. Fairweather (1999) did research in NZ about organic farmers and found out that organic philosophy, health, chemical issues, premiums and problems with conventional farming, are all motives for farmers to produce organic food. This points out that there are multiple motives for farmers to perform OA and that there is quite some diversity in the OA sector in NZ. This means that there is also some diversity in the different development strategies that organic farmers are pursuing.

PROBLEM STATEMENT Organic agriculture went through quite some developments before reaching its current status. It started through pioneers but was enhanced by the global markets who commodified the production process. Nowadays, we see both the capitalistic system as well as counter movements of farmers who would like to change the agricultural system (read permaculture, regenerative farming and agroecology). Besides, there is a growing discussion about what organic agriculture entails, whether it is only the absence of chemicals or if it is more than that. All these developments within OA make it interesting to investigate how farmers position themselves. Therefore, the farm development strategies will be studied and analyzed, which includes the farmers’ cultural repertoire, their farming practices and their sets of resource relations.

Moreover, as the world and New Zealand are facing climate change, environmental problems because of widespread pollution, by especially agricultural activities, it is relevant to study how organic agriculture is practiced. This could not only give insights in how these organic practices have an impact on the environment, but it could also show the shortcomings of OA. Furthermore, the analysis could give information about the problems organic farmers are facing and how, for instance, the government could help with this. Besides, organic farmers could be an example for conventional farmers who want to make a step towards more environmental friendly farming. This could be done by showing how small changes in a farming system can lead to a high production and a more positive environmental impact.

Furthermore, research on the diversity of organic farming is not yet being done on the North island of NZ. The transition from conventional to organic agriculture has often been studied, but not the different farm development strategies that organic farmers are pursuing to sustain their businesses and livelihoods. The farm development strategies give insights in the cultural repertoires of farmers, farming practices and the set of resource relations. The exploration of the different farm development strategies can give an overview of the current status of OA and could give prospects of future developments, in New Zealand.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE This research analyzes and investigates OA on two different dimensions. The first dimension studies the farm development strategies that organic farmers are enhancing. This is done by applying the concepts Van der Ploeg about farming strategies, where the cultural repertoire, farming practices and resource relations are studied. The category of organic farms that is investigated are 19 farms who produce food products. The farms are researched through interviews, participant observation,

12 and discussions. When all the farm development strategies w mapped and analyzed by their differences and similarities, several patterns occurred. This will be the second dimension, where we zoom out. This dimension enhanced an overview of the patterns that are established through the cultural repertoire, farming practices and sets of resource relations. In the end, the patterns found in the farm development strategies sketch the situation of organic agriculture and its challenges in New Zealand. The content of this research is outlined below in the research questions.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS This research aimed to answer the following question: What kind of farm development strategies do organic farmers have, on the North island in New Zealand? In order to answer this question, the research was organized to answer the following sub-questions: 1. What is the context of the development strategies, in NiNZ? • What is the current situation of (organic) agriculture in NZ? • Which certification organizations are active in the organic agriculture? • What other initiatives are present in the organic sector in NZ?

2. What are the farming practices that are performed by organic farmers, in NiNZ? • What is the key data of the farms? • Which everyday farming practices are mainly performed? • How is the farming practice originated/where is the knowledge coming from? • How does certification play a role in the farming practices of organic farmers?

3. What are the external, internal resource and consumer relations of organic farmers, in NiNZ? • What kind of external resource relations do the organic farmers have? • What kind of internal resource relations do the organic farmers have? • What is the relation between the consumer and the organic farmers?

4. What is the cultural repertoire of the organic farmers, in NiNZ? • What is the personal history of each organic farmer? • What are general meanings and understandings (worldviews) of organic farmers in NiNZ? • What is the farmers position towards nature? • What is the motivation of the farmer to be organic?

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In this chapter, the theoretical framework of concepts to analyze farming will be presented and explained. The main concepts of the research will be described like farmer styles, farm development strategies, cultural repertoires, farming practices and resource relations. The concepts are theorized by van der Ploeg and his research but is extended by other authors. In this way, different positions of scholars are discussed and analyzed, which will eventually lead to a coherent theoretical framework.

FARM DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES This paragraph illustrates one way in which farming could be described and studied namely; through farm development strategies. These strategies are derived from a theory by van der Ploeg. He tries to describe the condition in agriculture by explaining farming styles and strategies. This will be explained in the first part and extended by other literature like Darnhofer & Walder (2014) and Fairweather (1994). Thereby, strategies are being implied as farm development strategies, whereby the long term strategy is meant. Diversity will also be explained here. After the general literature explanation, the farm development strategy itself will be described and discussed.

Before one can zoom in on the farm development strategies, one needs to zoom out, to see the whole picture. That is why we start with explaining diversity. Diversity in one of the main characteristics of agriculture as agriculture is socially constructed by humans and depending on different environmental circumstances (van der Ploeg & Long, 1994). Farming is not just the practice itself, but it is embedded in complex sets of relations between different social, economic, cultural and historical features. Especially in the current times of globalization, agriculture has been in increasing in levels of diversity as everything seems to be interconnected (Vanclay et al., 2006). Often, diversity and heterogeneity are used as synonyms but in fact, they are not. Diversity is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as ‘the fact of many different types of things or people being included in something; a range of different things of people’. This definition leaves a lot of space for interpretation as things and people are being defined as different and not why they are different. Heterogeneity does not have this as it explains the why of being different; by nature. This means that the heterogeneity of a situation is caused by the differences in nature, for example being a man or a woman. Diversity is not decided on being necessarily different in nature, it is broader than that. Having explained this, we can zoom in on how diversity is described and analyzed in literature.

In order to describe OA diversity, authors often describe different farming types, styles or strategies to map the differences in agriculture (Darnhofer & Walder, 2014; Fairweather & Keating, 1994; van

14 der Ploeg et al., 2009). Slowly zooming into the situation of OA, the diversity could be explained by the different farming styles. Farming styles is defined by van der Ploeg et al (2009) as a set of coherent strategic and shared notions on how farming should be practiced. A style is based on a specific strategy that guides the farmer on how the organize and manage a farm. It conceptualizes the social construction of a farm, how it is organized, which processes of production are pursued and how the farm will develop over time (van der Ploeg, 1994). When this strategy is shared by a wide range of farmer, it becomes a farming style. Farmers constantly participate and contribute to a certain farming style and therefore a style is dynamic and evolving over time (Vanclay et al., 2006). Darnhofer and Walder (2014) explained a similar way of describing diversity by using farming types and typologies. These authors analyze farming types through the relations between different attributes, the socio-economical character and the values of a farmers and their environment. Besides, these authors highlight the complex interrelations between different actors, which help to decide which practice a farmer is pursuing (Darnhofer & Walder, 2014). These complex interrelations are thereby not static but dynamic as relations, practices, and values change through time. The farmer as agent, knowledgeable and capable, plays an important role in this process and is in line with the idea of van der Ploeg (1994). Fairweather and Keating (1994) are also discussing this subject but are referring to this as management styles. These styles are comprehending the diversity of agriculture and express this in different farm strategies. These strategies are used to perform a certain management that is adjusted to the techniques, markets, environment and other actors (Fairweather & Keating, 1994). Hence, there are multiple authors who explain diversity within agriculture by styles, types, and strategies. In this thesis, the concept of farm development strategies by van der Ploeg (1994) is applied to study the actual situation of OA on the NiNZ. In order to use farm development strategies, one needs to zoom in on a strategy.

Figure 2.1 The three element of a farm development strategy

A farm development strategy could be internally deliberated in three elements; cultural repertoire, farming practices and resource relations. These elements have mutual influence on each other and

15 could not be seen separate from each other. These three elements will be described and discussed below. Each element will be based on the general framework of van der Ploeg (1994) but will be extended with additional literature of other authors.

Cultural repertoire The first element of a farm development strategy is the cultural repertoire. A cultural repertoire is described as a certain composition of normative and strategic notions about how farming should to be performed (van der Ploeg, 1993). A farming style is a way of organizing and managing the farm, the farm practices that are created by the cultural repertoire, which is, in turn, tested and adjusted by the practice itself (van der Ploeg, 1993, p. 241). In this respect, the cultural repertoire directs the practical actions, forms a farmer judgement and could be seen a decision-making model for farmers (Ploeg et al., 2009). The cultural repertoire is defined as set of normative values and coherent notions. Moreover, the values, ideas, and beliefs of farmers shape their repertoire and therefore the practice they are performing. The personal histories and experiences also play a relevant role in the repertoire as it influences the way ideas, values and beliefs are shaped. Hence, a farming style is a unity of theory and practice, between thinking and doing and this unity is a lifestyle (van der Ploeg, 1993, p.242). When the notions are shared and reproduced by a large number of farmers, whereby the farmers do not have to know each other, it can be considered as a farming style.

The ideas of Kaltoft (1999) about the position of farmers towards nature, is an addition to the cultural repertoire. The position that farmers have towards nature namely decides how farmers behave and handle it. Moreover, value assumptions and orientations influence everyday farming practices. Moreover, Kaltoft (1999) links this to environmental ethics and moral theory. Environmental ethics is defined as the moral relationship of human beings and the environment; nature. Thereby, the moral is explained as the ethical thinking and acting of farmers with nature. The values that farmers cherish vary from anthropocentric to non-anthropocentric, form human centered to non-human centered (Kaltoft, 1999). Furthermore, when studying farmers’ cultural repertoires, the position of a farmer in this spectrum is important to include. Especially in organic farming where farmers are not using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The position that farmers cherish with nature could, therefore, tell a lot about the notions that farmers have (Hansen et al., 2006).

In this thesis, I extent the culture repertoire with the position of farmers towards nature of Kaltoft (1999), which elaborates a specific moral and ethical drivers . These two frameworks give a relevant overview on the cultural repertoire of the organic farmers and help to analyze a wide spectrum. Therefore, the personal cultural repertoires are analyzed and compared to find a pattern and eventually form shared cultural repertoires. These shared cultural repertoires shape the basis of the farm development strategies and help to explain the farming practices and resource relations.

Besides, these features enhance a good overview on how thinking and doing are connected on the farm level. Moreover, it establishes a sketch in which the relation between the cultural repertoire and farming practices/behavior is settled in everyday life.

Farming practices Every farm development strategy incorporates a certain set of farming practices. This set of farming practices is internally consistent with the style of farming. The way practices are structured and pursued depends on the cultural repertoire of a farmer, the strategic set of coherent notions. Besides the cultural repertoire, the relations with the market, technology and consumers have a certain influence on how farming practices are formed. The different relation create the context or space in which the farming practices could be performed (van der Ploeg et al., 2009). Moreover, farming practices heavily depend upon actors like; markets, governments, regional/national policies etc., which establishes a divers farming practice construction (van der Ploeg & Long, 1994). These farming practices are structured in sets of practices, which relate and have a mutual influence on each other. Furthermore, the practice itself is production processes of adding value through the specific combination of labor, techniques and other inputs. This means that certain features, like the natural resources and techniques are the core principles of pursuing a farming practice in the first place. These elements establish a value to the product that is produced (van der Ploeg et al., 2009). This value adding is part of a certain farm development strategy and generates income. How an income is generated depends of the cost-benefit balance; what finds a farmer important and what not. In this way, a practice is an operational outcome of a certain set of relations and a cultural repertoire, at a moment in time in a certain place (van der Ploeg, 2003).

Resource relations The third element of a farm development strategy is the balancing of the external and internal resource relations. The external resource relations with the market and technology provide the context in which farmers can have different positions, according to van der Ploeg (1994). Moreover, the market and technology do not entirely determine which strategy a farmer is supposed to pursue, but do create the space in which a farmer can act. The creation of such a space is called a room for manoeuvre (Methorst et al., 2017; van der Ploeg, 1994). The different relations of a farm with the market and technology decides how a farm is positioned. Thereby, the market relations are about the mobilization of resources which are required to perform the farming practice, such as; labor, capital, seeds, land, cattle and so on. These resources are demanded to start the production process. How the production process is pursued depends on the technology a farmer is applying (van der Ploeg, 1994). The technology that is chosen for the production process adds the value to a product. Therefore, technology could be seen as the economic value-adding process. Hence, to a certain

extent, the farmers themselves decide how these two features, markets, and technology, relate to their farm activity (van der Ploeg, 1994). Darnhofer and Walder (2014) also refer to this approach as the authors explain that a certain farming practice depends on the choices of a farmer. Does he/she decide to rely on external resource relations such as market and technology relations? The choices articulate something about the relationships’ farmers are pursuing with different features (Darnhofer & Walder, 2014). Besides markets and technology, governments and their policies also have a relevant influence in the farm. Governments have an influence on how farming is structured in a country, as this institution can decide on certain policies which contain, for instance, the stability of milk prices (Vanclay et al., 2006). Market and technology can, therefore, form an explicit part of a government policy, which then implies that a farm development strategy is adjusted to a certain policy (van der Ploeg et al., 2009).

Van der Ploeg (2012) did another research on the circularity of farming. Therefore, he explained the different modes of production that farms could apply. Moreover, van der Ploeg describes the peasant and entrepreneurial mode of farming, which refer to the co-production of farming systems. The peasant mode of farming is described as a type of farming by which the farmer has an independent set of resource relations. Therefore, the farm is reproducing the production factors and inputs, to be able to establish a certain market output, without the need of external resource relations. The sphere of production is sustained in the farm itself, which is called co-production. This means that the farmer is conscious of the mutual interaction between the man and the living nature. This interaction is balanced as the farmer is taking from the land but is also giving it back which enables a low input farming system. See Figure 2.2 Independent resource relations farming (van der Ploeg, 2012).

Figure 2.2 Independent resource relations Figure 2.3 Dependent resource relations

Figure 2.3 Dependent resource relations farming (van der Ploeg, 2012), displays a different production and circulation sphere. The production sphere differs as the factors who enable production and the inputs are utilized. The inputs are externally purchased which changes the circulation sphere, external resource relations are required which meet the production process. This establishes a dependent set of resource relations as the farm cannot produce anything without them. Moreover, the freedom in which a farmer is able to make decisions especially related to the farming practices is diminishing. This can be brought back to this certain room of manoeuvre, whereby farmers establish their space by the sets of relations that are enhanced. Due to the diminishing amount of space, because of the high levels of input, the farm is dependent on a certain set of resource relations.

Furthermore, the farm development strategy is originated in a natural environment and history, cultural repertoire and political-economic relations. Through the production and reproduction of these different relations the future developments are becoming co-structured (van der Ploeg, 1994). It is the complex web of relations with different factors which influence a farmer’s behavior and therefore practice. Carolan (2011) takes it one step further and argues that the human agency gives meaning to the world through relationships. These relationships are not only cherished with other humans, but also with materials such as land and food. Moreover, relations are established by the bodies that get affected by knowledge and experiences (Carolan, 2011). An example of this is the relationship farmers have with nature, their land and environment. This relation is deciding how a farmer is treating is land and therefore how farming practices are performed. In this way, relations play a crucial role in the construction of one’s reality, on the farm and eventually in the farming practices that that are performed. The market, technology, government, and other factors construct the different practices that farms are pursuing and therefore created the context in which farmers are living. Resource relations play a relevant part in the way farming practice is structured.

ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES The different stages of the organic agricultural movement (Organic 1/2/3.0) suggest a diversity in farm development strategies. Farmers are performing organic farming in a divers set of strategies which are concerning; farming practices, resource relations and cultural repertoires. The diversity of notions, ideas and drivers are translated in the development strategies embedded in organic farms. Fairweather (1999) studied this and concluded that organic farmers choose to become organic as farmers have difficulties with conventional farming; the use of chemical inputs and pesticides, strive for more financial benefits or follow an organic philosophy. All these different motives make organic farmers follow different farm development strategies. This farm development strategy refers to a

19 long term strategy where farmers are striving for and building towards. One of these strategies could be to become a member of a certification organization like Bio-Gro and Organic Farms NZ. These farm development strategies decide which farming practices are performed, according to the guidelines and standards that are set by the certification body. Which resource relations are cherished, with markets, technology, and with the consumer. And lastly, the personal cultural repertoire that a farmer has established. This farm development strategy is followed by a number of organic farmers, whereby new patterns could be explored. The patterns elaborate on the similarities and differences between the farms and could eventually support the illustration of the organic agricultural situation in New Zealand.

CONCLUSION This thesis will analyze the different farm development strategies of organic farmers on the North island of New Zealand. Van der Ploeg (1994) explained this with farming styles ;a set of coherent strategic and shared notions on how farming should be practices. A farming style is a collection of farm development strategies which contain a cultural repertoire, farming practices, and resource relations. Moreover, farming practices are about the production processes, the adding of value, and the way farmers generate income. Resource relations create the space in which farming practices can take place. The resource relations with the market and technology positions the farmer in a broad spectrum of possibilities. However, government policies give a certain direction to the way resource relations are build and farming practices are performed. Underlying both practices and relations lays the cultural repertoire; the web of notions, ideas, and beliefs that each farmer cherishes. This repertoire is illustrated by van der Ploeg (1993), and established drivers which directs the farm development strategy in a certain direction. Besides, Kaltoft (1999) displayed the position of farmers towards nature, which is an important complement for the establishment of a cultural repertoire, in this thesis.

The farm development strategies that will be studied form the basis of the research. As the fieldwork will only take 10 weeks, not enough strategies could be gathered to analyze a certain farming style. However, there will be a research on the diversity between the strategies and whether there is a pattern between these different development strategies. How this is being done, could be read in the next section; methodology.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I will discuss how the research was performed and analysed. In order to do so, the main research question will be answered according to the four sub-questions. The main question of this thesis is: What kind of farm development strategies do organic farmers have, on the North island in New Zealand? Therefore, the context of organic farming in NZ is analysed (sub-question 1). The farm development strategies are studied by the three elements; farming practices, resource relations, and cultural repertoires (sub-questions 2 to 4). These questions are answered through qualitative, ethnographic research, which implied an in-depth research of people, the observation of a social context or phenomena and the study of patterns and diversity.

In order to fulfil this research, I went to NiNZ for 2,5 months, to interview, participate and discuss the different themes with organic farmers and experts. While being there, I visited 19 farmers and three experts, to discover and discuss farming development strategy. These farmers were selected based on their differences. These factors of differences are the scale of a farm, certification farms, permaculture farms, CSA farms, bio-dynamic farms and other alternative organic farms. As I did not have that much time, I could not randomly select the farms. At four of these farms, I pursued a case study, which meant that I stayed at least three days and used the methods of; participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and discussions. These case-studies were performed as they needed to generate a general information about farming. The rest of the farms have been visited for at half a day, to pursue a semi-structured interview and observe the farm.

The methodology is structured in the following way, first, the place of the research is analysed and described. Secondly, the population (organic farmers) that is analysed, displayed and discussed. Thereby, a section is about the way these farmers are sampled and selected. Thirdly, a large section describes each sub-question with the appropriate method that was used. Therefore, each method has an extended description of which factors have been tested and highlighted and how these have been analysed. And lastly, an ethical section explains which code of conduct was used to validify the research.

STUDY SITE: NORTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND The original plan of this research was to investigate organic farmers on the North island of New Zealand. However, it turned out to be a much bigger region, than I expected it to be, as the island counts 9 different regions. Moreover, these different regions all have a different climate and geology, which influences the farming practices. It would, therefore, be difficult to compare farmer among each other. Besides the size of the island, the infrastructure does not allow one to drive easily to one side of the island to the other. The rural areas are often connected to small winding roads, which makes driving intense and time-consuming. The intensity of driving increased as people are driving on the left side of the road. Hence, the decision was made to focus the research in one region, the Manawatu, with some cases in other regions: Wairarapa, Hawkes Bay and Taranaki. Therefore, the research area focuses on the southern part of the North island. This decision was made in the first week of my research, in consultation with experienced researchers in this area. Another element, which influenced the decision, is the fact that I found a place to settle, during my stay. This place was located in Palmerstone North, the centre of the Manawatu region. From this place, it was easy to reach different part farms and other research locations.

Figure 3.1 Research area

The main research region: Manawatu, is one of the regions with the largest agricultural regions of New Zealand. Moreover, after Otago, region on the South Island, is Manawatu-Wanganui the region who is using most of their land for farming, 57,9%. Third in line is the Taranaki region, followed by Hawkes-Bay. All these regions are using half of their total land for agricultural activities. As

Manawatu has one of the largest farming lands, the diversity of farms and farming activities are present. Conventional and organic farms are established in this region, in the different sectors: dairy, fruit and vegetable and livestock sector. Thereby, the dairy and livestock sector are the largest sectors in this region. The large amount of farming business enabled the opportunity to select a diversity of organic farms. These farmers are spread over these four regions and are all performing several farming practices. The selection of the farmers is described in more detail below.

STUDY POPULATION: ORGANIC FARMERS As the study site is known and explained, the study population will be characterized. The study population has one thing in common, the place of their farm, which is located on the southern part of the North island of New Zealand. Besides the location, the study populations, the organic farmers, need to meet three other characteristics to be able to fit into the research. The four characteristics are:

1. The farm is situated on the North island of NZ. Due to time and financial restrictions it is not possible to research a larger area, therefore, only the southern part of the North island is researched. The farmers are located in the regions of Manawatu-Wanganui, Taranaki, Hawkes-Bay and Wairarapa.

2. No use of chemical inputs or pesticides. The farmer needs to be organic in the basic sense. Farmers do not have to be specifically certified. This basic rule allows a broader number of farmers who could join the research.

3. The farm is only producing food product. The products are; animals (beef, dairy cattle, sheep, and deer) and fruit and vegetables (horticulture and orchards). The selection of these sectors makes it easier to discover patterns and compare the cultural repertoires, farming practices and resource relations.

4. The organic products are sold at a place. The place in this sense stands for a supermarket, farmer market and other selling places. The farm is not totally self-sufficient, in a sense that the farmer does not communicate with the outside world. In this way, the research is able to analyse the internal, external resource and customer relations.

These characteristics are chosen as the research is not able to research a broader spectrum of things. For instance, the selection of certain sector within the agricultural sector enables the opportunity to compare and analyse the farms, this would not be possible when all farms would be situated in different sectors. Moreover, the decisions for the selection of the research site and study population

23 are based on the fact that farm development strategies should be found. The narrowing of the site and people makes it easier to find the patterns within these farm development strategies. Besides, there are of course time and financial restrictions to this research, which only enabled a certain amount of space to do the research. Furthermore, three experts were interviewed during the fieldwork. One of the experts was leading a permaculture workshop, were I was part of. This permaculture expert connected me to an local food expert who was integrated in local food systems. The last expert was a Christine Jones, a soil expert, who gave a lecture in Palmerstone North, during my stay. The experts enabled background information of farming processes and systems, and gave insights in the current organic developments in NZ. In the end, it was not feasible to investigate a broader study site and a larger farming population. How the study population is selected, based on these four characteristics, is explained and discussed in the next section.

Sampling of organic farmers The farms are selected in four ways: the platform Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (Wwoof), my contact person in NZ: Sita Venkateswar, by the snowball strategy and the internet. Firstly, the farms are found through Wwoof; a platform for organic farms to offer workplaces on their farm to travellers who come to visit NZ. In return for their labour, travellers can stay on the farm and gain farming experiences. This platform is quite handy as it connected me to a lot of organic farms in the four regions. The website showed the profiles of the different organic farms, where the farmers described themselves and their activities. These profiles could be filtered, by using the four characteristics, and contact was made easily. However, most of the organic farmers who are on Wwoof want someone for more than a week and want you to work half days. The first one could be negotiated. I ended up staying around 1 to 4 days in four farms related to Wwoof for. The other part, working on the farm, was a bigger problem, as I discovered that working on a farm and doing research at the same time was exhausting. As the day started with farming activities, often until the afternoon, an interview before dinner and the transcription in the evening, three days in a row. This was too much. Therefore, I decided to contact the farmers through Wwoof and ask for an interview, instead of a longer stay. This worked out quite well, as 4 farms were reached this way, however, not everyone was too keen on spending time to reply on my emails. The longer stays did enable the chance to pursue some participation and observation on the farm, which was useful for the research.

The second way of finding participants was through my contact person Sita, as she is working on the Massey University and is in contact with farmers in the region. She introduced me to people and brought me in contact with several farms. Besides, she also invited me to different farming events and seminars. For instance, the seminar of Christine Jones on new pasture managements, where Sita and I went to. Her wide network helped me reach to new people and enabled a collaboration

24 between Sita and I as we went to seminars and farmers together. Sita her network and the Wwoof platform helped me with contacting the first set of farms, and through these farms and people, new contacts were established, through the so named snowball effect (third selection). Moreover, the first set of people helped me find a new set of people, by asking whether they knew people who wanted to help me. This was quite convenient as new contacts were made easily but was also a danger as the farmers knew each other and were situated in the same circles. Therefore, I had to be careful with speaking about other farmers, as they were often acquainted.

The fourth and last way of sampling was done by using the internet. Therefore, the search machine Google is used to find organic initiatives through the region. Besides, websites of certification organizations, Facebook forums and other organic forums helped with finding the right people for the research. Contact information is, nowadays, easy to find and this enabled the connection between the farmer and me. The internet was the tool which helped with reaching out to farmers who were outside the networks that I already used. In order to make the research more valid, farmers were found who were not in direct connection with the other farmers of the research. In the end, it was quite easy to find farmers who wanted to participate in the research. The farmers were selected by the characteristics and by their specialty, the organic undercurrent they joined and ideas they had. For instance, farmers were researched who were being part of the permaculture, agroecological and regenerative movement. This established a diverse group of organic farm and therefore farm development strategies.

METHODS OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS This section will describe and discuss which methods are used in the research. This will be done by explaining the methods per sub-question, which eventually will answer the main question. The main methods that are used in this research are; participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and discussions. These are all qualitative research methods that fit the field of my thesis. These methods helped to gain insights in the current situation of organic farming in New Zealand and discovered the cultural repertoires, farming practices and internal and external resource relations of the organic farmers. As the research is about farm development strategies, special attention is paid on the past, present, and future. Therefore, the interview questions are structured in order of time; how did farm originated, how is the current situation and where would the farmer like to go in the future. Besides, in order to gain information about farm development strategies, we structured the thesis in the following way by first illustrating the organic farming situation and undercurrents in NZ, which gives a certain context to the research. This is translated in the sub-question one and are based on empirical and literature studies.

Sub-questions two, three and four are all empirical based, and are distinguished by the cultural repertoire, farming practices and resource relations. These elements are researched in a certain order, which differs per farm. The initial idea was to start with investigating the farming practices, which were followed up by the relations part and the cultural repertoire. This was done, as it seemed to be easier to start off with asking questions about farming practices, and end with more difficult material on one’s ideas and notions. However, this was different per farmer, as some farmers started with telling their life story and others were a bit more difficult to reach. Therefore, the three elements of the questionnaire were used in different order, according to the farmer. The participant observation was mainly used to see whether the interview answers were common with the practices in daily life. Besides, the observations were convenient as they gave context to the situation and were refreshing during the analysis, back in the Netherlands. Refreshing is a sense that it took me back to the time in New Zealand. The specific use of methods per sub-question is described and discussed below.

Context organic farming NiNZ (SQ1) This chapter is about the context of organic farming in NiNZ. This is necessary as it’s provides information about the current situation of organic farming, which could not be extracted from the data collection alone. Therefore, this section enables information about the current agricultural and organic trends in New Zealand. This chapter is written after the time I spend in New Zealand, and not before. During my research, several developments within the organic sector where noted and later further studied. Moreover, around the interviews with farm and experts, things were picked up about the current situation of the organic sector, for instance, the national organic standard that is in the making. These were written down and investigated back in the library to give the thesis it more body and to be able to explain the governmental situation around organic agriculture. Besides, the different undercurrent like permaculture, regenerative agriculture and agroecology needed to be studied after the field work. Hence, during the field work, several topics and developments were noted, which would later be studied and written down to create a level of context for the research.

After the fieldwork, the writing started with the chapter on the context of organic farming in New Zealand. This began with creating an overview of the current state of general agriculture in NZ. This was done to provide the first layer of information, to show the scale of agriculture and the importance of it in NZ. Thereby, I used mainly sources on the government, their statistics and external sources like the Climate Change News website. When a broad sketch was made, I zoomed in on the organic agricultural sector in NZ. This was done by the analysis of a large IFOAM report on organic agricultural worldwide. This report showed the organic part NZ is playing on the global scale, how many organic farmers are active and in which sectors. This information was confirmed by a

26 report of the Organics Aotearoa New Zealand, an organization who is representing the interests of the organic sector. This report also gave more specific information of the current state of the organic sector. As an addition to the current state, the developments within the Ministry of Primary Industries was elaborated, with special attention on the national standard and Food Act 2014. Elaboration on this was needed in order to get an understanding of the decision farm make for their coming future.

The last part of the chapter described parties and undercurrents who are related to the farm lives. These parties (certification bodies) and organic undercurrents repeatedly return during the three empirical chapters, and therefore, I choose to give a general introduction to these themes. Starting with a description of the certification bodies; Bio-Gro, AsureQuality, Demeter and Organic Farms NZ. These are shortly elaborated and discussed, to show the differences and similarities between the bodies. Information of these certification bodies is gained through the websites of each body and their reports on the process of certification. Furthermore, the undercurrents; Permaculture, Regenerative Agriculture and Agroecology are described. These organic undercurrents were relevant to mention as these have an influence on the cultural repertoire farmers have, described in chapter 5. The information of these undercurrents is gained through different articles on for instance permaculture and agroecology and through interest organization and foundations who cherish the notions and ideas of these undercurrents. Hence, this chapter used the interview and observations to note different developments within in the organic sector and further explored these with literature. This enabled a fundament for the research as it described the current state of organic agriculture and gave the context for the following empirical chapters.

Farm development strategies (SQs 2-4) The farm development strategies contain three different elements; farming practices, resource relations, and cultural repertoires. These elements have a mutual influence on each other and are extensively described in the theoretical framework. In order to put the theory in practice, the implementation of each element is explained and described. The main methods that are used for this section are; participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and discussion. Moreover, four case studies were selected in which the farm development strategies are studied, and 15 semi-structured interviews were held. How this done differs per element and is described below. The elements and their studied characteristics are summarized in Table 3.2. The full document of interview questions can be found in the Annex.

Sub-question 2 is about the farming practices on organic farms. These practices are explained in the theoretical framework as a value-adding process and an income generator that is based upon a cultural repertoire and different sets of relations. In order to study this element, I started with the

27 design of an interview, which would shed light on the different facets of a farming practice. The first facet were short direct questions of the farm relating to the size, the labour, crops, cattle, financial status, labour and off farm activities. This gave a certain context of the farm and general knowledge, which would later be used to compare the farms. The second facet were more open questions related to the everyday practices of the farmer. Therefore, I asked the farmers to describe one ordinary day of their lives. This was asked to get an idea what the life of a farmer looks like. The everyday farming practices were also studied during the participant observations, which were mainly done during the case studies. Therefore, I stayed a few days on a farm and had the ability to help and work on the farm. This was a good chance to see what everyday farming activities were performed and to have informal conversation with the farmers. These informal conversations were also handy as they revealed other ideas and vision that the farmer cherished. When the everyday farming practices were analysed, I asked about more general farming practices such as: fertilization, diversification and crop rotation. This are practices which are commonly used by organic farmers, as I discovered in writing my proposal and searching for organic practices.

Furthermore, questions were asked on the origination of the knowledge and the sources of knowledge. I found this important to ask, as it would later reveal their field of interest and their personal histories. I started with asking two separate questions, one on the origination of knowledge and the other on the sources of information, but I later figured out that these questions had too much in common. Therefore, I glued the questions together and made it as one. After this question, I asked about the farming practices which farmers would like to add in the future. This brought back the timeline of the farm, as the origination of farming practices, everyday practices and future practices were described. The last element of this element was the influence of certification bodies. The certification bodies have sets of rules and regulation which have an influence on the farmers who are certified. Questions are openly asked about the influence on this certification and what it’s advantages and disadvantaged are. The participant observation played a small role in this, as the auditing of a farmer was observed.

The interview and the participant observations enabled most information on the farming practices. However, the seminar of Christine Jones, with an additional discussion, also provided information on the farming practices of farmers who are dealing with livestock and pastures. This seminar described how pasture management, as farming practice, could make a difference. Moreover, Jones explained a group of farmers on the advantages of multi species seeds mixtures and divers plant communities. The discussion afterwards showed the interest in this topic, but also the restrictions of many farmers to take a step in that direction. Moreover, it showed the rigidness of farming practices, as it seems to be difficult to change ones’ practices, when new farming practices arrive. In the end, the farming

28 practices are studied with different research methods. The next element, related to the farming practices, are the resource relations. These relations establish the context in which farming practices could be performed.

Sub-question 3 is about the relationships that are established around the farm. In the theoretical framework, internal and external relations were explained as a room of manouevre. This room of manouevre is shaping the context of a certain farm by the different relations the farm cherishes with both the market and technology. Besides, the government, social movements, certification bodies, financial investors and family play also an important role in this, as it could shape the market and technology. The relations are described as resource input and output resource relations. Therefore, the second part of the interview would be about the sets of relations of farmers, starting with the output and customer relations. Moreover, questions were asked about the destination of the food product, the relation with this destination and the establishment of this relation. This all is clarified with the drawing of a supply chain, in which the input resource relations as the output places where illustrated. Before moving to the input resource relations, questions were asked about the relation with the customer and the desire to have this. The relation with the certification body was a crucial one, as this was the artificial trust relation between the farmer and the customer. Questions on the relation with the government and social movements were barely answered, as the only answers were concerning taxes. Therefore, I decided to leave the question out of the interviews. When that side of the supply chain was clear, we moved on to the input resource relations, which contained the different relations farmer established to keep their production rolling. The wide range of input resource relations showed the level of dependency, the freedom of choice concerning their farming practices.

The next part of the interview was concerning the internal relations and the relations with the bank or financial investor. The influence of family relations was thereby an important topic, as most farms had a direct family member involved in their farm. The relation with the bank was also quite interesting as most farmers as most farmers found it difficult to talk about this topic. Therefore, I had to see whether it was appropriate to ask such a question. This set of questions clarified a part of the farming practices, as some relations were of affluent influence on the practices. Furthermore, the drawing of the supply chain was a good variety in the methods I used on this subject. Discussions and participant observations were not proceeded.

Sub-question 4 is about the cultural repertoires of the farmers. This is explained by van der Ploeg (1993) as a set of values, beliefs, ideas, and the personal history of a farmer. Each farm has such a cultural repertoire which has an influence on the farming practices and resource relations. In order

29 to research this element, the semi-structured interview, discussions and participant observation were being used. Starting with the interviews, the last element of the interview was concerning the cultural repertoires. These repertoires are divided in 5 different sections; personal histories, position towards nature, global vision on the earth, drivers and prospects. All the sections were formulated in open questions, which would lead to new conversation and questions. Starting with the personal histories, were the farmers were asked to tell about their childhood, schools and jobs. The time of answering this question varied between the farmers, as some farmers were more open than others. After the personal histories, a quite difficult question was asked, about the farmers’ position towards nature. This question often needed some additional context, whereby I explained the people who are anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric. Moreover, I realized by giving context to the question a certain influence on the answer was expected. The next set of questions directed on the farmers’ vision of global developments concerning the environment, the food system and the society. These questions were again openly asked, which enabled room for a small discussion. Therefore, questions were asked from both parties, which led the interview into a conversation. The end of the interview was on the main drivers, to farm organically, which was a sort of summary of the whole section and the prospects.

The elements of the cultural repertoire were often repeated during the participant observations. During the observations, I asked a lot of why questions, whereby the farmers needed to explain their movement, choices and decisions. These decisions were often based on their notions, values and beliefs of this world. From these questions, discussion arose, which were joined by other people from the household or farm. This gave a wider picture of the situation of the farm and its being. The wider discussion with people on their vision on the developments on this planet gave a lot of insights in the practices and relations the farmers established. Moreover, the organic undercurrents of the organic farmers came on the surface, during these discussions, and have me the time to structure the different notions into patterns. All this is done in the analysis of the data that is gathered during my fieldwork in New Zealand. The processes of analysis will be explained in the next section.

Elements of strategy & Context Farming practices Resource relations Cultural Repertoire Methods  Literature study (semi) structured interview Semi-structured interview Semi-structured interview Data fieldwork Participant observation Drawings Discussion Discussions Participant observation Research factors General info organic farming General info farm External relations (4) Personal histories within elements NZ - Size Resource relations - Childhood - Statistics - Crops - Bank - School - Reports - Cattle - Companies - Jobs - MPI - Financial status - Supermarkts - Off farm activity - Export markets - Labor - Farmer markets Certification bodies Type of farming practices Costumer relations Position towards nature - Bio-Gro - Everyday practices - Direct - Anhtropocentric - Asure Quality - Fertilization - Indirect - Non-anhtropocentric - Demeter - Diversification - Trust - OFNZ - Rotation

Organic undercurrents Origin of the practice, sources Certification bodies Global vision on the earth - Permaculture of knowledge - trust - vision on global food system - Regenerative - vision on the environment Agriculture - vision on society - Agroecology Future of farming practices Finiancial investor (the Drivers for organic farming bank) relation Influece of certifcation body Internal (family) relations Future prospects on farming practices - family involvement - advanatages - disadvantages Table 3.2 Overview of methods

ANALYSIS OF empirical data The data of the sub-question two, three and four are all gathered, transcribed and coded in New Zealand. The interviews are written down and coded, which made it easy to find information, when the analysis in the Netherlands started. The participant observations and the discussion are also written out and coded. The analyzation processes started four weeks after the last data was gathered in New Zealand and started with structuring the data and organizing it in the three different categories; cultural repertoire, farming practices and resource relations. Therefore, all the 19 interviews were separated, organized per category and analysed, to find the first patterns and structures. This happened soon enough, whereby the four patterns were found, and farm development strategies could be described. Moreover, the structure of the thesis was made by the three elements, which provided the three chapters in this order; the cultural repertoires of organic farmers, the farming practices and farm business strategies, and the internal and external resource relations. Per chapter, the interviews, participant observations and discussions were analysed, categorized in the patterns and described. I was able to do this, as I asked all farmers the same set of questions, which were easy to compare, when I was analysing the data.

The analyzation and description of the farmers in the chapters is proceeded with great care, as the names of the farmers who participated in the research is not revealed. Moreover, as most farmers in the region know each other, and some farmers indicated that they wanted to be anonymous, the thesis is referring to organic farmers, instead of organic farmers by name. This and more will be further explained in the ethics section below.

ETHICS The research is pursued acooridng to the Dutch Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2018). This means that the research is conducted based on five priciples; honesty, scrupulousness, transperency, independence and responsibility (Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, 2018). Each of these priciples is described below.

1) The research is honestly performed as I was open for all answers that were given. Therefore, I took every opinion, idea, argument or alternative serious and described these in a honest form. I did not changed any answers according to the ends of the research. However, the participant observations could be partly subjective, as I saw the farming lives through my own eyes and described this also in this way. The discussions are objectively described and presented.

2) The research is scrupullounsnes, in a sense, that the methods that are used with the best care. Therefore, there was extra attention on the way methods are performed and excersized. The interviews were well presented, structured and organized. After each interview, participant observation or discussion, the information was writen down within 12 hours, in order to remember all the details of method and be able to write them down. 3) There was transperency towards the participants and other people who are joining the research. The data and the results that is formulated is shared with the participants and other researchers. At the begin of every interview or visit, the participant was informed by the essence of the research, the publication and their rights. As some participants indicated their wich of anonymously, and therefore, the names of each farmer is not mentioned in the research. Furthermore, during the research the information of farmers is not shared with others. I did not told people which farmers I visited and who were yet to come. 4) Independence is another point of attention. The research is not be influenced on other parties who have intersts. Therefore, the research is impartiallity. The research is indepentdnet on all times. 5) Lastly, I take full reponsibilty for the research. Therefore, I take other legit intersts, subjects, universities and other parties in consideration. The thesis is send to all the people who participated in the research and any criticism will be considered.

The research is proceeded in a transparant and honest manner, whereby the farmers and expert are protected and considered. The datacollection is consitently performed by using the same methods by the different participants. The analyzation and structuration of the data is pursued with great care, to illustrate an honest picture and leave the personal information of the farmer, out of this picture. The weaknesses and strengthess of the methodology are further adressed in the discussion.

CHAPTER 4: CONTEXT OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE IN NEW ZEALAND

INTRODUCTION This chapter describes the context of organic farming in NZ. Organic agriculture is rapidly developing in both islands, and therefore, the government and several other organizations have been busy. In order to understand the empirical chapters, this chapter gives the background information of the current circumstances in which food businesses are settled. Hence, the farm development strategies will be clear, when the context of organic agriculture in NZ, is explained.

In order to do so, this chapter firstly discusses the current state of agriculture in NZ. The different sectors are described, the percentage of land that is used per sector and the amount of money that is coming per sector. The negative externalities of these sectors are also be shortly highlighted and discussed. After this general picture of agriculture, the situation of organic agriculture is illustrated. Therefore, the politics and government involvement is debated. Moreover, the Food Act 2014 and the recent developments on the use of organic on labels is described. Then we move on to the four certification bodies; AsureQuality, Bio-Gro, Demeter and Organic Farms NZ (OFNZ), which established the organic standards in NZ. Each body is discussed whereby their history, main values and goals, standards and certification process is highlighted. The similarities and differences between the bodies is also discussed. The last part of the chapter is be about undercurrents in organic farming. These undercurrents are; permaculture, regenerative agriculture, agroecology, community supported agriculture (CSA) and Hua Parakore. These undercurrents could be types/styles within organic farming. Each of them is explained and discussed.

AGRICULTURE IN NEW ZEALAND Agriculture is the biggest industry in NZ. Since the colonies, agriculture has been growing in one of the largest income streams for NZ. The main agricultural and horticultural land uses are; sheep and beef, dairy, vegetables, fruit and berries, grain and other livestock. All these activities were taking up to 12,1 million hectares of farming land in 2016. Of these 12,1 million hectares, 7.8 million is used as grassland, to keep livestock, 2.4 million for grain and other grasses, 1.6 million as plantations for fruit and vegetables and the last 2.1 million hectares for other agricultural activities (StatsNZ, 2018). The total amount of farming land is 45,3% of the total amount of land in NZ. Moreover, the region Otago (South Island) is using most land for farming: 64,5%. Second in line is the Manawatu-Wanganui region with 57.9%, third is Hawkes Bay with 55,4% and fourth is Taranaki with 55,1%. All these regions use more than half of their total land for farming activities (StatsNZ, 2018). The last three regions and Wairarapa are used for the research. 34

Furthermore, the agricultural sector was estimated on 10,6 billion dollars, in 2018. This was approximately 5% of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of NZ. The total primary industry was an amount of 34,7 billion dollars, which included forestry, horticulture and other agricultural activities (EG, 2018). the amount of export for the livestock sector was estimated on 28 billion dollars, in which the 12.1 billion dollars went to the dairy industry and 6,77 billion dollars to the meat industry. Besides this large income source is the agricultural sector accountable for 136500 jobs, in the year 2012. Moreover, the primary industries are one of the biggest employing sectors of NZ. Therefore, this sector has a vital role in the condition and development of communities, villages and regions (EG, 2018).

Figure 4.1 SEQ Main Figure agricultural \* ARABIC land 1uses Main (EG, agricultural 2018) activities (StatsNZ, 2018)

Figure Main agricultural activities (StatsNZ, 2018) This growing industry, which is covering almost half of NZ, is created by approximately 52300 farms (in 2017), who are divided over the country. Figure 1, see above, shows what the different agricultural land uses are over a period, between 2002 until 2016. This figure mainly illustrates the large part of livestock farming, sheep and beef farming is the largest agricultural activity and takes up 32% of the total land on NZ. Dairy farmers follow with a percentage of 9.8 of the total land-use in NZ. Fruit and vegetable farmers use less than 1% land of the total land in NZ (StatsNZ, 2018). Hence, sheep, beef, and dairy farming are quite popular. Since 1994, the number of cows, for the dairy industry, increased from 3.8 million to 6.5 million cows, which entails a raise of almost 70%. Beef, on

35 the other hand, decreased by 28%, from 5 million to 3,6 million beef cows. The total amount of sheep also decreased from 49.5 million to 27,5 million, which is approximately 45% (StatsNZ, 2017). Dairy farmers have been increasing for time and sheep and beef decreasing. This is mainly because of the rising demand for milk solids. Countries as China are a big fan of NZ milk and are therefore one of the biggest importers.

Livestock is one of the main contributors for the NZ economy and overall land use but has also negative side effects or externalities. The high numbers of sheep, beef, and dairy cows are causing some serious trouble for the soil health. This sector is responsible for a decrease in biodiversity, erosion and degradation of soil, water pollution through the bacteria in the urine and manure which affect rivers, lakes and seas and an increase of greenhouse gasses which stimulates the overall global warming (StatsNZ, 2017). In order to decrease these externalities, the Labor Party, who is in charge and directed by Jacinda Ardern, proposed a cut in emissions to zero for all greenhouse gasses in the agricultural sector by 2050. There is one exception, methane, which will be cut down between 24- 47%. The Labor Party built this plan with the coalition to meet the Paris agreements, which entails a CO2 net zero emissions and methane levels cut by at least 35% by 2050 (Darby, 2019). This is a big step for NZ, as their economy is based on the livestock and technologies to reduce these emissions are not abundantly available. Moreover, farmers are afraid that they need to shrink their herds to meet the climate goals (Darby, 2019). However, there are new initiatives within farming which are taking the environment into consideration and are adapting to it. This movement is called organic agriculture and is globally known and developing. Organic agriculture is not only environmentally friendly, it is also standing for better working circumstances for farmers.

The next step is to describe how the current state of organic agriculture in NZ is. As we have explained the situation of agriculture in general, it would be interesting to see what kind of part the organic sector is playing. In order to do so, the next section will be about OA in New Zealand compared with the world and with the conventional agricultural sector in NZ.

ORGANIC AGRICULTURE IN NEW ZEALAND Organic agriculture is developing intensively through the past decade. The IFOAM created a new report in which these developments are described and discussed. The main finding of this report was the record growth of organic farmlands. This growth was never as big as in 2017, were 11,7 million hectares of farmland became organic. This has mainly been taken place in the continent of Oceania, and especially in Australia. Moreover, Australia increased her organic farmlands with 8,5 million hectares, and has currently a total of 35,6 hectares of organic farmland (Lernoud & Willer, 2019). The total amount of organic farmland is 69,7 million hectares and is spread over 181 different countries. 36

Australia, China and Argentina have the largest share of organic farmland. There are 2,9 million organic producers, of which most are settled in India (835.000) in 2017. This is also a huge increase as there were only 200.000 producers worldwide in 1999. As the farmlands and the number of producers grew, the organic market shares also increased from approximately 17,9 billion dollars in 2000 to 97 billion dollars in 2017 (Lernoud & Willer, 2019). Furthermore, the formal regulations and rules around organic farming has been popular as 93 countries have national standards for organic production. Certification organization are becoming more important as they are the basis of exporting your organics to other parts of the world. With this development the IFOAM became more important and realized 726 relations with different interest groups divided over 93 countries (Lernoud & Willer, 2019). This growth is partly because of the new strategy of the IFOAM, organic 3.0, in which they want to include different organic innovations, movements and developments. Therefore, organic gets a broader definition in which more parties feel satisfied and the organic sector is expanding. Currently, the organic agricultural farmland covers 1,4% of the total agricultural farmland worldwide. All this information is described in figure 2 (Lernoud & Willer, 2019).

Figure Organic agriculture global developments (Lernoud & Willer, 2019) Figure 4.2 Key statistic OA (IFOAM, 2019)

Of the 69,7 million hectares of total organic farmland, NZ cows 88.871 hectares of land in 2017. This is 0,8% of the Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2 Organic Agriculture Worldwide (Lernoud & Willer, 2019) total share worldwide. In 2016, the amount of organic farmland was 74.134 hectares, so the number

37 of hectares grew with 14.737 hectares (Lernoud & Willer, 2019). Therefore, the organic farmlands went up with 17%. This growth is due to the increase in the organic livestock area to 64.278 hectares, which is 50% more than the year before (2016). The number of dairy farms also increase by 10%. The development in this sector is probably caused by the change in average size of land that certified beef and sheep need to have. The entry and leave of these farms have, therefore, a considerable impact on the amount of organic farmland (OANZ, 2018). Furthermore, the horticulture and viticulture has decreased by 6% to an area of 23.943 hectares. This decrease is mainly because of the exclusion of dual certified operations (OANZ, 2018).

Furthermore, NZ has an increasing amount of certified organic producers over the past decade. In 1997, the amount of certified organic operations was 335, this grew to 1206 in 2007, to 1672 in 2017 (OANZ, 2018). These numbers include the organic operations who are in conversion to a fully organic farm. A part of this trend is illustrated in figure. 3 below.

FigureFigure NumberSEQ Figure of organic \* ARABIC producers, 3 Number per sectorof organic (OANZ, operations 2018) NZ (OANZ, 2018) Figure 4.3 Number of organic operations (OANZ, 2018)

Livestock (sheep and beef), dairy, horticulture and viticulture are the largest sectors within the organic operations. Moreover, diary is slowly increasing in operations and horticulture is decreasing. This is the same development as the percentage of organic land use described above. All these operations are certified by one of the four active certification organizations in NZ: Bio-Gro, AsureQuality, Demeter and Organic Farms NZ. These organizations will be further explained in the next section. Another group which has been intensively growing is the transport. This is caused by the rising demand of organic farmers, who need to transport their products in a licensed truck. 38

Otherwise, it is officially not organic. The last group which has grown and draws attention, is the group of wholesalers, retailers and processors. These actors have grown up to 30%. This is probably related to the grow in export (OANZ, 2018).

In the global market for organic food are Australia and NZ leading countries. Both countries are big exporters of; beef, lamb, kiwis, apples, onions, dairy products and wine (Lernoud & Willer, 2019). The total size of the organic sector of New Zealand has been rapidly growing in the past years, from 467 million dollars in 2015 to 606 million dollars in 2017. These 606 million dollars can be divided in domestic use (40%) and export (60%). Therefore, the amount of exported goods is estimated on 355 million dollars. Three fourth of the exported goods go to Australia, North America and Europe, and 10% goes to China. The domestic market of organic goods has also grown with 28% from 2015 to 2017. Especially supermarket sales went up, followed by the specialized organic shops. Moreover, the OANZ report (2018) claims that around 80% of the New Zealanders buys organic products, especially fresh food items. The consumers argument to buy organically is health related. Moreover, most consumers are concerned with the health of their family and themselves (OANZ, 2018).

As the current condition of the organic sector in NZ is discussed, is it time to move on to the role of the government. As discussed before, the government is concerned with the global climate change and is taking measures on that, what does it do for the organic sector? The organic sector is falling under the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI). The next section will explain what the MPI is doing for the organic sector.

MINISTRY OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES (MPI): REGULATION AND STANDARDS New Zealand has, just like most other countries, a ministry that is mainly concerned with agriculture. This government section used to be the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) but changed in 2012 to the Ministry of Primary Industries. This happened because of the merging ministries; the Ministry of Fisheries was joining the MAF and together they became the primary industries. The main goal of this ministry is to stimulate export opportunities for these industries, improve their productivity, develop the food safety and increase the sustainable use of resources (MPI, 2019). As NZ is an island, this government department is quite important to protect the resources against threats (pests and diseases) from the mainland. In order to do so, the MPI created strict standards about what to import. Besides these import standards, the food safety regulations are also on point. The risk management for farmers/producers is regulated in such a way that their produce could be exported and sold in supermarkets nationally (MPI, 2019). Organics is a relatively new section in their department, as it grew quite fast last decade. However, the MPI is not making any exceptions. The organic producers must fulfil the same risk management as ‘conventional’ producers. This eventually 39 means that if one wants to sell their food in NZ, one needs to assess the risk management framework for the safety and sustainability. However, the MPI does not have any national standards related to the production of organics. This is currently in the making and will be further discussed in a section below.

The organic industry needs to apply the risk management framework to be able to sell their produce, but what does this framework contain? The framework is a composition of standards derived from four different acts; the Food Act (1983), the Animal Products Act (1999), the Wine Act (2003) and the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act (1997). An example of this last act are rules for; the nutrition information, the warning for allergies, the dates, the contact details of the producers, ingredients etc. (MPI, 2019). The risk management is in supervised by the New Zealand Food and Safety Authority. This authority is managing the production and processing of organic food. When one has produced organic food by the rules of the risk management framework, one can sell it as organic. However, a producer can only use the term ‘organic’ when the label is controlled by the Fair- Trading Act (1986). This act entails that the label ‘organic’ needs to be truthful and not misleading, that the product is produced ‘organically’ and the product needs to have an organic certification. This is, however, outdated and not adhered to. Producers are misusing the word ‘organic’ as a label and therefore the consumers are misled. In order to restore this, the MPI came up with a new policy: The Food Act 2014, which is replacing the Food Act of 1986 (NZFSA, 2019).

The Food Act (2014) The new Food Act is created to map and check people who are producing food and selling it to the markets. The broader purpose is to safety and sustainability for food products to sell and minimize the risks to the public health. This act needs to improve the public health and give more transparency in how a product is produced. Moreover, the Food Act will restate the way producers make and trade their food products (NZFSA, 2019). This act came into force in 2016 and it applies to all the food business, the ones that were already existing and the ones that are new on the market. All the food business needs to be registered and checked, but there is a new feature in which producers will be categorized in high and low risks. This categorization is operated as food safety requirements differ per food sector. Besides the different requirements, the whole processes of the food product are checked and researched. From the production to the supermarket or restaurant (Food Act, 2014). These two new standards are translated in measures; first one needs to have a food control plan (FCP) which will describe how one is manage the food safety of the business on daily basis, and the second are the national programs, a set of rules which are developed for the high/medium/low risk businesses (Food Act, 2014).

This new Food Act is beneficial for the food industry as it is updated for the coming decade and it is giving transparency in the food businesses. All producers must plan for day to day food safety measures but are rated in different risks scales. By registration and verification of food businesses, the production process becomes clearer, which enhances a better safety and sustainability. However, there is a certain downside to this new Food Act, the costs. A food business must pay a registration fee (between the 100 to 300 dollars) and an annual amount (differs per business). This is for small food business a large cost, especially when the certification costs are also added. Therefore, the expectation is that small food business will stop existing or sell their food not labelled on small farmer markets.

Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) The registration for the Food Act 2014 can also be done by the certification organization New Zealand Good Agricultural Practice (NZGAP). This organization is established 20 years ago by Horticulture New Zealand, on behalf of NZ growers. This organization was set up because of the growing concerns of customers. These concerns were related to food safety, responsible and sustainable food practices (AsureQuality, 2019). The purpose for the certification is to ensure the customer that he/she is buying a safe product, produced under fair circumstances, in a sustainable way (NZGAP, 2019). Moreover, this certification needs to establish a trust relation between the producer and the customer. This label can only be used by producers with a horticultural business. NZGAP has currently 1360 certified horticultural producers.

The MPI is working together with the NZGAP to get their programs on one line. When this is done, horticultural producers who are already registered by NZGAP, do not have to register again by the MPI for the Food Act 2014. The auditors of NZGAP can execute the verification of the Food Act National Program 1, which means that the producers do not have to pay for double audits (NZGAP, 2018). However, this certification is not entailing an ‘organic’ standard. It is more in line with the Food Act 2014, it is originated from an idea that the food safety, social practice and environment need to be cherished. NZGAP is protecting the environment by promoting sustainable farming, but that is it.

Furthermore, the MPI have been busy with debating whether this organic national standard is necessary. Since 2018, multiple parties came together to discuss the opportunity of creating a national standard and most people were like minded: there must come an organic standard to truthfully inform customers and give a handout to producers.

The need for a National Standard Despite the Food Act 2014 and the Fair-Trading Act 1986 are food businesses, consumers, certification entities, interest groups, consultants and other actors, not content with the current status of organic production. Currently a food business can sell their produce as organic if it meets the Food Act 2014 and Fair-Trading Act 1986 (MPI, 2018). However, these two acts do not have any special regulations for being organic. Thereby, is certification seen as something voluntary instead of mandatory. In this way, two products can be labelled as organic, but have totally different production processes. For example, an organic certified yogurt is sold next to a ‘organic’ yogurt that is not certified. These products have the same name but different production processes. This is misleading for the consumer and not fair for the certified producer, as he/she is putting a lot of effort in making a product fully organic (O’Connor, 2018). Hence, the current system is causing confusion, lacks clarity and is therefore hindering the growth of the organic sector (MPI, 2018). Besides the struggle on the domestic market, the international organic market is run by countries who are almost all mandatory certified. NZ and Australia are the two countries in which organic certification is still voluntary. Their trading partners are increasingly demanding the same standards from NZ and Australia and therefore a national standard would be necessary. This standard would give NZ a better position to negotiate and enhances a bright future in which stable international trading relations could be build (O’Connor, 2018).

The MPI heard this concern and made a consultation of all the 208 submission. This resulted in different meeting to hear all the voices and consider the option of a national standard. The main outcome was that there was a need of a national mandatory standard. This standard would; increase clarity for consumers of what organic means; increase clarity for businesses of what is legal and/or required; support trade and exports of organic products; facilitate trade of inputs and supplies for organic production; improve the way organics are produced; strengthen the image of New Zealand organics domestically and internationally; bring consistency across certifiers; better policing of false organic claims; reduce accreditation requirements for certifiers for international markets (MPI, 2018, p. 9).

Currently, NZ winter 2019, the MPI is discussing and debating how the national standards should be formulated. The parties that are involved in this are the four certification organizations; Bio-Gro, AsureQualtiy, Demeter and Organic Farms NZ, and other invited parties. The standard is expected to be done in 2020. This national standard would include the rules and regulations of the Food Act 2014. However, these developments don’t have that much influence on the thesis. When the data was gathered, the ‘old’ voluntary certification system was running. Therefore, the four certification

42 organization with their own rules and regulations were accurate and dominating. The next section will describe each certification organization with their different histories, values and practices.

CERTIFICATION BODIES As described above, there are four different certification bodies in NZ. These bodies independently set the line on what is seen as organic and what not. This section will elaborate on that and will explain the main differences and similarities between the certification bodies. Before this could be done, a general story about the organization is told. This section will start with the bigger bodies; AsureQuality and Bio-Gro and after that the two smaller organizations; Demeter and Organic Farms NZ, will be discussed.

AsureQuality The history of this certification body started more than 100 years ago, when the body was still part of the NZ government department of Agriculture. This part of the department provided farmers information and gave them advice about how they could improve their production. Moreover, market access requirements were given to the farmer to make sure he/she could sell his/her products domestically or internationally (AsureQuality, 2019). In 1998, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry transformed this part of the department in a state-owned company called AsureQuality. Therefore, AsureQuality is still state-owned, but is running like a commercial company (AsureQuality, 2019). With this history, AsureQuality is mainly occupied with the food safety of the whole agricultural sector. Their main values are; exceed expectations, long-term partnerships between the producer and consumer; stronger together, building alliances with consumers and producers; doing the right thing, help to increase the food safety and; taking the lead, always searching for new innovative solutions (AsureQuality, 2019).

This long history and core values are translated into a wide spectrum of different practices. The most relevant practices are the testing of food, auditing, inspections, verifications, certifications and consulting. These practices are done in 13 different agricultural industries. One of these industries is the organic sector. Within the organic sector, AsureQuality is providing a certification for organic producers, processors and retailers within the following sectors; dairy, meat, seafood, horticulture, wine, arable and the pharmaceutics. The conversion to become organic takes two years and costs around the 1200 dollars a year. The AsureQuality standards are formal and in line with the MPI, as the auditing process is done by a third party. It is also one of certification bodies who provide different certifications for farmers who want to export their food products to North America, Canada, Europe, China, Japan and Switzerland. These countries require a special Official Organic Assurance Program (OOAP) certification. In this way, AsureQuality is quite export oriented and 43 therefore also the farmers who are joining this organization. In the end, AsureQuality is a formal organization originated from a government, and its main goal is therefore food safety within the whole agricultural sector.

Bio-Gro The history of Bio-Gro is quite different as the one of AsureQuality. Bio-Gro originated 30 years ago by a group of organic pioneers. These pioneers were representatives of Soil & Health Association NZ, the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association and the Doubleday Research Association of NZ. In 1983, these pioneers came together with the same vision to create a certification for organic producers (Bio-Gro, 2009₁). This would help farmers to turn into organic agriculture and establish a better and sustainable world. A year later, the first organic standards were put on paper and since then this trademark has been growing. Nowadays, Bio-Gro is the largest organic trademark, domestically and internationally, in NZ (Bio-Gro, 2019). Bio-Gro is also recognized by the IFOAM, which includes the international acceptance of their organic standards. Besides, Bio-Gro is a non- profit, independent charity, funded by donations, memberships and grants. The core principles of Bio-Gro are related to the parties who originated the certification. Key themes like natural, biological, holistic and biodynamic farming are the core of the organization. It is mainly about farming with ecosystems, non-polluting the environment and producer friendly. Moreover, Bio-Gro enhances the minimization of external and non-renewable resources and stimulates the sustainability of the soil life and ecosystems (Bio-Gro, 2009₁).

As Bio-Gro is the leading organic trademark, different certification programs are possible, within a diversity of sectors. The different certifications are; the organic certification, the inputs for organics certification, the natural organic certification (cosmetics) and the non-GMO certification. The organic certification is used most often in this research. This certification has specific guidelines for the seven sectors; processed products, horticulture, livestock, dairy, apiary, viticulture and health & body care (Bio-Gro, 2019). The certification process takes 3 years and is around the 1000 dollars. In this process, a farmer will have an audit every year, needs to take soil test, need to make a management plan, have property maps and make an environmental management plan for the whole property (Bio-Gro, 2009₂). The auditing is again done by a third party. Besides, it is also possible to subscribe for an international trading certification, same as AsureQuality, under the OOAP guidelines. Other similarities between AsureQuality and Bio-Gro is that both are related to the MPI, have an official auditing system where independent inspectors visit the farm annually and are dealing with larger farms who are interested in exporting their food products. Differences between both organizations is mainly their origination and therefore their main values. AsureQuality is created by the government

44 and more focused on food safety, and Bio-Gro is originated by pioneers who aimed for a sustainable world and want to change this through farming with

Demeter Demeter is, with Organic Farms NZ, one of the smaller certification bodies. Demeter is not the name of the certification body but the certificate itself. The certification body who is providing Demeter is the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, originates in 1939 (Biodynamic Ass., 2019). This certificate is globally recognized and connected to the Rudolf Steiner movement of biodynamics. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) is the founding father of biodynamics and created ideas about holistic farming. Moreover, he has this idea that the farm is an organism in which all the different parts of the farm are the organs. The farmer is the centre of the farm, the brain, and needs to keep the organism healthy. This is done by the good care of the organs, who are all interrelated with each other. Everything must be in a certain balance to keep the organism in harmony (Demeter, 2008). Biodynamic farming is farming with nature, it is seen as a lifestyle instead of a business as it has an anthroposophical background. Key farming principles of biodynamic farming are; respect and interest for nature, sustainable practices to increase the soil fertility, integration of livestock, an equal relationship with processors and retailers and the acknowledgement of the wider environment including the moon, planets, stars and other cosmos (Demeter, 2008).

The practices related to biodynamic differ per farm as every farm is its own unique individuality. In NZ, there are only two sectors where Demeter is used, the viticulture and horticulture. Practices that are common in Demeter are the making of your own compost, divers crop growing, crop rotation, integration of animals and the use of biodynamic preparations. It takes around three years to get fully certified. In order to get certified, farmers need to make a farm management plan, an annual report, documents of their suppliers and a farm profile which displays the environmental characteristics of the farm. There is an annual inspection, performed by volunteers of the association, it is a first party auditing system. The costs for this certificate are 562 dollars. Currently, there are 14 farm who possess the certification of Demeter, in NZ. This makes it quite hard for the organization to survive, as there are no other incomes. Furthermore, Demeter is dealing with more problems as they are not officially recognized by the IFOAM as organic. This results in the fact that the food products and biodynamic preparations could not be sold as organic. Organic producers and retailers need to leave them aside, which causes diminishing income streams.

In order to survive these problems, Bio-Gro stepped in to create a new partnership between the two organizations. Bio-Gro offered her services to create new platforms of organic certification for biodynamic customers. The idea is that they synchronize their systems, whereby producers can be

45 both certified organic and Demeter. Moreover, instead of doing two audits, only one has to be done. This is beneficial for Demeter as their inspection system would be upgraded to a third party system and therefore their recognition by the IFOAM be restored. Besides, this partnership would help the organic producers with the new Food Act, as the Bio-Gro standards are in line with the ones of MPI. These new developments will help Demeter to be a stronger label in NZ.

Organic Farm New Zealand (OFNZ) The second small certification body is Organic Farms New Zealand (OFNZ). As Demeter is also originated for a certain kind of farmer, OFNZ is originated to certify growers for a low cost. The body is created because of the growing prices within the certification businesses and the worldwide movement to support local small farmers. In NZ around the 1980/90’s, the small organic farmers were losing grounds, as the certification became too expensive. The Soil & Health Association discussed this topic nationally, but couldn’t get the funding right, until the Green Party came in charge. Together, those powers created OFNZ, in 1999. Nowadays, 20 years later, OFNZ has approximately 130 producing members, who are producing on 1 to 10 hectares of land. As the certification costs are low, the certification is applicable for not only producers, but also community groups, schools and other interest groups. Therefore, these groups can enter the NZ marketplace as being organic, but the organization also wants to provide a common place where communities could help each other and increase their overall well-being. In this way, OFNZ established both a certification as an education system. This contains that OFNZ advocates the core principles of organic farming, wants to promote the human and environmental health, meet the needs of customers, learn people about organic farming and assist with doing this.

Furthermore, OFNZ is a voluntary system, build on the organic farmers themselves. The organization functions through the National Coordinating Committee and the National Office. The certification process takes three years and costs around the 300 dollars, which makes it the cheapest certification in NZ. The process itself differs from the other bodies as OFNZ is working with a POD system. This system functions as a peer review system in which groups of 3 to 5 farmers review each other. This review could be seen as an audit, the farmer comes to the property of the other farmer, to check the Property Management Plan (PMP) and inspect the site. The PMP contains a detailed description of the developments of the farm, what the inputs and outputs are and how the farm is applying the organic standards. Besides the POD system, every 3 to 5 years an ‘official inspector’ is coming to one’s property to do an audit. This certification process keeps the certification costs low, as one doesn’t have to pay for an audit every year. Therefore, OFNZ is rather popular for the small organic farmer. However, the POD system is not officially recognized by the MPI, which could cause problems

46 in the future. OFNZ is searching for possibilities, as they are part of the negotiations for the National Standard, together with the three other certification bodies.

The last part is about the differences and similarities between OFNZ, Demeter and the other two bigger certifiers. OFNZ and Demeter are both originated to serve a certain group of people. Demeter for people who follow the ideas of Steiner, and OFNZ for ones that have a small-scale food business. The difference between those two is their certification process, Demeter gives audits by volunteers of their organization and OFNZ does it by a POD system. However, both systems are not recognized by the MPI. The systems of Bio-Gro and AsureQuality are recognized. The four bodies complained about the divergent organic standards and are now around the table to discuss how a National Standard could be made.

ORGANIC UNDERCURRENTS The last part of this chapter is about the different undercurrents that are flowing through the organic sector, in NZ. These currents are often part of the values which are cherished by the organic farmers, that I researched. Therefore, it is important what these trends entail and how they are performed in practice. I will discuss the ones that are relevant for the research; permaculture, regenerative agriculture, agroecology, CSA and Hua Parakore. There are, of course, many more trends within organic farming worldwide and in NZ, but it is too much to discuss those all in this thesis. These five undercurrents will be shortly elaborated, whereby the history, main values/principles, practices and an example are explained.

Permaculture The founding fathers of permaculture are David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, both researchers on the university of Tasmania, Australia. The concept originated around the 1978’s, when Holmgren and Mollison wrote an article about this new form of agriculture, permanent agriculture, permaculture. This article was transformed into a book, Permaculture One, which was spread over the world (Mollison, 1981). This book reached different people who came together and formed regional permaculture groups. More attention was gained when they published more books and created an education program for permaculture called; The Permaculture Institute. The main idea of permaculture is that agriculture can function in harmony with humans and nature. The permanent part of agriculture refers to the stability, creating a balance with nature in which soils are deepened, waters are cleaned, communities are self-reliant, social justice is enhanced and peace is established (Permaculture Association, 2019). Moreover, permaculture is a holistic, practical and creative approach to landscape design, whereby the needs of humans, animals and the community is met.

The design integrates sustainable agriculture, recycling and community building to create a diverse, stable and resilient ecosystem (Turner, 2019).

Permaculture translated in practice includes the designing of the farm/garden in such a way that different elements are mutually supporting each other. This is done by; observing nature, catch and store energy, use and value renewable energy, produce no waste, design from patterns to details, integrate rather than segregate, use of small and slow solutions, creativity and diversity. Besides the care of the earth, permaculture established ethics in which people care and fair share is included. People care refers to the people who have access to nature as a necessity for their existence. Without the earth, they cannot survive. Fair share is the bridge between earth care and people care, the part where one governs the yields, to give a part back to nature and animals and to sell/share the other part to the community (Turner, 2019). An example of a permaculture farm is a fruit forest, the forest is a combination of different fruit trees, whereby the soil is covered by a diversity of crops/grasses/flowers etc., and this grazed by sheep and chicken. This combination of practices enhances the quality of the soil and creates a stability for the farm as he/she has a diversity of income (fruits, meat and eggs).

Regenerative agriculture In the 1930’s, the first sights of regenerative agriculture were spotted in North America. The agriculturalist Albert Howard researched organic farming and wrote about its benefits. Moreover, he researched the necessity of a healthy soil and the methods, like composting and cover crops, to establish this. Someone who was interested in this work was Jerome Rodale, who started to do experiments with these kind of farming practices. These results were published in the first Organic Gardening and Farming Journal and were the begin of Rodale’s career in the organic agriculture (Rodale Institute, 2019). After the Second World War, Rodale continued his work, especially in the natural methods of building soil fertility, without using any nitrogen. The substance nitrogen was running short as the war has used this to make munition. In 1947, Rodale founded the Soil and Health Foundation were his ideas about soil health and fertility were shared. This foundation became the Rodale Institute, which is now an education centre and certification organization, based in Pennsylvania (Rodale Institute, 2019). Rodale’s main idea of organic agriculture was that when one improves the health of the soil, healthier food and therefore, healthier people would arise. Moreover, the farmer needs to renew, restore and regenerate the soil, to get an organic system. Therefore, Rodale called this kind of organic agriculture, regenerative agriculture. These practices enhance human health, but also the overall environment and mitigates climate change (Rodale Institute, 2019).

As the main goal of regenerative farming is to increase the soil quality and increase the biodiversity, certain practices need to be fulfilled. These practices include; no tillage, which entails no disruption of soil communities by a tillage activity; elimination of bare grounds; enhancing of plant diversity on the farm; the integration of livestock and cropping activities in the farming system (LaCanne & Lungren, 2018). These principles could be are often practiced in holistic farming systems, in which different elements help to enrich the soil. One example of regenerative farming is a multi-species grazing management. This management strives for a diversity of different grasses, flowers and herbs in a paddock where livestock is grazing. This variety increases the soil quality, the different roots enhance microorganisms. Besides, the variety is enabling a diverse diet for livestock, which improves their health. In this way, it is about the different elements on the farm who are beneficially improving each other.

Agroecology Bensin was the first scientist who used the word agroecology, in 1928. He was a Russian agronomist, who researched ecological processes within agriculture. Moreover, he investigated how ecological processes were influenced by commercial crop plantations. After Bensin, a German ecologist/zoologist Tischler (1950’s) used the term agroecology, to discuss problems in the soil biology, insect interaction and plant protection in the agricultural systems (Wezel et al., 2009). Later, different other authors have used the term agroecology to describe ecological processes in agriculture. This created a lot of diffusion around the concept of agroecology. One thing is clear, agroecology is a combination of two main disciplines; agronomy and ecology, and others such as zoology and plant physics (Wezel et al., 2009). It can also be the ecology of the food system, which includes the social and economic dimensions. Francis et al (2008), define agroecology as the application of ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agroecosystems (p. 101). Natural ecosystems are evolving all the time, for centuries, in which these systems have designed a efficient relations between natural resources. Moreover, plants, animals and soils are designed in such a way that they can survive together in their given environment. This certain ecosystem gives them stability and should also give the farmer of that certain environment the same thing. In order to create this relative stability, the farmer should design his/her agro system to the ecosystem that is settled (Francis et al., 2008). The art is to design a productive system in the functions and systems of nature.

As agroecology combines agricultural production with ecological processes, techniques are used that agricultural practices work together or respect the ecological aspect of a certain area. Therefore, it combines regenerative agriculture practices on soil biology and microorganism with social aspects of permaculture. Agroecology only takes it one step further by looking at the global food system,

49 therefore, the whole supply is considered. The production, processing, distribution and consumption of food resources is researched and debated by agroecologists. Thereby, all different disciplines are discussed; ecological, social, economic, environmental and agricultural. Farming practices related to agroecology are for instance making of compost, diversifying of plants (crops and pastures), the combination of livestock and the integration of trees (fruit, nuts, natives etc.). One example of an agroecological system is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This system is set up to support the farmer against the global food powers.

CSA is originated in the mid 80’s in Japan and quickly flew over to Europe and North America. These agricultural systems increased through the growing recognition of the negative impact of the current global economy on communities and the environment (Ostrom, 2018). The CSA’s re-establishes the connection between the customer, producer and healthy food products. The local food networks help to revitalize local economies and enhance the local food security. Besides, it stimulates the soil quality as farming with the environment is a core principle (Ostorm, 2018). The Soil Association (2011) defines a CSA as; any food, fuel or fibre producing initiative where the community shares the risks and rewards of production, whether through ownership, investment, sharing the costs of production, or provision of labour (p. 4). It is the mutual relationship between the community and the producers of food, where often the community has farm shares and pays the farmer in advance. In this way, the farmer has the space to farm in a sustainable as he/she is sharing the risks with the community (Soil Association, 2011). CSA’s are the ‘farms of tomorrow’, a new way of agriculture whereby both communities, producers and the environment are benefiting from the farming system (Ostrom, 2018).

Maori farming: Hua Parakore Currently humanity is dealing with a triple crisis; climate change, peak conventional oil and food insecurity. The last 200 years, fossil fuels have been used to such an extent that the global climate is changing. Besides, the maximum amount of petroleum is reached, which means that our global economy, who is dependent on oil, is declining in the coming years (Hutchings et al., 2015). This combination and the growing food insecurity cause a major downfall for vulnerable groups; women, peasants and indigenous groups. Therefore, Hua Parakore originated, to establish a food sovereignty movement for the indigenous (Maori) people of New Zealand (Hutchings et al., 2015). Hua Parakore is a certification, initiated and developed by the organization Te Waka Kai Ora, the national Maori Organics Authority of NZ. The certification program is launched in 2011, the Maori new year, and has certified 22 producers by 2012. The program of Hua Parakore is developed to contribute to the long- term sustainability of Maori knowledge and the communities (Hutching et al., 2015).

The values and principles of Hua Parakore are built on the diversity and richness of the kaupapa Maori (philosophy of Maori) which is situated in the different Maori tribal groups. The first principle is Whakapapa, the genealogical connections, which entails the connection with nature. The producers have a connection with the product and therefore with nature. Moreover, they have knowledge about the genealogy and the environment in which they are practicing. The second principle is Wairua, spirituality, the spiritual health and peace of the land. The land needs to protected and respected. The food that is produced needs to be safe and healthy for people consuming it (Hutchings et al., 2015). The third principle is Mana, authority or social justice, which means that the yields need to be shared with the community and local economy. The fourth principle is Märamatanga, enlightenment, when the producer is creating healthy food, he/she is enlightened by the well-being and the clarity of the production process. One observes and understands nature and therefore can enhance the quality and integrity of pure food (Hutching et al., 2015). The fifth principle is Te Ao Türoa, the natural world, which has to be protected by the people who are following the Hua Parakore program. The last principal is Mauri, life-force, healthy soils, healthy plants and healthy people. Mauri is the energy that enables the growth of healthy food and therefore create healthy people. Producers can stimulate this Mauri by increasing the soil fertility and biological activity (Hutchings et al., 2015). These six principles need to be pursued in order to get an official Hua Parakore certification.

CONCLUSION

This chapter is served to create a broad understanding of the current condition agricultural sector in NZ. The conventional as the organic agricultural sectors are described to compare them and see how these relate to each other. This description is translated in the first sub-question;

What is the context of the development strategies, in NiNZ?

Agriculture is one of the main primary industries of NZ. About 45,3% of the land is occupied with agricultural activities and there are around 52300 farms, in 2017. With this sector, livestock is dominating, sheep, beef and cows. However, the prime minister Ardern is aiming for a zero-carbon bill in 2050 which is supposed to stimulate farmers to go organic. The organic sector is relatively small, from the 12,1 million hectares of total farming land in NZ, the organic sector only has 74,134 hectares of land. However, there are a lot of developments going on in the sector as a national standard is coming up in 2020. This standard is a partly caused by the Food Act 2014 and concerns of interest groups. Currently the four certification bodies AsureQuality, Bio-Gro, Demeter and OFNZ set the standard for farmers to be organic. However, the misuse of the word organic on food products

51 forces the ministry of primary industries (MPI) and the four organization together to create a new legislation. Besides the developments, the variation and diversity of different organic ideology is available in NZ. Permaculture, regenerative agriculture, agroecology and indigenous Maori farming traditions are part of the organic sector. The researched farmers feel connected to these ideologies and these are therefore discussed. The description of these developments and organic ideologies are relevant as the development strategies are created in these spheres.

CHAPTER 5: EMERGENT CULTURAL REPERTOIRES OF ORGANIC FARMING

INTRODUCTION This is the first chapter of the thesis that analysis and describes the findings. The findings are presented and structured in three parts. The first part is a descriptive introduction of the studied farmers according to the main data, the second part is about their cultural repertoire and the last part is about patters that are found, according to the farmers’ repertoires. This chapter starts with a description of the studied farmers and their current situation which include; the land size, the regions of the farms, the destination of their food products, the related certification bodies, the gender, age and nationality, and eventually the agricultural sector. Therefore, the farmers are divided in three sectors; diary, fruit and vegetables, and meat and eggs sector. When the whole picture of the researched farmers is clear, the second part begins.

The second part of the thesis elaborates the cultural repertoire of the studied farmers. This part is relevant as it explains why the farmers started with farming in the first place. The cultural repertoire is derived form in the personal histories of the farmers and their position towards nature. This part discusses the similarities that farmers have among each other. This is especially related to the personal histories, as the researched farmers have similar experiences. Another aspect that is discussed is the farmers general vision on the world; how they think about the current state of the earth and how this develops. Most farmers are agreeing on this as they are experiencing the same problems. Another aspect of the cultural repertoire is the relation farmers have with the society, or the vision farmers have on how the society is developing. The third and last section on this chapter will focus on the drivers of the farmers to become an organic farmer. Moreover, the personal history, the position towards nature and the vision on the earth and society are the element who formulate a repertoire on which their drivers is based. The personal repertoires analysed and combined into shared cultural repertoires, which resulted in four patters; the ‘old school’ organics, the ‘new school’ organics, the soil farming and social/spiritual farming. The description of these different patterns is relevant as it influences the farming practices and resource relations of the farmers and eventually

This chapter provides a basis for the next two chapters where the farming practices, business strategies and resource relations will be explored. This is the basis of the research, the descriptive part where the situation of the farmer is illustrated.

THE INVESTIGATED FARMERS This section illustrates the farmers that are studied for this thesis. Therefore, the different characteristics of the farmers are highlighted and discussed. For this research, 22 farmers were interviewed, spread over the North island of NZ. These 22 farmers are spread over 19 farms, which means that 3 farms are run by couples, who were both studied. The following section will give an overview on regions were the farms were located, the size of the farms in hectares, the average age and gender of the farmers, the number of farms who are related to a certification body and who not, the destination of the product and the primary activities of the farm.

Regions The total number of farms that are researched is 19. These 19 farms were spread over four different regions on the North Island on NZ. The four regions are the Manawatu, Wairarapa, Hawkes Bay and Taranaki. These four different regions were chosen to create a broad spectrum of organic farms. Most farmers of this researched are settled in the Manawatu, officially named Manawatu-Wanganui. In this region, nine farms are settled, which is 56% of the total researched farm population. Manawatu is one of the biggest farming regions in NZ and therefore most farms are settled here. The next regions have both an equal share Wairarapa and Taranaki, with each 3 farms. Wairarapa is in

Figure 5.1 Number of farms the south on the North island and visited because of the speciality of those three farms. These were not found in another region. This is the same case for Taranaki. The three farms that are settled in that area have a particularity as they are all bio-intensive and (semi)urban farmers. Directly on the other side of Taranaki, on the east coast, is the last region Hawkes Bay. Only one farm is studied in

54 this region, which is 19% of the total and is again chosen because of the farm that is settled there. This all is summarized in Figure 5.1. Number of farms.

Land size As the location of the different farms is described, the land size per farm could be illustrated. This is done in Figure 5.2, below. This graph shows the hectares of land per farm and therefore displays the variation between the farms. Moreover, almost half of the farms that are researched have less than 20 hectares of land. These farmers are mainly involved in vegetable and/or fruit farming, in which not that much land is needed to produce a certain amount of food.

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 4 Number of farms per region

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 5 Land size in hectares Figure 5.2 Land size in hectares

This is different with dairy, meat and egg farms. When a farm has livestock, and it is labelled as organic, every animal needs a certain amount of space. Therefore, the sizes of land are much bigger than fruit and vegetable farmers, who don’t have any land size restrictions. Number 9 until 16 are dairy, meat and egg farmers. There is one exception, the farm with the largest amount of land, 1500 hectares. This block of land is used for the cultivation of vegetables, a fruit forest, native bush and leasing of land for livestock. Besides, more than half of the farm is not used for any farming practices yet. It is still a developing farm, not in total use, and therefore an exception. Hence, fruit and vegetables farms have a relatively small plot of land (1-8) and dairy, meat and eggs farm a much bigger plot of land (9-16).

Gender, age and nationality Now the location and the size of the land is clear, the farmer him/herself could be analysed. This analysis will include the gender, age and nationality of the farmers. Starting with the gender, most of the farmers are males, 9 in total. This means that the males are in running the farm, without their

55 partners. More than half of all farms is male dominated, 52%. The second option are the couples or partners who are running the farm together. Both male and female are working on the farm, often doing different activities, but there are no other jobs involved. This is done by 7 couples, which makes 40% of all the farmers. There is only one farm which is totally run by a woman. She is running the whole farm by herself, with a small help of her partner, who has another job. Furthermore, the age of the farmers, which is quite relevant to mention. Moreover, 65% of the farmers is above the 50 years old. There were only four farmers around their 30’s and two farmers around their 40’s. This is relevant as most farms are slowly entering the phase in which questions are raised about the future of the farm. Who is taking over the farm and until which age will a farmer keep working? This has a certain influence on the way farmers run their farm, this will be explained in a later stage. The last farmer analysis is about the nationality of the farmers. Most farmers are born in NZ, about farmers 14 farms. The other five farms have five different nationalities, were they were all born. These nationalities are German, Dutch, Australian, British and American. These 7 farmers (of which 2 couples) grew up in their country of origin and immigrated later, some to directly start a farm, some to fall in love and start a farm after that. In the end, the analysis can conclude that the group of farmers is quite divers, different age, gender and nationalities are researched. However, there is a lack of female farmers, and the age of farmers is quite high.

Certification bodies Furthermore, another element that is important when researching the farms in the involvement of external parties such as certification bodies, who are related to the farm. As mentioned before, there are four main certification bodies in NZ; AsureQuality, Bio-Gro, Demeter and OFNZ. These four bodies related to the studied farm, see Figure 5.3. The two certification bodies that are mainly related are AsureQuality and Bio-Gro, both cover 30% which are six farms. Moreover, these bodies are the largest certificates in the country and have an international export program. Therefore, these two certifications are often used. The other three certifications are different as they serve a more specific group of farmers. This is mainly the case for the certifications Demeter and Hua Parakore, which are small bodies. OFNZ is a larger, as small local farmers are often member of this organization because of its low costs. However, the research did not manage to visit more of them. Furthermore, the last part of the pie, 25%, Figure 5.3 Number of farms related to certification is given to the farmers who are not certified at all. bodies

These farmers are producing organic food but are not doing this under the standard of an organization. The produce of these farms is sold in local networks, markets and stores. This is what the next section will explain, the destination of the food products.

Destination of production What happens when the production is ready to go? What is its next destination? This is analysed in Figure 5.4. Destination of production. This diagram shows that more than 23 places, as farms often sell their production to different people and places. One popular destination for dairy farms is Fonterra. Of all the dairy farmers that were visited, everyone sold their milk production to Fonterra.

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 6 Number of farms related to certification organizations Figure Number of Farms related to a Certification Organization

Figure 5.4 Destination of production

Fonterra is the biggest dairy company in NZ and is exporting the milk solids to different countries such as China. It is a popular purchaser as Fonterra is giving a premium for organic milk. Besides Fonterra, two farmers have a small store on their farm where fresh milk is sold daily. Another popular destination is local, often organic, stores. These stores could be found in small villages close to the farm, and in larger cities. The distribution to cities is often done by retailers and wholesalers, who are spreading the organic production over the country and internationally. Retailers and wholesalers also supply to supermarkets but in this case the supply is done by the farmers themselves. Farmer markets are also a common place to sell your production. Thereby, farmers go to a weekly or monthly market to sell their harvest directly to the customer. Furthermore, restaurants are an upcoming destination, as these places got more interested in organic food. Three farms are selling their produce to a restaurant. The last destination of the produce is the community, or the CSA. This farm makes weekly vegetable and fruit boxes and delivers these to the community. This is done without any other organization; the system is set up by the farmers themselves.

Farming sectors The regions of the farms, the land sizes, their relation to a certification organization or not and their production destination, all have to do with the type of activity that a farm is performing. Moreover, the sector in which a farm is operating is crucial for the farming practices. This is becoming especially clear with the land sizes. In order to make a clear overview of the different farm development strategies, a division between the different farms must be made. This because of the wide variation between the farms, and the inability to compare them with each other. Therefore, the division between farms will be made based on their primary activity. This division is based on farms who are involved in dairy farming, fruit and vegetable farming and meat and egg farming. This is illustrated in Figure 5.5 Number of farms per sector. This ring shows the division of farms per sector, which is six farms in the dairy sector, nine farms in the fruit and vegetable sector and two farms in the meat and eggs sector. This division is made on the primary activity, which does not mean that the farms are not doing any the other activities. For example, milking could be the primary activity, but a farm is also having goats and sheep for the organic butcher. The point is that the primary activity, main income, is chosen for this division in order to give a better overview in the next chapters in farming practices and resource relations.

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 8 Number of farms per sector

Figure 5.5 Number of farms per sector

Before going into the farming practices and resource relations of each sector and farm, a further elaboration on the context of each farm needs to be formulated. Therefore, the cultural repertoire by Van der Ploeg, described in the theoretical framework, is explained. The cultural repertoire contains of different factors, the personal history, the farmers’ position towards nature and the vision of the world and society. These will be discussed among all farms, which will lead to the formation of four farming patterns.

CULTURAL REPERTOIRES OF ORGANIC FARMING The cultural repertoire is the values, notions and ideas that forms a person his/her judgement and therefore influences the farm development strategy. This means that the repertoire has a relevant effect on how farming practice is performed in the everyday life of farmers. These values, notions and ideas are partly based on the personal histories of the farmers. Where and how did a farmer grow up? Besides the personal history, the farmers’ position towards nature and the current vision on the world and society help to illustrate how farmers position themselves in the world, society and with nature. When this is explored, the current farming practices and the web of resource relations can be explained. In order to do this, this section starts with describing the personal history of the farmers. Then, the farmers’ position towards nature is described and distinguished in a symbioses and holistic position towards nature. Furthermore, the difference in vision on the current state of the earth and society will be discussed and illustrated.

The last part of the description of the cultural repertoire will be about shared cultural repertoires which results in four farming patterns. Moreover, the personal repertoires of the farmers are compared and melted into shared cultural repertoires. The main characteristics of the shared cultural repertoire represent the drivers to organic farming and the first part of the farm development strategies. The shared cultural repertoires are distinguished in four patterns, which shape the farm development strategies, and are the starting point of exploring the other two elements of farming practices and resource relations.

The personal history of the farmers Every farm, farmer, is a unique entity or human being. Both are developed in their own way, through their own unique and personal combination of events. This combination of events happened in the past are therefore the history of the entity or person, nowadays. In order to understand how a farm is currently functioning, the personal history must be described and illustrated. The personal history of the studied farmers is described by the childhood of the farmer. Thereby, we will look whether the farmer grew up on a farm and what kind of farm. Was this a conventional of an organic farm? Whether the farmer has an education in agriculture or farming and had other experiences of working on a farm. Another point is about whether the farmer went straight into a farming job, or whether he/she did something else before starting to become a farmer. Besides family, school and other farm experiences, a life-changing event could also lead into becoming a farmer. The personal history before the farm originated is described and followed up by the events, the history, of the farmers after the farm originated. For example, did the farmer started organic or conventional farming? This will be the last part on the analysis of farmers’ personal histories.

The first personal historical similarity, of 17 farmers (14 farms as there are 5 farming couples), is the childhood on the farm. Most of the studied farmers have been raised on a farm. This means that these farmers spend the first approximately 18 years of their lives on a farm. In these years, the farmers, helped their parents (who were the farmers) in their everyday activities. This gave them not only a lot of experiences but also knowhow and knowledge about the farming systems and practices. All these experiences created memories, which eventually could have led to a return to the farming life, as farmers argued that they wanted to go ‘back to the farming life’. There is, however, a difference in what kind of farm, the farmer, is raised in. Thereby, two kinds of farms are mentioned: a conventional farm and an organic farm. Most of the farmers who were raised on a conventional farm. This is partly because of the age group of the investigated farmers, 50+, and the developments of organic agriculture in NZ. The organic development started mainly after the second world war, and became popular around the 1980’s, this is 30 years after most farmers were born. Therefore, only two researched farmers were raised in an organic farm and learned about organic practices. The other farmers were raised on a conventional farm and experienced the disadvantaged of it. Disadvantages in a sense that the farmers were exposed to the reality of, for instance, an overload of chemical use, intensive cropping and high working pressures. Farmers who were raised on an organic farm had other, positive, experiences and were therefore more drawn to the same type of farming.

After about 18 years of living with the farming parents, most farmers took off to go to school and travel the world. A large part of these farmers went to an agricultural or horticultural school after high school. In these schools, the basics of farming was explained. However, the basics of conventional farming was taught and not any organic agricultural knowledge. Often agricultural schools included an overseas farming experience. Therefore, approximal 40 % of the investigated farmers went abroad to work on different farms in Europe, North America and Africa. These farming ‘internships’ enabled the farmer to learn about the diversity of farming practices. After the overseas experience, the farmers returned and started their own farm, on the land of their parents or a new plot of land. This is the most common timeline; raised on a farm, an agricultural education, an overseas experience and the start of a farm by themselves. Some went straight into building their own farm, and others started with a farming job and ended up in owning a farm. However, some farmers have a different life course. A number of farmers had the experience of growing up on a farm, but decided to do something else, and started a job in a different industry. For instance, one farmer grew up on a farm, happily, but wanted to do something in tourism and moved to a different part of the country. Years later, the decision was made to own an organic farm and go back to the land of his parents. These farmers did not want an organic farm directly and wanted to do something else before.

The other farmers 7 (of which 5 farms) have variety of histories, as they are all coming from other places than NZ. Most of them did grew up in rural places, close to nature. This created a certain experience or memory, as most farmers continued with studying or doing internships on soil biology, conservation and organic agriculture. These events created the inspiration and wish to become an organic farm, which became reality in NZ. The later encounter with farming and particularly organic agriculture encouraged them to become an organic farmer themselves. There is also the exception of a farmers who, for instance, started an organic agricultural business when she was already retired. She was always drawn to gardens, fruit trees and cultivation of crops, but did not put in professional practice yet. And of a film producer who found it interesting to invest in organic agriculture and bought a large plot of land in NZ. He did this in a later stage of his career. Furthermore, other events could also play a part in the realization of the farm, for instance, when a relatives or close persons die. These life-changing experiences are for some farmers an incentive to go back to the farm of their parents and take it over. Hence, every farmer has a different incentives, experiences and memories that brought him/her into organic farming. There are some similarities in the order of these events, but the personal experiences are always different. The outcome is the same, all farmers have their own organic farm, the way to this are unique journeys, whereby notions, ideas and values are shaped and cultural repertoires emerged.

When the farm is finally realized, in different stages of the farmer’s lives, several other developments happen before their current situation is reached. In other words, from the day the farm is originated till the day of my visit, lots of events happened. Moreover, the decision to become an organic or conventional farm has been made. Some farmers started their farm in a conventional way and turned into organic agriculture in a later stage. These farmers started conventional as most farms had most experiences and knowledge in this type of agriculture. Information about organic agriculture was not available or have not reached them yet. During the years, ideas, values and experiences developed which caused a change in the way decisions are made. This could be through, for example, the exposure of new information, followed up by courses and books. However, it is not a decision which is made over a day, it takes several years for most farmers to realize that they want to make a difference. There is also a number of farmers who directly went into organic farming. This number was exposed to this knowledge before and during the origination of their farm. Either way, the organic farm is changing through time as ideas, values and notions are developing. Organic practices are replaced for new one, techniques develop, new rules and standards emerge, new plots of lands are bought and so on. All these different events shaped the farm into the current condition.

The farmers’ position towards nature In order to give enough background to understand the cultural repertoire of the farmers, the farmers’ position towards nature needs to be discussed. This position illustrates why farmers act in a certain way and make decisions. Moreover, the connection with nature can explain the certain moral and ethics that farmers cherish (Kaltoft, 1999). To research this position, the farmers got the question what their position towards nature was. The answers were compared and resulted in two prominent descriptions of this position which are; symbioses and holistic. Moreover, a symbiotic position is explained by the farmers as a partnership with nature. There is a certain interaction between both parties, who are both of a different species. This interaction is described as the farmer who is extracting from nature by the cultivation of crop and giving something back by using organic matter instead of chemicals. In this way, a farmer is restoring the damage of farming practices by giving back diversity, for instance, cover crops. By the extracting and restoring of soil by the farmer, a certain balance is reached in where both parties are benefiting. Besides symbiosis, the farmer describes his/her relationship with nature as holistic. Holism is illustrated as the interrelatedness of all things. Everything is connected to each other and has, therefore, a mutual influence on each other. The farmer is one small piece of this web of connections but influences multiple elements. As the farmer is mutually related to his environment, he/she should take care of the land and protect it. This explanation is connected to the Rudolf Steiner and biodynamic movement, where the farmer is the brain of the organism, and the protector of its well-being. Farmer who experience this holistic relationship also feel a spiritual relation with nature. A deep inner relation in which they feel and connect with their environment and land.

Both symbiosis and holism are described by farmers as being a part of nature. This translates itself in a non-anthropocentric view in nature, where the human is in an equal relation with nature. However, there is a kind of underlying voice in both position which translates itself in responsibility. This responsibility of taking care of the world, environment and own land is common in all the answers of the farmers. As most farmers are arguing the depletion of natural resources, erosion of farming land and climate change, they feel the call to do something about this and protect the nature that surrounds them. This is put into practice by closely observing, listening and feeling the land that your owning. With these skills, the farmers try to anticipate on the situation and act in their ways. In this way, nature is teaching the farmer how, for example, her ecosystems, water flows and soil biology is working, whereby the farmer can apply his/her best farming practices. Although, this connection with nature differs per farmer, all farmers try to create a balance or harmony with nature, in which both entities benefit from the situation.

General vision on the earth; destruction of the earth As vision and ideas are a part of the cultural repertoire of farmers, the general vision on the earth of the farmers is studied. This is relevant as most farmers are involved in organic farming because of their vision of the current state of the world. This is also the only part of this research where all farmers mainly agree with each other. The world is going down, or in other words, the world is developing in a rather negative way. However, the explanations for this downfall differ as farmers gave a variety of answers concerning the environment in general (global climate change), the degradation of the soil, decrease of human health, the rising of nationalism and materialism. These are the main causes and therefore explained starting with the most favoured one: global climate change. The farmers elaborated on this change in two different time frames, the 1970/80’s and the 2000’s. The farmers who referred to the 1970/80’s mainly discussed the chemical outbreaks and pollution of the agricultural industry. Thereby, the example of the DDT chemical is used to explain how farmers handled chemicals in these times. One farmer illustrated this with the agricultural farming practices of their old neighbours, who were making their own chemical cocktails and spread this over their lands. In these times, the chemical use was reaching a maximum which led to lots of environmental externalities. Other farmers are more reflective on the current times, the global climate change, as we know it. These farmers are explaining how the current agricultural practices have a negative impact on the ecosystem. Moreover, explanations about how the agricultural sector is polluting the water streams, rivers and therefore the sea, which causes large areas of dead sea. Besides, the temperature rise also gives concerns as the sea levels are rising and agricultural lands are not being protected by any dikes.

These larger environmental concerns alternate with more specific environmental concerns, like the soil. Farmers, especially those who have a connection to agroecology, elaborate on the devitalization of soil biology by the agricultural industry. Their main goal is to revitalize and protect the soil by using the right organic practices. Another theme that was called upon was the endangerment of human health. Two farmers are mainly concerned with this theme as they are convinced with the thoughts of an unhealthy society because of unhealthy soils, GMO’s and chemical use. These elements cause unhealthy food, which is consumed by people. This unhealthy society is kept unhealthy by the powerful conventional agricultural industry. This is a rather political argument, which is acknowledged by several other farmers. Moreover, a few farmers link the lack of governance, to the environmental and societal problems. The last thing relevant development pointed out by some farmers is the growing materiality and consumerism. These two trends not only increase the environmental pollution as food needs to travel all around the world. The farmers were quite radical in their description on their vision on the world. These visions all motivated the farmers to do

63 something about the current situation. These and other drivers will be discussed in the section on shared cultural repertoires.

The farmers’ vision on society; the agro food industry Another aspect of the cultural repertoire is the farmers’ vision on society. This vision on society of the farmers is about how society and agro food industry is developing and what their stake is in this development. The current vision of farmers on the society has to do with the international food industry and the politics, on national and international level. The global food industry is explained as a ‘sick and polluting’ business, whereby all countries are exporting all their fresh products as fruit, vegetables and dairy to other countries and importing their food products. This is not only an unsustainable business in which transport is the key factor, but also inefficient as the society of NZ itself, is not able to buy fresh produce. This has a multiple consequence such as the growing gap between the ‘rural’ and the ‘urban’ areas. In general, all farmers mentioned this and pointed out that the people, nowadays, are not aware of their eating behaviour. Diseases as obesity are becoming a common health issue for the New Zealand society, as the affordable fresh fruit and vegetables are non-existent. It is cheaper to get a fast food meal than a healthy one. The products in the supermarkets are often imported, unhealthy, expensive and GMO rich. The national politics around this topic is presenting short-term solutions, instead of long-standing projects, as argued by a farmer. As the parliament is changing every four years, long term solutions concerning food and the human health are not easily made and reached.

Besides blaming agro food industry and the national political system, the customer is also mentioned by the farmers as a materialist and consuming human being. Moreover, the farmers criticizes society in general on its consuming behaviour in a sense that people, nowadays, are always wanting more and more. Recycling is not even taught of and therefore, the agro food industry is still existing. Hence, this vision on the development of society establishes a sense of duty by the farmers in which they feel obligated to generate fresh healthy food products for New Zealand society. Moreover, farmers argue that the gap between the ‘rural’ and the ‘urban’ should be closed in order to show people how their food is produced. This generation of knowledge could people learn how food is growing and it could be eaten. Farmers do not only feel this obligation for the NZ society but also for the next generation, and especially their kids. The wish to leave the children of tomorrow a better place than the current one is high on farmers’ wish lists.

FROM PERSONAL TO SHARED CULTURAL REPERTOIRES The personal history, the farmers’ position towards nature, the vision on the world and society are all the elements that shape the personal cultural repertoires (PCR) of the farmers. These repertoires could be seen as the underlying ground of the farm development strategy. Derived from the personal cultural repertoires are the drivers, which pushed the farmer into organic farming. In order to clarify these specific drivers, to become an organic farmer, I asked the farmer directly what their main drivers are to become an organic farmer. These drivers, derived from personal repertoires, are compared and analysed whereby four specific patters were found. These four patterns melted the personal repertoires together in shared cultural repertoires (SCR), see Figure 5.1. These four farming patters are further discussed and described in this section.

Figure 5.5 Patterns in the analysis of PCR results in SCR

This section will describe the main drivers for organic farming distinguished in four patterns. These four patterns explain the shared cultural repertoires and therefore the drivers, notions, ideas and beliefs of farmers. Moreover, as said before, each repertoire stays a personal one and is difficult to compare with someone else. Therefore, we illustrate the shared notions in patterns, as the farmers beliefs and values are not being individualized. The main drivers of all the studied farmers were analysed which revealed four patterns. These patterns are translated in shared cultural repertoires. The four patterns are named as; the ‘old school’ organics, the ‘new school’ organics, soil farming and

65 social and spiritual farming. These farming patterns are the start of exploring the diversity in farm development strategies. The shared cultural repertoires could be seen as the foundation on which the farming practices, farm business strategies and resource relations are based. These patterns will be explained and discussed below. The names refer to their main characteristics.

The ‘old school’ organics The main drivers of the ‘old school’ organics is originated in the timeframe of the 1970 and 80’s. The farmers are called ‘old school’ as they were the first farmers who started with certified organic agriculture, around the 1985. What happened in these times which motivated them to become an organic farmer? In the 1970/80’s big scandals around the use of chemical in the agricultural industry became public. These farmers experienced this with their own eyes. Not only was this visible in the newspapers and on television, they also saw it on the land of, for instance, their parents or neighbours. The degradation of soil, the pollution of water and the greenhouse effect was the main topic and spread around the country. Besides, this period was also known for the ‘hippie’ times, whereby people went on the streets demonstrating for a better world. A farmer experienced this and described this time as a period of change, where people started to contest capitalistic practices. As this atmosphere of change was created, people and therefore farmers got inspired. There was a strong feeling of resistance and change. Therefore, the answer: it just felt the right thing to do, is common among these ‘old school’ farmers. Farmers saw it as an opportunity to do a good thing and to create this better and healthy society:

‘I am not a follower, I wanted to be a leader of something new’ (Farmer X, 2019)

Another motivation were the new market opportunities in the organic agricultural sector. In the 1970/80’s, the organic sector was still in developing and certification bodies began to originate. These farmers noticed this small downfall and thought of new valuable agricultural solution. This is where organic farming came into the picture, as this type of farming was not only creating a better and more sustainable world, it was also an unexplored market full of possibilities. Hence, this were one of the first group of farmers who decided to certify and start an organic business as they wanted to change the conventional system. Their personal experiences and the ‘Zeitgeist’ of the 1970/80’s motivated these farmers to become an organic farmer.

Farm development ‘old school’ organics strategy Cultural repertoire Environmental crisis 1970/80’s Hippie times Market opportunities First certificates

The ‘new school’ organics This category of organic farmers are the youngest farmers of the research and are therefore called the ‘new school’. These farmers are around their 30/40’s and started a to manage their own farm not that long ago. Moreover, the farmers grew up on the farm of their parents, went to university, had an overseas experience and thought about the next step in life. In this same period, the environmental damage, global climate change and growing unsustainability became more visible. More information and knowledge about the degrading soils, polluted waters and atmosphere was gained and globally shared. This was also seen by this category of farmers. As the farmers has a certain connection to the land, the nature, a decision had to be made. What to do with this growing environmental problem? The answer was clear, they had to do something about it in their backyard. Therefore, by three out of four farmers, the land of their parents was available to establish an organic farm. This farm feels like their contribution to a better, healthier and more sustainable world. Moreover, one farmer argued that he wanted to change the current state of the environment and contribute to this. The best way to this was to start doing this in ‘my own backyard’. Besides, the other option of working in a company and having a 9 to 5 job, was not an attractive option. Most farmers argue that they did not felt a lot of satisfaction with working in a large company or in the academic world. They wanted to put their ideas in practice and participate in the challenge of making the world a better place. The lifestyle also occurred to them as they would be their own boss and be able decide their own organic pathways. This resulted in innovative organic practice, whereby a combination of different tools and techniques is used. Hence, these young organic farmers were motivated by the global environmental problems to make a change and start an organic farm. The lifestyle and lack of satisfaction in other jobs helped in realizing this.

One other farm was also concerned with current global climate change. This couple wanted to make a difference by buying a large plot of land in NZ and transform it into one of the largest organic farms of NZ. As she wrote a book about the benefits of a plant diet and the disadvantages of eating meat, the plan was born to invest in this organic plant-based sector. This is an exceptional case in the research as it is the only farm not managed by the people who bought the farm. Their environmental motivation made them invest in this sector, and therefore, the newest techniques to produce food products. Therefore, this farm belongs in the ‘new school’ section, as it is a new way establishing an organic farm.

Farm development ‘new school’ organics strategy Cultural repertoire Global climate crisis 2000/10’s Rebelling against capitalistic order/conventional agriculture Pragmatic: using new techniques

Soil farming The main slogan of these farmers is healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people. This is connected to the agroecological trend, as the whole food system is considered. The farmers who feel related have one important thing in common, their love for the soil. Their farming practices are all stimulating the soil activity by creating a space for different sorts of microorganisms like bacteria, fungi and viruses. Where is this love coming from? The farmers give two different reasons for this. One reason comes from the mission to establish a more sustainable community and society. The agricultural food industry is using high levels of chemical. For example, a conventional farmer uses chemical to let his pepper grow faster and better looking. These chemicals, however, are absorbed by the vegetable, and is subsequently eaten by the customer who buys them in the supermarket. As people keep eating vegetables, these chemicals are piling up in one’s body. The soil farmers are convinced that this stack of chemicals has a major impact on one's health. One farmer is for instance certain of the fact that is dad died of Alzheimer, because of his diet. Another farmer assured that the rise of cancer has to do with the chemicals used in the production of food. In order to save the next generation, these farmers want to produce food without chemicals and with high value nutrition. The sickness of the society motivated them to produce good food.

The other driver to become an organic farmer for this category is the degradation of the soil. The first part of their slogan. The soil farmers described a disturbing situation in which the soil is eroding and degrading, and therefore a diversity of microorganisms is diminishing. The farmers explained that by the conventional farming practices like mono-cropping and chemical fertilizers whereby, the biodiversity and soil fertility is decreasing. Soils get exploited and abused. Therefore, the second motivation of this group restore the soils. The revitalization of the soil has a positive impact on the environment as more carbon could be stored in the soil and healthier food is being produced. Besides, they enjoy the way of life as they are experimenting with different organic farming practices to increase the biodiversity. They use different sources of scientific knowledge in their farming. This freedom of experimenting and making decisions is for most farmers a motivation to begin a farm in first place.

Farm development Soil farming strategy Cultural repertoire Creation of topsoil Production of healthy food society Scientifically oriented

Social and spiritual farming This category of farmers is closely connected with the previous category of farmers. Both categories are acknowledging the degradation and erosion of the earth, the large food footprints and the increasing threat on human health as a problem. Thereby, the slogan healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people is also relevant in this description. However, where the soil farmers have a focus on the soil biology, the social and spiritual farmers have a different approach. Therefore, these farmers do not only take the soil into account, also the whole food process but also the social and the spiritual side. The social side is related to the family of the farmer, communities and society in general. The social/spiritual farmers are arguing, for instance, their children are one of the reasons to become an organic farmer. They want to produce food to create healthy children and inspire them. Therefore, the perspective is based on the next generation. Not only by creating healthy relatives, but also for the soil and environment. The farmers’ farming practices are based on the idea that they want to leave a better land, soil, environment, for the future generations. Besides, the farmers describe the gap between the urban and the rural areas. The people in the cities are disconnected from the land and are therefore not aware of the production of their food. The farmers want to reconnect by bringing their stories to the urban world.

Furthermore, the social/spiritual farmers are characterized with his/her spiritual connection with the land. As these farmers have the wish to create a better land for the future generations, the protection and therefore the connection with their land and environment is present. Moreover, every farmer has his/her own connection to the land, but for this category of farmers, the relation is an important part of their motivation to become an organic farmer. For instance, one farmer describes his relationship with the land as an umbilical court, whereby the earth and the human are connected. Thereby, the court is represented as the food you eat, food connects you to the earth. It is about being in touch with the spiritual nature of the land. This spirit teaches you how to treat and practice on the land. This special connection with the land and the social approach establishes the social/spiritual repertoire.

Farm development Social/spiritual farming strategy Cultural repertoire Soil biology Bridging the rural and urban communities Spiritual connection with nature Farming as a lifestyle

CONCLUSION This chapter provides a description of the farmers that were investigated. In order to do this, the chapter is divided in two parts, one part that described the farms and the farmers that took part of the research and one part that illustrated the cultural repertoire of the farmers. Therefore, the answer on the second sub-question is found. The second sub-question is:

What is the cultural repertoire of organic farmers, on NiNZ?

By answering this question, the cultural repertoire is described by four different elements; the personal history, the farmers’ position towards nature, the general vision on the earth and society. These elements eventually form the drivers for the farmers to become organic. The analysation of these personal repertoires and drivers established four farming patterns, which are represented as shared cultural repertoires. The first pattern is the ‘old school’ organics which stands for farmers raised in the 1970/80’s. This timeframe and their childhood convinced them to become an organic farmer. The second pattern is the ‘new school’ organics, which refers to a relatively young farmers who are mainly concerned with the current state of the earth. Therefore, these farmers start to make a change in their own backyard and start an organic farm, with the use of new innovative techniques. The third pattern is soil farming, which contains belief in the slogan healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people. This category of farmers is mainly concerned with the human healthy and the soil biology, whereby scientific knowledge is enhanced. The fourth and last pattern is the social/spiritual farming, which has a lot in common with the soil category but is more focussed on the social and spiritual side of farming. Establishing a healthy future generation and the connection with nature are their main drivers. This is the first division in farm development strategies. However, as every farmer is unique human being and has a unique cultural repertoire, the analysed repertoire established pattern which illustrate the red line between the personal repertoires.

Farm dev. ‘old school’ ‘new school’ organics Soil farming Social/spiritual Strategies organics farming Cultural Environmental crisis Global climate crisis 2000/10’s Creation of topsoil Soil biology repertoires 1970/80’s Rebelling against capitalistic Production of healthy Bridging the rural and & drivers Hippie times order/conventional agriculture food society urban communities Market opportunities Pragmatic: using new Scientifically oriented Spiritual connection with First certificates techniques nature

CHAPTER 6: FARMING PRACTICES AND FARM BUSINESS STRATEGIES

INTRODUCTION As the previous chapter described the cultural repertoires, the farming patterns and the shared cultural repertoires, this chapter will illustrate the everyday farming practices. The analyzation of the personal cultural repertoires of the studied farmers resulted in four farming patterns. This chapter explores how these farming patterns are translated into every day farming practices. These farming practices are defined in the theoretical framework as a production process of economic value adding through the specific use of labor, techniques and other inputs (Vd Ploeg et al., 2009). Moreover, a farming practice is a material effect on a certain set of resource relations and a cultural repertoire at a moment in time in a certain place. The certain set of resource relations is discussed in the next chapter. In this chapter, the farming practices are analyzed and compared with each other. Therefore, the similarities and differences of the farming practices are elaborated. The farming practices form a farm business strategy, a long-term strategy which directs the farm in a certain way. This farm business strategy develops and changes through the years. An important element of this farm business strategy is decision to join a certification body, as the guidelines of the certification have a crucial impact on the everyday practices of the farmer.

The farming practices, influenced by the certification, could be translated to a farm business strategy. In order to have a better understanding of the farming practices, the establishment of the knowledge of the farming practices will be shortly discussed. The farming practices and farm development strategies are reflected on three different categories of farmers; the dairy farmers, the fruit and vegetable farmers and the meat and egg farmers. This is done as the differences between the farming practices are to divergent to compare with each other. Hence, each category will have its own analysis and will be explained by the farming patterns; ‘old school’ organics, ‘new school’ organics, soil farming and social/spiritual farming, illustrated in chapter 5. This chapter starts with discussing the six studied dairy farming, then the nine studied fruit and vegetable farmers and lastly the two studied meat and egg farmers.

FARMING PRACTICES OF DAIRY FARMERS This section begins with describing the everyday practices of organic dairy farmers. The dairy sector is one of the biggest agricultural sectors in NZ. For this research, six dairy farmers were visited and interviewed. These farmers have similar and different ways of farming, which is discussed in the following paragraph. When this is discussed, the establishment of these practices is shortly elaborated, in order to link the farming practices to the cultural repertoire. In the end, the whole farming business strategy is analyzed which related the dairy farmers to their farming pattern.

Table of summary dairy farmers practices and strategies Everyday practices The milking, shifting, rotating, feeding and raising of cows. (artificial) insemination, laboring cows, raising calves. Transporting cows to butcher. Maintenance of the property

Differences in practices Pasture management; diversifying of pastures. The use of different plant communities.

Certification All certified, in order to sell/export milk/yogurt, nationally and internationally.

Farm business strategies 1. ‘Old school’ organics per farming pattern 2. Soil farming 3. Social/spiritual farming

Everyday practices of a dairy farmer The practices that the investigated1 dairy farmers share is their daily routine. This routine starts in the early morning before sunrise, when the cows are gathered from the paddocks and brought to the milking pit. These pits differ per farm, but do the same thing, they milk the cows. The cows stand in line, waiting for their turn, and being milked by the machines. All farmers have manual machines, the cups need to be put on by the farmer him/herself. When the milking is done, the cleaning of the area begins, and the cows are brought to a new paddock. Then most farmers have breakfast and decide what to do the rest of the day. In the afternoon, this same practice repeats itself. In the meantime, the farmers are mainly busy with feeding the cows, their pasture management and the maintenance of the property. The feeding of cows is done by bringing additional bales of hay to the paddock and shifting the cows to a different paddock where new grass is growing. This feeding has everything to do with the pasture management, what is growing on the paddock and what are the cows eating. Moreover, the dairy farmers spend quite some time thinking about the vitalization and health of

72 their soil, as this is the main food source for their animals. Therefore, the rotation of the cows to different paddocks per day and the fertilization of the paddocks is an important topic.

Another important activity for the dairy farmers is to brings their cows into pregnancy, otherwise a cow does not produce any milk. This is usually done in the wintertime, as the calves are coming in spring. This process of pregnancy is done by a bull in the paddock, or artificial insemination and is usually done by an external party. When the calves are born, the calves could usually stay a couple of days with their mom, before they got separated. This process of separation is called drafting. When the calves are drafted from their moms, differs per farmer. The calves are put together and are raised. The farmer raises the calves in two years and sells them or keeps them and make them pregnant to produce milk. The calves who are in their first year are called R1 and the calves in their second year are called R2. Often the calves get additional minerals to make them stronger and less receptive for diseases. After 5 or 6 years of milking, a cow becomes less productive and is often send away to a butcher. The meat of this cow is mainly used to produce cheap meat as hamburgers etc. In the end, the basics of the dairy practices, like milking cows and raising calves, are similar, but ideas and patterns of farming are different. These differences will be discussed in the next section.

Difference in practices: pasture management One of the most convincing difference between the dairy farmers is their pasture management. Pasture management is the management of the paddocks, fields, the space on which the cows are grazing. This is quite an important management as the pasture is the food for the cow and therefore the quality of the milk. So, to say, a good healthy pasture means a better quality of milk and a larger quantity of milk solids. The types of pasture management could be related to the farming patterns, the ‘old school’ organics and the soil farming patterns. How these two patterns relate to the dairy farming is described below.

In order to explain the difference in farming practices among dairy farmers, the farming practices of the ‘old school’ organics pattern is elaborated. These farmers started with their dairy farm in the 1970/80’s and where one of the first organic dairy farmers in town. Therefore, their practices are quite similar to the knowledge that was available in that time. Moreover, the conventional farmers of that time kept their pasture growing by the large quantities of nitrogen and other chemicals. The organic dairy farmers wanted to abandon the chemical and started using biological fertilizers and minerals to fertilize their paddocks and grow grass. This means that the farmers substituted their chemical for organic ones, whereby the input sources changed. Therefore, their pasture management is dependent on the input of organic fertilizers and seeds. These two components keep

73 the grass in the paddocks growing and creates enough feed for the cows. Often, the fertilization of the paddocks happens annually. Another feature of this farming pattern is the number of cows, land and milking moments. The dairy farms related to this farming pattern have many cows, and therefore more farming land. The cows are milked twice a day and rotated around the paddocks in relatively a high pace. As the cow’s milk twice day, and therefore, the amount of milk produced per day is quite high. However, this is needed to gain enough income to purchase all the inputs that are needed for the pasture management.

Furthermore, the farmers who could relate to the pattern above are increasingly involved in new developments around pasture management. New developments around pasture management could be defined as the growing spectrum of knowledge based on the soil biology of the farming lands. This knowledge contains the research of Christine Jones on the importance of the microbes and plant diversity in a paddock. She claims that the diverse plant communities will enable a fertile and healthy ‘topsoil’. The diversity of plants, creates a diversity of roots, which enables the extraction of different minerals and the stimulation of microbial life. This is also studied by Ehrmann and Ritz (2014) who described this with Figure 6.1, which illustrates how the microbial life changes by the planting of different crops. Besides the diversity in plant communities, the length of the pasture important. The grasses should be growing tall and be eaten only by 50%. The length of the grass equals the length of the roots, and as the roots are extracting minerals, stimulating microbes and stock carbon, and this is quite crucial. Some farmers who relate to the ‘old school’ organics farming practices, have been inspired by Jones and are thinking about the possibilities within their own farm. However, due to

Figure 6.1 Divers plant communities (Ehrmann & Ritz, 2014)

74 many inflexibilities of external parties and the habits of their own, the translation of this knowledge into their own farming practices is not realized yet.

The dairy farmers who adjusted the farming practices to create a diverse pasture have a different pasture management than the dairy farmers discussed above. These farmers have a stronger connection to the soil farming pattern and are therefore mainly concerned about the quality of their soil. In order to establish a healthy soil, the pasture management is in line with the ideas of Jones. The management of the land is occupied by the divers growing of plant communities. For instance, dairy farmers are planting perennial ryegrasses, white clover, red clover, prairie grass, chicory, plantain, herbs and flowers to establish a diverse meal for their cows. As these plants extract different nutrients and minerals from the earth, the soil is becoming more fertile. Therefore, the use on external fertilization is not needed. In order to create such a pasture management, the farm is ‘redesigned’ as the paddocks are given a new cover. Moreover, the paddocks are being re-sowed, to establish diversify the amount of plants, and the rotation of the cows to different paddocks is adjusted. This enhances the soil, which is an important factor for the dairy farmer. Besides this, the specific form of pasture management increases the production of milk, as the nutrient level in the paddocks is high. Therefore, the cows are often milked only ones a day. Another farming practice related to the soil biology farming is the combination of different livestock between the cows. For instance, the combination of sheep and cows. This is beneficial as the sheep eat relatively low grasses, the grass where the worms are hiding. These worms could badly affect the health of the cow but are eaten by the sheep who is resistant for the worms. The manure of the sheep also feeds the soil in a different way than the manure of the cow, which is again beneficial. In this way, the medicines needed to kill worms is not needed. Hence, these farming practices try to balance things about in nature, or in other words, let nature itself do the work. The design of the farm is aligning with nature and eliminated external inputs.

The difference in farming practice is closely related to the cultural repertoire one has. The farming patterns of the ‘old school’ organics is based partly based on the period of establishment of the farm. In the 1970/80’s the organic farming techniques were different than nowadays. Their experiences from their childhood, farming jobs and schools, results in a certain set of knowledge and therefore a farming practice. As these farming practices became a routine, it is hard for farmers to adjust new pasture management knowledge in their farming practices. However, there are farmers who did adjusted their practices according to new information about soil. The farmers related to the soil pattern extract a lot of knowledge from books, journals, internet and lectures of for instance

Christine Jones. Their ideas about soil changed their farm design as the diverse plant communities became the important.

FARM BUSINESS STRATEGIES AND CERTIFICATION OF DAIRY FARMERS Following the farming practices, a certain farm business strategy could be abstracted. This farm business strategy is the long-term vision of the farm, the business. What is the main goal of the farmer and how is he/she visualizing the future of the farm? This is related to the farming practices, as these are visualizing one’ strategy. As described above, the dairy farmers have differences in their farming practices and therefore also differences in their farm business strategies. Furthermore, the strategies as connected to the farming patterns, the shared cultural repertoires that stand for the core notions and ideas of the farmers. These motivations return in the farm business strategies. Therefore, the ‘old school’ organics, the soil farming and the social/spiritual farming, have a farm business strategy related to them. This are only three out of four farming patterns, as only these relate to the dairy farmers I visited. These three ‘types’ of farm business strategies will be explained in the next section. But before that, the certification in the organic dairy sector is discussed. As in the other two sectors (fruit and vegetables sector and the meat and egg sector) the farm business strategies types have a different participation in the certification bodies, the dairy farmers have a similar certification participation.

Certification in the dairy sector In New Zealand, the dairy sector is one of the biggest sectors in the agriculture. This is mainly because of the high demand from countries like China and the US. As all the milk is exported, the standards for the milk have to be internationally recognized. There are two certification bodies who are doing that; Bio-Gro and AsureQuality. Those bodies have a third-party auditing system and can give a certification for exporting. Besides these two certification bodies, Fonterra is the main dairy corporative were most farmers are contracted, and therefore, the biggest milk exporter of NZ. Fonterra has an organic program and pay farmers a premium for their organic milk. Therefore, most organic farmers are supplying all their milk to Fonterra, as it is giving them a stable income. This means that the farmers need to be certified at Bio-Gro and AsureQuality, which is also the case. This certification is quite a hassle, as the rules and standards for organic milk are strict. The dairy farmers need to make an annual management plan, which is rigid and time consuming. The rigidity of this plan is that if any changes are made, for instance if a farmer needs to buy more feed than planned, he/she needs to first call the certification body to explain and get approval. Furthermore, everything that comes in and goes out needs to be tracked and noted. This administration is costing a lot of time

76 and stress as this needs to be shown on the audit. Otherwise, one could lose its certification and therefore more than halve one’ income.

The farmers who are supplying to Fonterra have the good and the bad side of it. The stability of the premium per liter of organic milk, but the strict rules and standards of the certification bodies. There are other options of selling your organic milk to the costumer, without using a big corporative like Fonterra. One could retail their own milk directly to the people or make for instance another product of the milk: yogurt. This is the example of a successful organic dairy farm who found a niche market of organic yogurt. The farm produces organic milk and transports this milk to a small factory on the farm, where the milk is made into yogurt. The yogurt is packed into plastic cans and transported to supermarkets all over the country. The certification for this farm is different, as they are not exporting anything. However, the standards are still quite strict as the products are sold in national supermarkets. Besides, the farm is also certified by the body Good Agricultural Practice New Zealand (GAP). In the end, the organic dairy sector has lots of rules and standards. This is because of the ‘organic’ production, but also because of the product that is produced; raw milk. Raw milk is containing many bacteria, which could be beneficial for your health, but could also lead to diseases. In order to minimize the last component, health and safety rules are necessary. Especially when one wants to sell their milk nationally or even internationally.

‘Old school’ organics business strategy The business strategy related to the ‘old school’ organics, is related to their shared cultural repertoire, their values, beliefs and ideas. The ‘old school’ organics is a farming pattern originated in the 1970/80’s, a time in which the first environmental crises were brought into the light. Besides, it was the time when organic agriculture became a niche market and new business opportunities established. This was also the case for the dairy farmers. These dairy farms where one of the first farms who became a certified organic milk producer and started to practice this on a broader scale. In other words, as organic was attractive, the farms expanded, land and additional cattle was bought. Therefore, in many cases the motto was when one has to milk 100 cows, one can also milk 300 cows, as it is the same effort. In this way, the farming practices changed as the farm got bigger and bigger. This farm business strategy of growth is also something of that age frame. A farm needs to grow to be healthy. With this aspect of growth, more and more inputs are needed. More paddocks need fertilization, more cows need to be made pregnant, more cows need to be milk and so on. As the ‘old school’ organics are substituting the chemical inputs for organic ones, the input level is already high. However, as the level of inputs is increasing as the level of output. The output is all going to the biggest dairy retailer in NZ; Fonterra. Every two days, a truck comes by to pick up all the milk. This is

77 needed as the cows are being milked twice a day and the milk production is quite high. These streams of input and one big stream of output, to only one retailer, creates a level of dependency. This, however, does not seem to be an issue for the farming pattern of the ‘old school’ organics.

The future perspective of the ‘old school’ organics farming pattern is the long-term growth of their business. The farm should develop, whereby more is invested in land and cows. This in the end would result in more profit. When the age of retirement is close, the farm will be passed down to the next generation. This means that the farmers will probably be bought out of their farm, which enables them to have a good pension. This is a common business strategy for conventional and organic farmers, for people who are following the entrepreneurial logic in farming.

Soil farming business strategy The soil farming pattern relates to beliefs, values and ideas about the quality and health of the soil. The soil is the key component of the farming practices. Moreover, the health of the soil depends on its diversity and microbial life, and leads to nutrient rich food product, which eventually conducts in a healthy society. The first component of this argumentation is most important, the creation of a healthy soil. In dairy farming, this could be reached by practicing a certain pasture management. The diversity of plant communities in the pasture management, establishes a diverse diet for the cows and therefore a nutrient rich milk production. Therefore, the farm business strategy of these farms is to enable a design in which the pastures are divers and in line, in balance, with nature. The right balance of the pasture managements results in the end in a self-sufficient system. That is the other characteristic of this strategy, the independency of the farming process. The farmer wants to be self- sufficient, not reliant external inputs which influence the farm. Therefore, the farmer designs a system which is self-sufficient and plans out what is needed. This takes years, as the soil needs to be observed, evaluated and eventually adapted. Soil test are often used, and scientific information is gained. This takes years of experimenting with different seeds and minerals, when a final design is conducted. When the design is final, the farm should able to sustain itself, and the actual labor will be diminished. The output, on the other side, is also diversified as the milk is going to different supermarkets and is being sold as milk, which is made in a specific way, for example related to agroecology or biodynamic.

The long term and main goal for soil biology farming in the dairy sector is a diverse soil life, in balance with nature, which enables an independency. The divers soil life has multiple positive consequences which are beneficial for both farmer, human and animal. This self-sufficiency gives the farmer enough income to sustain him/herself, which is enough for them. Growth in terms of land, cows and

78 profit is not main goal. The general health of the soil, environment and human is a better description of this. Therefore, this type of farming is rather practicing for the greater good (environment) than for the person itself, the individual level. The farm business strategy is designed in such a way, that this idea could become reality.

Social and spiritual farming business strategy The farm business strategy related to the social and spiritual farming is linked to soil farming but has two other dimensions; the social and the spiritual. Where the main goal for the soil farming is to establish a better environment and especially soil, the goal of the social and spiritual farming is to spread this knowledge about farming and the soil to the outside world. These farms feel a certain gap between communities and the land, and want to bring them back together. This is because the farmer has a special, or spiritual relation with the environment that surrounds them. This relation translates itself into a constant observation of the farmer over his/her land and to adapt the natural practices into the practices of nature. Therefore, a divers farming design is made to bring the practices of dairy farming and the systems of nature into a balance. Again, the same as soil farming, this takes years. The connection of the farmer and the land is as he/she is constantly trying to adapt to the manners of the land. This is done with a minimal amount of external input or resources. When the practices fall in place, the farmer tries to translate his/her practices to the community, or to the people who are ‘disconnected’ from the land. This is done by educational workshops like school visits on the farm, or by selling raw milk on the side of the road. In this way the farmer tries to find the connection with the social. It is about spreading the knowledge about how farming and for instance milking is going and involving different people so the gap between the urban and rural could be closed in the future. This has specially to do with children.

The farm business strategy of this farming is based on the spiritual relation that the farmer has with the land and the passion that he/she created because of this. The main goal is therefore to translate this passion to the younger generation of society, and educate them about their way of farming, with nature. Farming with nature closely relates to the soil farming, the divers pasture management and farming while observing nature, but takes is one step further by involving more people and spreading the word. The output is therefore sold to communities, but also to Fonterra. The production of healthy by their milk and knowledge is one of their main reason to farm in the way they do.

FARMING PRACTICES OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE FARMERS This section analyzes the farming practices and farm business strategies of the studied fruit and vegetable farmers. Almost halve of the farmers visited were farming in this sector, nine farms in total. It is quite a large sector as both fruits, who are growing in trees, and vegetable, who are growing on the surface, are studied. The farming practices of cultivating fruit and vegetables is discussed in the following sector. Therefore, the everyday farming practices, which could be compared with the similar actions of farmers on daily base, and the difference in farming practices is described. When this is clear, the farm business strategies per farming pattern is analyzed. All the farming pattern are used to analyze the diversity of the farm development strategies in organic farming.

Table summary fruit and vegetable farming practices and strategies Everyday practices Vegetable farming: seeding, weeding, harvesting, washing, and transporting of crops. Crop rotations and fertilization of lands.

Fruit farming: design fruit forest, buying and planting the trees. fertilizing and weeding around the trees. Pruning trees. Harvesting/picking fruit of trees, washing and transporting them.

Additional activities: keeping of bees, maintenance of the property.

Differences in practices Scale of farming; macro or micro farming

Diversification of crops and trees

Fertilization of farmlands

Certification Described per business strategy

Farm business strategies 1. ‘Old school’ organics per farming pattern 2. ‘New school’ organics 3. Soil farming 4. Social/spiritual farming

Everyday farming practices of fruit and vegetable farmers The everyday practices of fruit and vegetable farmers is divided in two parts, farmers who cultivate vegetables and farmers who cultivate fruit. Firstly the farming practices of vegetable farmers is illustrated. An important element of cultivating vegetables is the climate, therefore, the seasons are very important, as the climate needs to be right in order to start the growing process. Vegetable farmers can grow crops all year; one just has to choose which vegetable grows good in which season. When the planning of the year is made and the farmer knows what to grow, he/she starts with

80 making the soil ready. This is done by a fertilization, which could be done in different ways, like, compost or fertilizers (this will be explained in the next section 6.4.2). When the soil is fertilized, the seeds are sown. This is usually done by a machine. The seeds start germinating in the soil and the farmer keeps a close eye on the development of the plant, looking for diseases, viruses etc. The weeds around plants are also observed and eliminated, when necessary. Another option is to grow the seeds in the nursery and let them germinate in there. This increases the possibility of survival and efficiency, as the crop is growing faster. When the seeding is done, it is time to wait, approximately 6 to 8 weeks, until the seed has grown into a vegetable (time dependence per crop). The farmer checks the crop daily, to see when it is ready to harvest. The harvesting is done by machine or hand and is brought to the washing shed, where the crops are washed and packed for transport.

The cultivation of fruit is a different as fruit trees need to be planted. Before the fruit trees are planted, a specific design needs to be made by the farmer. Which trees are standing where and in which combination with other trees? The farmer also needs to look at the soil, the climate and the surrounding environment which influence the growing process of the tree. When the design for the fruit forest is made, the trees are bought and planted. It usually takes another three years before the first fruit are produced. Meanwhile the trees are observed and fertilized to stimulate the growing process. As the fruit production started, the farmer observes the fruit until they are ready to pick. The picking process dependent on the number of trees one has. The fruits are washed and transported to various destinations. When there is not fruit growing, in the winter, the trees are maintenance, for instance by cutting branches and pruning the trees.

Another activity, which are common by both fruit and vegetable farmers, is the keeping of bees. Bees are very important for the growing process of fruit and vegetables, as the bees are pollinating the plants and trees. Therefore, farmers have bee colonies on their farms to stimulate the pollination process and connect honey. The honey is often used for own consumption or sold. Another common activity is the maintenance of the property. All the tools, machines, fences, sheds and so on need to be looked after. This is usually a small part of the daily farming practices of a farmer but varies. The differences between the farming practices of the fruit and vegetable farms is discussed in the next section.

Differences in farming practices: micro/macro scale The differences within the fruit and vegetable sector are visible in many ways. Therefore, the difference is not made between cultivating fruit or vegetables, but the specific way in which both are producing. The differences can be linked to three different farming patterns , the ‘old school’

81 organics, the soil farming and the ‘new school’ organics. The characteristics of these patterns have to do with the scale of farming, the fertilization and the diversity of the farming practice. Hence, the difference in farming practices are adopted in the farm development strategies.

The first main difference in farming fruit and vegetables is the scale, the land that is used to cultivate one crop. The ‘old school’ organics are farming on a large scale. This means that a large plot of land, for example one or two hectares, is used to cultivate one crop. Therefore, large machinery is used to sow and harvest the crop. This is also how conventional farmers are producing their food, but the fertilization process differs. This is the second main difference between farmers in the fruit and vegetable sector; fertilization. Moreover, the organic farmers are substituting the chemicals for the fertilization and disease control of the crops (used by conventional farmers), for organic products. Therefore, the same farming practices and processes are used, but the inputs are replaced. The replacement of the inputs by organics products does not per se diminish the quantity of inputs, which makes the farmer quite dependent. The fertilization of the fields happens during the growing process of the crop and afterwards, when the crops are out, and the land is plowed. The third element is the diversification of the cultivation. As described before, the farming happens on a large scale with only one crop growing (monocropping), which does not stimulate any diversity in the soil life. The farming practices related to diversity are a crop rotation every year and the cover crops. After the harvest of a certain crop, the fields get sowed with the cover crop to protect the soil, to prevent bare ground, and to revitalize the soil.

The soil farming and the ‘new school’ patterns are handling things quite different. The large-scale cultivation of crops is replaced by a small-scale cultivation. The small scale is changing the farming practices as farmers are not only producing on crop on one field. Several crops are planted, most commonly in lines next to each other, and are planted with small machines or even by hand. Therefore, the small scale increases the diversity of crops. Different crops are planted on a field, and are the rotation happens every time a crop is harvested. This means that there is a fast rotation time, which enhances the fertility of the soil. A schedule plans the different sowing and harvesting of crops. Besides, the divers use of crops stimulate the microbial life and thereby the fertility of the soil. There are, however, also other methods on fertilization, whereby the soil farming and the ‘new school’ organic farming practices are divergent. The soil farming pattern strives for the richness of the soil biology, which expresses itself in a special design. This design is shows which different crops grow at their best together and stimulate each other. Therefore, the additional adding of fertilization is not needed in large quantities. The fertilization that is used, is often farmer

82 made, with organic inputs. Animals like chicken and sheep are also used to manure the soil and eat the weeds. The ‘new school’ organics fertilize their soil not by using different plant combinations or animals, but by using organic fertilizers, bought in the stores. Their intensive crop harvest and sow system does not allow any time to make their own fertilizers. Therefore, the already made fertilizers help them to reduce time and cultivate as many crops as possible. Hence, soil farming practices and ‘new school’ organics practices have the similarities of their small scale and diverse crop system but differ in how the soil is fertilized. The soil farming methods are making a design which works with nature and the ‘new school’ organics are using external resources to fertilize their soil. This makes the first far, strategy also less dependent than the second.

Where do these different practices come from and which knowledge channels are used? As described before, the ‘old school’ organics farming practices are related to the systems of conventional farming, like monocropping. This traditional form of agriculture is mainly given on schools and learned on exchanges. The organic addition to this type of agriculture is given by the time of being, 1970/80’s when organics became more popular. The design of the farm, however, never changed through the years, by the adaption of new knowledge sources. This is different for soil farming and ‘new school’ organics, as those patterns follow more actual knowledge. Courses, journals, magazines and lectures are studied, which influenced the way of farming. Also, farmer groups, like permaculture and biodynamic farmer groups, exchange knowledge about new farming practices and systems, which are applied on the farm. There is a diverse knowledge flow which inspired these two farm development strategies to step away from the more ‘old school’ farming strategy and step into something new.

FARM BUSINESS STRATEGIES AND CERTIFICATION OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE FARMS Just like the previous section of farm business strategies and certification, by the dairy farming sector, will this section describe the farm business strategies of the fruit and vegetable farming. The farm business strategies are linked to the four farm development strategies; ‘old school’ organics, ‘new school’ organics, soil farming and social/spiritual farming. Additional to the farm business strategy is the certification. As the dairy farmers has a quite similar certification, this sector has different certification processes. Therefore, each farm development strategy analyzes the business strategy and a certification process.

‘Old school’ organics business strategy The ‘old school’ organic farming business strategy is called ‘old school’ as the farming dates to one of the first farmers who started farming organically on a larger scale. The organic current of the

1970/80’s convinced the farmers to change their farming practices and start with organic agriculture. This happened on large plots of land, with organic seeds and fertilizers, with one crop per field. There was a substitution of inputs, but the design of the farm stayed the same. These farmers were also the first ones who started with a certification. This is an important decision in the farm development strategy as this means that the farming practices need to be in line with the certification process, the management plan and administration are noting all the daily activities of the farm. This influences the farming practices, but establishes a certain name in the organic world, which establishes a trust relation, as the customer knows that the farmer is connected to the body. The name of the certification body is on the logo of the farm, and the farmer is representing it. Therefore, the output could also be sold in large quantities to retailers. In this way, the decision to join a certification body is part of the fam business strategy, as the adjusted farming practices are establishing a certain trust relation with the customer, which enables the farmer to sell all their output to one or two retailers. The farming practices are checked, and an inspection is done, by a third party, which creates an organic legitimacy for the farm. This certification also enables, in most cases, a stable income, as all the harvested food products could be sold in large quantities to organic retailers. Adjustments could be made in the type of vegetable or fruit which is cultivated. This usually dependents on the demand and the fruit and vegetables which grow best in that circumstances.

The ‘old school’ farming practices of organic monocropping, with the combination of a certification, generates a stable income. Moreover, there are standards of the certification which gives a format for the farming, and this enables the farmer to label their food as organic and sell it in large quantities to retailers. The main vision of this kind of farming is to earn this stable income, with doing something good for the environment. Growth can be an element in this strategy as there is a constant eye on the demand of society. Their strategy is based on the establishment of a healthy and sustainable business, which is growing in times, and striving for efficiency, which leads to a production of fruit and vegetables on a large scale.

Soil biology farming business strategy The farm business strategy related to the farm development strategy of soil farming and is based on the development of a healthy soil. The soil the key factor in the farming practices and is pursued through farming of small scale, with a diversity of different combination and processed. To find the right set of farming practices, lot of experimenting, observing, evaluating and adapting is taking place. It is about finding the right way to enable as much soil life, which in the end helps the entire environment. The farm business strategy is adjusted to enable enough pace to experiment with these different farming practices, cultivate fruit and vegetables and sell them to the people. The

84 inputs are reduced to a minimum and the farmers try to be as self-sufficient is resources. As the passion of the soil and the environment is an important element in the life of the farmers, their message wants to be spread over the community. Therefore, the fruit and vegetables are sold in specific ways, on markets, in boxes, on organic shops, to tell their story and make people conscious about their way of farming. The trust relation is built from the farming story the farmers spread themselves. In this case, a certification body is not necessary for them. Some have a small certification, which enables them to sell nationally, but that it. The farm business strategy is to brand their own name and spread their story with the food they are selling. This story is built from the strong beliefs, ideas and values, which are translated in their farming practices.

The main goal of this farming pattern is the soil biology, the revitalization of the soil, which contributes to the general well-being of the earth. The business strategy is formed by this set of ideas as the practices are about experimenting and designing the farm in such a way that the natural ecosystems are connected to it. This harvest is sold through different channels, to people who are interested in this type of farming. However, as the experimenting goes on, the stability of farm is sometimes at stake. Therefore, the small certification, for the purchase on national level, helps to stabilize the income sources. The inputs are kept quite low as the farm strives for self-sufficiency, but the output difficult as the farm is reliant on their own networks. A future goal is, therefore, to establish a stable network of people who are interested in the fruit and vegetables and belief in the story. This increases the ability to generate a stable income and create a space in which experimenting is affordable.

‘New school’ farming business strategy As the ‘old school’ organics started farming in the time frame of the 1970/80’s, the ‘new school’ organics started in the 00/10’s. This means that this is a younger generation of farmers who felt the need to step into organic agriculture. The environmental crises and personal reason like the lack of knowledge about organic food, the gap between the rural and urban areas and the feeling of undertaking some action brought them to the point of farming. As the knowledge around farming developed during the times, and knowledge about organic farming became more easily accessible, the farming practices are quite innovative. As the farmers want to reach audience and help the environment, local food networks were set up. Which means that the mean supplier of their food products are locals, people from the region, communities, local shops and markets. This local food network is based on a self-established trust relation, and no need for a certification. Certification seems to be an unnecessary as the people who consume the food are aware about its origin. This trust relation reaches such levels that some farmers work with initiatives like the honesty box. This

85 box is the online payment app, which is in a shop where nobody is working. This means that people come to do their groceries and pay via the app, so a mutual trust relation is created. As this farm business strategy chooses a self-established local network as supplier and therefore no certification, the intensity of farming quite high. Every week, the selves of the markets and stores need to be full of fresh organic products. This requires a strict schedule of production, effective inputs for the fertilization of the soil, whereby crops are growing fast and a quick rotation. The inputs, for the fertilization,are high, the output is high, and it is happening on a small plot of land.

The main goal for this farming patterns is supplying the local networks and region of good healthy food. The farmers aim to establish the connection between the rural and urban areas, and therefore tell their story and spread their food. The trust relation plays an important role in this, as the farming is not related to any certification body. In the future, the farming could be expanded in terms of farming on a larger scale. This will enable the possibility of producing more food and therefore reaching more people. Also, the innovation of practices, to make them more efficient, with new technologies, and to enable a more sustainable environment is one of their future prospects.

Social and spiritual farming business strategy This farm business strategy is strongly related to the previous two farming strategies of the soil farming and the ‘new school’ organics. The farming is quite the same, small scale, diversity of crops, the combination of different crops and the scheduling and planning of what grows when. The main difference is that all this is done with a social engaging factor. The farm business strategy is built in order to connect and engage, for example children, to the farming life. This means that the farming is designed in such a way that people, customers and citizens, can learn about the farming practices on the farm. People are, for instance, helping with sowing, weeding, picking and harvesting of fruit and vegetables. The output of the farm is partly also used for social projects, for example, to learn children how to cook with vegetables. The farming is leaded by the involvement of other people, to create a connection between farm and customers, citizens and communities. The certification of this kind of farming is therefore not needed. The food is sold in small amounts in shops and people know where it is coming from. Moreover, the food is used for educational purposes rather than for commercial ends. The prospects of such a farm business strategy is to engage more people in their farming practices. To spread knowledge about the environment, organic food production and the preparation of good food. All these elements help people to become a healthier and environmental conscious human being. This fruit and vegetable farming pattern relate more to the social side than the spiritual side. However, the passion of the farmers is related to the spiritual side of farming.

FARMING PRACTICES OF MEAT AND EGG FAMERS The last section analyses the sector of the meat and egg farmers. This sector is, besides the dairy sector, the largest sector in the agricultural industry. The organic meat and egg farming, is however, not that big yet. Therefore, only two farm business strategies can be described, linked to a certain farm development strategy. But before doing that, the general everyday farming practices and the differences between these practices is illustrated. After that, the certification situation and the farm business strategies is discussed according to the soil farming patterns and the social/spiritual farming patters. Table summary of meat and egg farming practices and strategies Everyday farming Moving and feeding livestock. Raising livestock until heavy enough, practices weighing, checking and transporting livestock to butcher. Pasture management, diversity of paddocks.

Differences in farming Interrelatedness of activities, combing the farming practices with the practices social side.

Certification Dependent on strategy

Farm business strategies 1. Soil farming per farm pattern 2. Social/spiritual farming

The everyday farming practices of meat and egg farmers The everyday practices of meat farmers start in the early morning, moving the livestock to different paddocks. This done in order to give the animals a fresh meal, fresh new grass. The moving of animals is usually happens on a quad, as the farmlands are large, and the livestock needs to move to a certain direction. The farmers, sometimes with dogs as well, have to drive the livestock through different fields, to end up in their new paddock. The moments of moving cattle depend per day and per farmer. When the livestock is moved, the farmer observes them closely to see if the stock is healthy, in a good state. This happens all year around, for several years, until the animals are big and heavy enough to be transported to a butcher. When the time is ready, the livestock is moved into a special paddock where the livestock is sorted and weighted. When this is done, a big livestock truck is coming, to transport the cattle to the butcher. Furthermore, the farmers purchases young livestock, or makes their own livestock pregnant, and raise the small ones until they are big enough. Artificial insemination is, therefore, also a farming practice which is performed on annual basis. In some cases, farmers look out for someone else's livestock. Another farmer is leasing the land of a farmer and

87 grazes his livestock on it. The farmer must take care of his/her livestock, which is all being captured in contracts.

Another important element of farming with animals, which was also the case in the dairy sector, is the pasture management. The studied farmers are enhancing a diverse pasture management; planting of different plant communities. Farmers are planting a multi-species seed mixture on their paddocks to enable a rich diet for their animals. The sowing of this multi species seed mixture happens annually, in the first years of the management, and will eventually grow on its own. This pasture management has multiple benefits, as the livestock is healthy and does not need lots of antibiotics and as the diet is rich of different nutrients, the farmer often does not have to buy additional food. Another farming practice, which increases the diversity of the soil, is the combination of different animals on the paddocks. The combination sheep and cattle are a common one, as the sheep and cattle are eating both different parts of the grass. Their manure is also different, which increases the fertility of the soil.

Differences in farming practices: interrelatedness of activities The main difference between the practices is the interrelatedness between the practices. This interrelatedness is the combination of different farming practices on a farm. The farming patterns that are connected to this difference is the soil farming and social/spiritual farming. Both are using the combination of different animals on their paddock, to increase the diversity and therefore the fertility. But the social and spiritual farming is also connecting the community into the farming process. Moreover, the soil farmers are focusing pure on the soil biology, how the quality of the soil could develop etc., and the social/spiritual farmer is explaining this to a broader public. The community and interested people are invited to the farm to see what is going on. The farmer is sharing his/her knowledge in order to create more conscious about farming and the environment. The soil farmer is not making this connection with other people. The farming practices are only focused on the development of the soil, the pasture management and experimenting with this.

The difference of these farming practices is situated in the shared cultural repertoires of the farmers. The soil farm is using scientific information sources to develop the farming practices. Journals, courses, books and the internet are important sources. Also lectures of Christine Jones are used as example. The social/spiritual farming is seeking information not only about the soil biology but also about the broader perspective, where the humans are central. How humans are influencing the environment and how their behavior could be changed, in order to reduce climate change. Besides, as books about the self being, reflective books about the self, which could be more philosophical.

Moreover, books related to biodynamic and permaculture are also read. These books describe a certain form of farming, which includes a certain lifestyle. The outcome of these two information sources is the passion to relate people to the farming practices. To share knowledge and experience how a specific form of farming is enhancing nature, instead of demolishing it.

FARM BUSINESS STRATEGIES AND CERTIFICATION OF MEAT AND EGG FARMERS The last set of farm business strategies are described in this section. These farm business strategies are linked to the farming patterns of soil farming and the social/spiritual farming. Within these farm business strategies, the certification process is explained. This differs per farming patterns, just like the fruit and vegetable farmers. The farm business strategies and certification differ because of the divergent goals and future visions.

Soil biology farming business strategy The meat and egg farming practices related to the soil farming pattern are based on the experimentation with different pastures. The use of multi species seeds, and divers plant communities is enabling the farmer to reduce the use of other inputs to fertilize the soil. Therefore, the diversity is creating enough fertilization, the soil is creating enough fresh food for the animals. This is a manner of the farmer to become more self-sufficient, for instance, additional feed does not have to be bought. Hence, their farm business strategy is to design the farming practices in such a way that on one side, the soil quality and therefore the environmental conditions are developing and on the other side, to create a healthy diet for the cows. The diet enables organic meat and is nutrient dense. The farm business strategy is to work with nature to become more sufficient and less dependent. Furthermore, in order to enable a stable income, the farm is connected to a certification body. This body delivers a package of different standards for the export to different countries. The decision to join an international certification body is to have the possibility to export the meat. The farmer can sell all their meat to one retailer and get a good premium for that. It is also an efficient way of selling the produce, as there is no direct contact with the customer. The only disadvantages of the certification process are the strict standards and rules that are related to producing organic meat. The stable income, however, outweighs these advantages.

The main goal of the meat and egg soil farming is the to create a combination between a rich diverse soil and a stable income. The decision for certification creates this stable income, but sometimes hinders the diversification processes. The future vision of this farm development strategy is to create a farming system which is adapted to nature and its ecosystems; a diverse pasture in which the livestock can enjoy a healthy diet. This is not only benefiting the soil and the animal, but also the

89 human, farmer, as he/she is becoming self-sufficient in resource use, less dependent on external factors. The certification stays an exception, as this is the easiest way to sell the meat, the farmer does not specially have to brand its meat.

Social and spiritual farming business strategy The main goal for the social and spiritual farmers is to practices their interrelatedness of farming activities and show this to the wider public. The way of farming comes from the spiritual connection the farmers have with their surroundings. Therefore, the soil farming is practiced and combined with a social element. The soil farming, how to treat the soil, is not only about the diversity of the pasture, it is also about the combination with different farming practices. For instance, different livestock is grazing on one paddock. The farming practices that are formed through the years, created a design which combines the activities with each other. As this design and lifestyle is created, the next step is to share this knowledge with others. This is done through farm visits, educational projects, courses on the farm and so on. The farmers want to spread their vision, beliefs and ideas about farming and life in general. As this is the case, the meat and eggs that are sold, are not sold via any retailer. The produce is brought to special shops and markets where the message of the meat could be told. Therefore, any certification is not applied. A certification would standardize the history of the meat. And this story, behind the meat and eggs, it the most important part for the farmers.

The farm business, is combining the soil farming practices, and designing the farm in such a way that all the processes are interrelated. This establishes a self-sufficiency as almost all resources are gained internally. This set of beliefs, values and ideas is shared with the community through the different selling points and through educational projects, visits, which directly connects people to the farm. The care about the environment, soil and nature is put in practice by adjusting their own farm, but also by informing a broader audience.

CONCLUSION This chapter illustrated the farming practices of the three agricultural sectors: the dairy sector, the fruit and vegetable sector, and the meat and egg sector. Each sector described the everyday practices and the differences between these practices. Furthermore, each sector has been elaborated with a farm business strategy of the four farming patterns, which establish the farm development strategies. This enabled the answering of the following sub-question.

What are the farming practices that are performed by organic farmers, in NiNZ?

This chapter concludes with the characteristics of the farming practices per farm development strategy, which merges the farming practices per sector into the patterns. Firstly, the ‘old school’ organics farming practices are characterized by the substitution of inputs and the monocropping/livestock. The vitalization and productivity of the soil is utilized by several different inputs, whereby the ‘conventional’ inputs are swapped for organic ones. Diversification is taking place through the rotation of fields, and the use of cover crops. Moreover, the farming practices are highly influenced by the rigid rules and regulations of the certification body. The main farm business strategy is to generate a stable income and create a healthy business, whereby growth is possible. Secondly, the ‘new school’ organics are a small scale, labor intensive farm, which uses a diversified cropping system, but fertilizes the soil by several different inputs. The production process includes new innovative techniques, which enables the intensity of the production. The main farm business strategy is to create new markets in which a local and regional network are established, which make a difference in the health and sustainability of the region. Thirdly, the soil farming practices are characterized by a specific farm design which strives for diversification and eliminates the use of additional fertilizers. The practice of observation, evaluation and adaption brings the farmers to the farm design in which they could eventually be self-sufficient in their resources. All these farming practices are performed to enable a development of the soil quality, which is the main goal of this pattern. Therefore, their farm business strategy focuses on the diversification of soil life to create a better environment. Fourth and last is the social and spiritual farming pattern, which has most farming practices in common with the soil farming practices but differ in the main goal. Social and spiritual farmers want to spread their knowledge on farming and want to educate customers, citizens and communties to create a better world. These four development strategies have different realities in each sector but have these key characteristics in common. The set of resource relations that create the context of these farming practices and farm business strategies is discussed in the next chapter.

Farm dev. ‘old school’ organics ‘new school’ Soil farming Social/spiritual Strategies organics farming Farming Substitution of inputs Intensive production Design of farm: Design of farm: practices Monocropping/livestock processes diversification diversification ‘conventional’ set of Diversification Self-sufficient: minimum use Self-sufficient: techniques Fertilization inputs of fertilization inputs minimum use of Ridged rules and Use of new techniques Obverse, evaluate and fertilization inputs regulations certification adapt Social activities on the body Use of new scientific farm knowledge

CHAPTER 7: WEBS OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL RESOURCE RELATIONS

INTRODUCTION The last chapter of the findings trilogy is about the balancing of the internal and external resource relations of the farm development strategies. The trilogy started with the analyzation of personal histories, position towards nature, the global vision on the world and food system, which created a cultural repertoire. This analysis found four patters which were translated into four shared cultural repertoires: ‘old school’ organics, ‘new school’ organics, soil farming and social/spiritual farming. According to these farming patterns the everyday farming practices and farm business strategies were explained in chapter 6. These farming practices and farm business strategies are created through a certain cultural repertoire and situated in a certain set of resource relations. This set of resource relations could be divided in internal and external resource relations. The internal relations concern the family relations within the farm. As the family of the farm is important and has a certain influence on the being of the farm, we analyze these relations within the farm. The external resource relations, the market and technology, are described as the context in which a farm is operating. This context is also called the room of manoeuvre (Methorst et al., 2017; van der Ploeg, 1994). In order to illustrate these resource relations, this chapter describes the input resource relations and the output resource relations of each farm development strategy. These sets of relations are the last part of the trilogy, the trilogy of the farm development strategies of organic farmers on the North island of New Zealand.

This chapter stats with similar relations in all four farming patterns; the internal relations (family) and the financial investor (the bank). These two types of relations do not differ that much between the farming patterns as almost all farmers are dealing with these two sets of relations. The second part of this chapter is about the external resource relation of the four farming patterns. Moreover, the input, output, customer and certification relations are analyzed and described. The input resource relations are the relations that occur around the resources that a farmer needs to purchase for the production process, to enable the economic value-adding process in first place. The output resource and customer relations are formulated as the connection’s farmers have with the people who are purchasing the product when it is ready. With the input and output resource relations the certain coproduction and dependency per farming pattern can be investigated. Together with the relation

92 with the certification body, each farming pattern has a certain set of relations, a context, which is concluded in the last section.

COMMON RELATIONS; INTERNAL (FAMILY) RELATIONS AND THE BANK Family is one of the two sets of relations that play a relevant role in the lives of the farmers and therefore in their farm development strategies. The family are not only people who are connected to the farm but are also active in changing the farm and even developing it to a new stage. Family is the thing that all farmers have in common. This is widely discussed in the next section. The other element, which is crucial for the existence of farm, is the financial investor, resource or the bank. The bank is gives loans, receives interest and has a great influence on the development of the farm business. Thereby, the bank is related to the family as a heritage is often a farm, which then has to be divided among the family members. Both elements are common in the farming patterns, and therefore discussed before the external resource relations.

Internal (family) relations The family relations in a farm that internally established, long term and not any by choice originated. These relations established at the date of birth of a farmer, the farmer his/her babies, who were born in a farm family. Since then, their childhood and further career is shaped by the fact that they were born on a farm. Moreover, the family relations have influence on two relevant elements of the farm, the land and the labor. The first element is the land, the place where the farm is situated, where history is made. This land is often passed on to generation to generations and is in the family for many years. The farmers who are currently farming on the land, got the land from their parents, who were also farmers. The farmers feel responsible for the land as these carry memories of their childhood and history. As the farm is passed onto the next generation, the internal and external set of relations changes, as the farm got new owners. The farmer creates a new set of relations, which are set to their cultural repertoire and fits into their set of farming practices. The heritage of family farmland can also be seen as an incentive for people to go back to the land and become a farmer. There are of course people who, for instance, immigrated to New Zealand, to start a farm, without any family involved. But also, then, the farm gets family relations as farmers start their families on the farm and shape therefore the context in which the farm is situated. In the end, the farm is the house where family is/was living, which leaves a web of relations. This web of relations shapes the everyday lives of the farmers and farming patterns.

Besides the land, the labor on the farm is often colored with family member. Brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on are often working on the farm. All farms have a

93 different labor relation with family members. For example, some farmers have their children working on the farm, some farmers are directing the farm with his/her brothers and some farmers have their parents still directing the main business of the farm. What is quite common is the work relation between parents and their children, as the children often work on the farm, to be able to take the farm over when the parents are retiring. These relations are partly voluntary and partly to gain a monthly income. The family labor relations differ per farm but are in most farm existent. It is for most farms a common step to pass the farm on to their children, but nowadays farming is not a very popular job. Therefore, farmers are thinking of selling the land to other family relations or ‘strangers’ who do not have a history on the land. The passing on of land or the selling of land have both crucial impact on the financial status of the farmer. The bank is, therefore, an important relation, which is discussed in the next section.

The financial resources Land is valuable entity in New Zealand. In order to buy a plot of land, the farmer often needs to facilitate the bank to ask for a loan. A loan is not only given to purchase a plot of land, but also to purchase the infrastructure for on the farm. For example, when a dairy farmer wants to start a new business or needs to renovate his property, a new pit and new milking machines need to be bought. All these expenses have a certain price, which could often not be paid straight away. Besides land and infrastructure, the heritage is often a reason farmer must get a loan. The other family member wanted to be bought out of the farm, and as land is quite valuable, the farmer needs to loan the heritage form the bank. Another situation can be is the private loans of family member to farmers. Thereby, farmers are not lending money of a cooperative bank, but from the people they know; their family. However, in either way the debt needs to be paid off in a certain amount of time, and an interest rate is counted. These two factors lead to the fact that farmers are paying a certain amount per year to pay off their debt and the additional interest. And this again, makes the farmer dependent and had a certain influence on the farming practices.

Hence, as the relation between the bank (or the person who gives the loan) is quite ridged, the farmers needs to pay a certain amount per month or per year, the income needs to be there in order to fulfill this. As the stability of income is an urgent factor, of course with or without debt, the decisions that are made to create this, are different than someone without a loan. This research has shown that there is quite a large group of farmers who are engaged with a certain amount of debt and need to row with all the oars they have, to keep the farm alive. This not only gives them mental issues, like high stress, but also physical complications, as they must work 24/7 and are not able to afford any additional labor. Besides this, the flexibility, innovation and creativity of farmers get lost,

94 as they must provide an income every month, and do not have any space to adjust a new set of farming practices. Therefore, creative and innovative ideas, of for instance, the diverse plant communities in the dairy farmer’ pasture management is not feasible. In order to create a more sustainable and regenerative agricultural sector, these relations have to be studied. Because, through the whole sector, organic and conventional, the farming practices are negatively influenced by the debts.

EXTERNAL RESOURCE RELATIONS PER FARMING PATTERN This chapter discusses the external resource relations of the four farming patterns; ‘old school’ organics, ‘new school’ organics, soil farming and social/spiritual farming. These four patterns have their own set of resource relations and therefore created their own context. These resource relations are built around the cultural repertoire and the farming practices. In order to structure the external resource relations, the relations are separated in input, output and certification relations. The input resource relations are defined as the relations which help to start the production process and are needed during this process. For instance, seeds, fertilizers, but also machinery and other equipment. The output resource relations have less to do with the production process, but more with the process after the production. What will happen when the product is ready? Relations concerning transport, buyers and customers are related to the output section. The last set of relations is describing the relation with the certification body. Moreover, the relation with this body and other bodies, will be described. These three sets of relations visualize the dependent of independent set of resource relations, discussed on theoretical framework, and characterize the farms’ level of freedom of choice. In the end, each pattern is summarized and concluded with a few key words, that can fit into the farm development strategies.

‘Old school’ organics external relations

The ‘old school’ organics is the farming pattern that is characterized by high input and low output resource relations. Moreover, the farming practices of this pattern described monocropping/livestock practices, which included the use of input as seeds, fertilizers etc. Substitution is central in this pattern, as the input resources are replaced by organic ones. Therefore. this set of farming practices establishes a high amount of inputs. The output resources are simple, as the production is often sold to one or two stakeholders. The production is mainly sold in large amounts, which excludes the contact with the customer. As the production is sold in large quantities, the relations with the certification body is strict and checked by a third party. This pattern is using an existing supply chain and markets. All these relations are further explained below.

Farm development ‘old school’ organics strategy

High input resource relations Resource relations Low output resource relations: retailer and wholesalers

Existing markets and supply chains

Strict certification: no direct relation with customer

Input resource relations

The relations that are concerning the input side of the production process, is a large web of different actors. The production process is based on a large web of input, as the farmer is still in the ‘old school’ patterns of farming, which entails a monocropping/livestock. As these farming practices are mono, only one crop or animal, the diversity of the land is developed by additional fertilizers and compost. Moreover, in order to keep the soil productive a set of mineral and fertilizers need to be added to the soil. This is the first important set of input resource relations that characterizes this pattern. The fertilizers, minerals and compost are bought at specific stores and places, as they could only be organically produced. The offer of organic fertilizers, mineral and compost is not that big, and the farmers are therefore quite dependent on their buyers. Seeds are also bought externally, as seed saving is not part of the farming pattern. This is also bought by different buyers and needs to be organically gained. Furthermore, as this set of farming practices is concerning monocropping/livestock, the labor intensity is quite low, and the use of machinery is high. The pattern is efficient in a sense that the use of only one crop is enabling the fact that everything can be sowed and harvested at the same time. Therefore, the use of labor in between these stages is not necessary. Machinery, on the other hand, is unavoidable as the machines are sowing the seeds and often harvesting the crops. This machinery is lent during these time periods or is bought (with the help of the bank). The lending of machinery requires planning and a giving additional expense. In some cases, seasonal workers are hired to help with the harvesting. Another factor, concerning animal farmers is the insemination process. This requires a contractor who delivers the farmer bulls or artificial insemination. Thereby, the dairy and livestock farmers frequently have to minerals to keep their livestock healthy and additional feed, when their own lands are not producing enough. Both fruit and vegetable farmers and animal farmers, have a high web of input relations, because of their farming practices. Hence, the level of dependency differentiates per farmer, but is in general

96 rather high, as each farm has a constructed web of different relations. Moreover, the low output resource relations are low and the certification relation ridged, which limits the choice and movement in the farm space.

Output resource and customers relations

Where the input resources relations have a wide web of different relations with people, companies and contractors, the output relations are much simpler. The production process has lots of different input and therefore relations, but when the product is ready, it often goes to a handful of actors. These actors are mainly retailers, wholesalers and in the case of dairy farmers to one big milk cooperative, Fonterra. The fruit and vegetable farmers have different retailers and wholesalers for stake, companies like Ceres Organics, Pure Fresh, Series Organics, Down to Earth and so on. These retailers distribute the food products nationally to stores and shops, and internationally. Moreover, these retailers and wholesalers make it easy for farmers to sell their produce as they often get a premium, a stable price per amount. The fruit and vegetable farmers supply the retailers and wholesalers after every harvest and in certain season. Dairy farmers do this more often, every two days a truck of Fonterra drives by to pick up the milk. These farming relations are also parallel with existing supply chains and markets, in a sense that the relations are established in a web of already existing actors. The supply chain is the same story as a conventional one, only with different actors. However, as this farming pattern is called ‘old school’ these farmers were concerned with the first commercial boom of organic agriculture (Organic 1.0) and therefore helped creating the supply chain and market of the organic sector. Nowadays, the farmer utilizes the relations that are made back then. This situation creates quite a stable position for the farmer, as he/she knows that the harvested produce will be sold at via the existing markets, as their supply chain is settled.

Furthermore, another characteristic of these output resource relations is the fact that there is not direct contact with the customer. The customer is playing no part in the web of relations of the farmer, as the produce is sold to a retailer or wholesaler. This means that the farmer does not anticipates the customers’ feedback in the production process. The farmer does listen to other incentives, but these are often market based. There is no need to establish a face to face relation, as the farmer is not particular interested in the customer, the efficiency is seen as more relevant. However, there is another relation that influences the farmers practices and everyday life; the certification body.

Certification relation

As the input and output resource relations are well established with the retailers and wholesalers and not with customers themselves, the certification of the produce plays a crucial role. The trust relation between the farmer and the customer is created by using a certification. The certification that is often used is of Bio-Gro or AsureQuality, as these bodies work with third party auditors and can give a certification for exporting products internationally. Besides exporting, the certification is useful in national stores and organic shops, who work together with the retailers and wholesalers. The relation with the farmer and the certification body is quite rigid as the farmers need to fulfill a certain number of rules and regulations, has a transition period of 3 years and has an annual audit and administration inspection. When the farmer does not meet these standards, the existing supply chain and markets could not be joined.

‘New school’ organics external relations

The characteristics of the external resource relations concerning the ‘new school’ organics are the high level of input and output resource relations. A ‘new school’ organics farm was earlier defined as a small intensive business, which uses an innovative set of techniques and is diversifying the soil by growing different crops next to each other and using different animals. However, as the production process is quite intensive, crops go in and out, the use of external fertilizers is high. When the production is ready, harvested and washed, the production is spread over the region, through their own established network. Moreover, a relevant element of this pattern is the creation of new markets and therefore established a new supply chain. New initiatives around the sale of the organic food products is created, which changed the existing supply chain of retailers and wholesalers. As new markets and supply chains arose, the relation with the certification body changed or even is abandoned. The input, output and certification relations are further described and explained below.

Farm development ‘new school’ organics strategy

High level input resource relations Resource relations Divers output streams: new market initiatives

Local networks: direct relations customer: trust relations

No certification involved

Input resource relations

The ‘new school’ organics have situated their farm on a small-scale property, in the backyard of their house of on another small piece of land, not bigger than 2 hectares. As the land is not that big, the relations with financial investor are a bit different than the other farming patterns. Moreover, the bank has a less vital role in the existence of the farm, as there is often no or just a small mortgage. This enables quite some flexibility in the farming practices, as the farmers does not have to pay of any loans. However, as that small piece of land is there their main source of income, lots has to be produced. Therefore, a set of new techniques are used to be able to sow and harvest efficiently. These techniques are mainly designed overseas and are imported. In order to be updated about the newest techniques and farming practices, these farmers have a wide set of relations with knowledge systems and people who inform them about this. Besides the techniques, the size of the land and intensity of the cultivation does not give the land enough space and time to recover. The use of external resource resources such as fertilizers, minerals and compost help the recovery of the land and creates the space in which the farmers can keep producing all year around. These external resources are bought at different stores and companies, in the region. These relations are described as flexible and easy going, as the farmers do not have to take the rules and regulations of any certification body into account. The same counts for the seed input, as the seeds are also bought via different channels. The last set of relations that are applied on the input side are the labor relations. The intense production processes are forcing the farmers to hire additional labor. As the sowing and harvesting goes on all year around and is happening every week, one or two part-time additional workers is a necessity. Hence, the ‘new school’ farmers have a decent set of input resource relations that are needed to fulfil their production process. There is, however, a certain flexibility as the small plot of land is producing all year around and the mortgage is often small or nonexistent.

Output and customer relations

As the begin of the supply chain, the input resource relations, are a diverse mixture of parties, the other end of the supply chain is as divers. The output resource relations are created around new established markets, markets that are created by the farmers themselves, through their networks and relations in the region. The ‘new school’ organics are a relatively young group of farmers who are farming in an urban area, where most of the time, they grew up. Therefore, there is a wide network of family, friends, colleagues and other locals who know you and know what you are producing. This network, established from direct and indirect relations with people who live in the region, generate the possibility for new market initiatives. These new market initiatives are locally originated and are combined with other farming business, who have the same idea. An example of such a new market

99 initiative is a farm shop on the side on the main road, from New Plymouth to Oakura. This shop is selling the fruit and vegetables of one farmer, the milk of another, bread of a baker and honey of a beekeeper. All this is stored in the shop, but is not watched over, in a sense that there is not cashier. One can buy the product by putting cash in separate boxes, or pay online via the ‘honesty box’ app. There is no control on who is paying and who isn’t, but because of this local network of people and the relation of trust, this kind of initiative is feasible. Other initiatives like food boxes (CSA), and restaurant boxes RSA (restaurant supported agriculture) are channels through which the fruit and vegetables are sold. People are ordering a weekly box by a farmer, who is delivering the fresh produce to their homes. Other places, like local markets, organic shops and supermarkets are places where the produce is sold. These locations are all in one region, and the farmers themselves are transporting their produce, which enables a short supply chain. The relation with the customer is key in this farming pattern as these create a new space in which the products could be spread and enables a chain which is short and therefore sustainable. This trust relations, on the other hand, dismisses the relation the farmer has with any certification body. The new market and supply chain demonstrates a set of independent resource relations, as the farms themselves have the choice of sets of relations they was to engage in. However, as their system in not yet circular, the farms are dependent on the input resources that are coming is. The relation with the certification body is described below.

Certification relations

As the farmers established a trust relation with the people in the region through direct contact or through a word of mouth, the relation with a certification is left aside. The trust relation that would establish through the certification is not needed and therefore the farmers do not feel the necessity to start the whole process of certification, with all its rules and regulations. For them, this process is only time consuming and an additional expense. However, the government, the MPI, is developing a national standard for being organic, which entails a set of rules and regulations for all the farmers who want to sell their produce as organic. When this standard is fully developed, the ‘new school’ organics also have to face the fact of having to deal with a standard and having an annual audit, to check whether their farming is truly organic. The Food Act (2014) was the prologue, whereby the farmers needed to be registered in order to sell food on the market. The national standard will be the main play, whereby the farmers have to decide whether they want to call themselves organic and deal with the rules and regulations or come up with a new name for their production which preserves their networks.

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Soil farming external resource relations

The soil farming pattern is characterized by the design of the farm, whereby the farming practices are aligning with nature and her ecosystems. This farm design allows a small amount of input, as the design tries to be self-sufficient in the resource use. The farmer is making its own compost and is organizing the farm in such a way that processes are complementary. This results in often small scale and labor-intensive farming, in the fruit and vegetable sector. The animal (dairy, meat and eggs) sector is working on a large scale with diver pasture management and a combination of different animals. These circular and regenerative practices lead to short supply chains and the use of existing and new markets. The supply chains are short as the inputs are minimized and the output relations are mainly direct relations with the customer. The use of existing and new markets various as farmers sell their goods in different ways to different people. The soil biology patterns try to minimize the input resources and diversify the output relations. This and the relations with the certification bodies is illustrated below.

Farm development Soil farming strategy

Low input resource relations: self-sufficient Resource relations Divers output relations: using existing and new markets

Basic certification: building on direct trust relations with customers

Input resource relations

The development of the soil quality is a key point in the soil farming pattern. This development is done by the design of a certain land, farm, paddock, pasture and so on. This farm design is diversifying the soil, by planting different species next to each other, which encourages the microbial life in the soil. In order to make such a farm design, the farmers are masters in observing, evaluating and adapting of nature, their farm. With these experiences, techniques and skills a design could be made which makes the farmer almost totally self-sufficient. This self-sufficiency would mean that no input is used, but that is not completely true. The inputs that are used are mainly seeds and mineral for the soil and packing material for the sale of their produce. As no farmers are yet seed savers, could be a future goal, the seeds are bought at different companies who are organically labeled and are GMO free. For fruit farmers, the tree seedlings are bought and planted and for the animal famers a multi species grass mixture is bought. The amount of seeds that are bought, differ per farming sector. The minerals that are bought are often to use as a supplement for the compost. Compost is made by the farmers themselves and is complemented with minerals according to the minerals that

101 are missing in the soil. Moreover, in order to know which minerals are missing an annual soil test is quite common. Besides the inputs for the soil, the techniques to sow crops and grasses, and eventually harvest are simple and effective. Investments are made, but not a lot of money is spent on machinery as it is kept simple and effective. Another input source, which is common in all sectors are the packing materials. The fruit, vegetables, milk, and eggs are all packed by the farmer and transported. Meat is a different story as the animals are brought to a butcher. The last key input source is labor. The amount of labor that is used differs per farming sector. The fruit and vegetable farmers often use more labor, as fruit and vegetables are cultivated in a diverse way, for instance, in lines, or circles, which requires labor instead of machines. The sowing, picking and harvesting happens all by hand and is demanding quite some time. This is different with animal farmers, who could do the job with one or two people. The livestock needs to be managed around the farm and milked. In the end, it differs per sector what is needed to run the production process, but the one thing that is common among the soil farming pattern is the minimization of input resources. This established an independent web of resource relations in which the farmers have the freedom to make their own choice, on the level of farming practices.

Output resource and customer relations

The output resource relations around the soil pattern are quite diverse as existing and new markets are used. The existing markets that are used are mainly in the animal sector, whereby the dairy farms are selling their milk to Fonterra and the meat farm are selling their livestock to an organic butcher. Besides these cooperatives and retailers, small side projects such a fridge of milk alongside the road, or the sale of hay bales, are projects to diversify the income. Therefore, an existing market is combined with a new market, which is established by the farmer him/herself. The fruit and vegetable farmers are exploring new markets, such as local farmer markets, community supported agriculture (CSA), restaurant supported agriculture (RSA) or establish their own network brand and network of outlets. In all these cases, there is not retailer or wholesaler involved, this is the job they do themselves. Therefore, there is a direct contact with the customer of the outlets, the shops where the products are sold. This makes the supply chain short, but also enables autonomous position in the market. An example of this is the CSA, a farming initiative in which the customers are paying a monthly contribution and receiving a weekly food box. This enables a low risk and autonomous position for the farmer, as he/she can trust upon the contributions of the customers. Besides, it decreases the supply chain to a minimum as the farmer is delivering directly to the customer. A CSA model has one of the highest level of independency as the input resources are minimalized and the output resources are based in a solid network of people. The RSA is the same initiative, but with restaurants. These new markets are created to establish opportunities for the farmer to farm in their 102

‘soil’ way. In order to let the new markets flourish, the farmers have to establish a certain network and trust relation with the people who support them. Therefore, the face to face contact and word of mouth is crucial for the creation of their market system. This contact is made through different channels, like being on the market, having open farm days and spreading newsletters. In that way, people stay connected to the farm and the farmers can develop.

Certification relations

The relations with the certification body differs per market system, an existing or new market and the agricultural sector. The farmers who are using existing markets are mainly the animal farmers, the dairy and meat farmers. As these products milk, yogurt and meat are products which could easily catch a disease and have additional rules and regulations for being organic. Therefore, the farmers established a relationship with a certification body, to be able to sell it on the national and international market as organic. The certification body is coming every year to audit the farm, check the administration and management plan. This is a bit different with the fruit and vegetable farmers who are exploring new markets and networks of people, whereby a direct trust relation is created. This trust relations diminishes the idea of being fully certificated. However, as a backup plan farmers keep a basic certification by Bio-Gro, OFNZ or Demeter, to be able to fall back on retailers, when their products are not sold at new markets. Besides, with the upcoming national standard the basic certification allows the farmers to legally label their produce as organic, which is quite beneficial.

Social/spiritual farming external resource relations The social and spiritual farming pattern is partial in line with the soil farming pattern. Both patterns have similar farming practices and therefore a similar set of input resource relations. The input resources are minimalized, as the farmer strives to be self-sufficient and the resource relations are flexible and in small numbers. However, the part on which the patterns differ are the output resource and customer relations. The soil pattern does not particularly have a direct face to face contact with the customer, but the social/spiritual does have this. Their main output relations are directly with people who are purchasing the product or for instance visiting the farm. The resource relations are established in different ways are guided towards a spread of the farming knowledge. As this is the main goal of the farm, the certification relations are often nonexistent, the sale of the products in not the most important thing. The input, output, customer and certification relations will be further elaborated below.

Farm development Social/spiritual farming strategy

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Low input resource relations: self-sufficient Relations Divers output resource relations: using existing and new markets

Basic certification: building on direct trust relations with customers

Input resource relations

As said before, the input resource relations of the social and spiritual farming are quite similar as the soil pattern. Both are acquiring farming practices which are beneficial for the soil which means that diverse plant communities and the specific design of crops and trees are applied. The input resources that are needed for this are seeds, mineral and machinery. The input resources that are different, compared to the soil farming, are the inputs that which are used to do the social activities. For instance, farmers use kitchens to give children cooking classes and learn them to eat healthy. Other initiatives of farmers are small kitchens where people can learn to make yogurt out of milk. These initiatives need to be built and structured in order to educate people about the farming practices and knowledge. Besides kitchens, there are also examples of farmers who organize farm days, field days, workshops on farming, internships and so on. All these activities also need to be facilitated. Therefore, a building to welcome people, a proof garden and other things related to these activities need to be bought. Hence, the input resource relations are set around the social activities that are taking place on the farm. What these social activities are differs per farm. The social activities are usually given by the farmer him/herself, or by additional staff. The additional staff dependent on the successfulness of the social projects. In some cases, a group of volunteers help to arrange and organize the social activities around the farm. This is often the case with schools, where parents help to arrange the farm days and gardens. These input resource relations are therefore slightly more dependent than the soil farming input resource relations, as these facilities need to be organized.

Output resource and customer relations

The key characteristic of the output resource relations is the customer relation, the direct contact with people; customers, citizens, communities. This type contact is most important for the farmers as their main goal is to educate and inform people about their farming pattern. This vision establishes a network of people, locals, but also internationally of people who are coming to visit the farm. Locals are often coming in the form of school classes and communities. The farm is providing farm projects of the different processes that are going on the farm. The children, for instance, help a day per week on the farm to sow and harvest the fresh vegetables. These vegetables are transported to the community kitchen were the same children learn how to cook a healthy meal. Other initiatives for locals are open farm days, the possibility for locals to visit the farms and discover how products are

104 produced and where this could be bought. Besides locals, the international world is also attracted to these ideas and are coming over to New Zealand to follow workshops, courses and even internships at the farms. This international network of people spreads the word of organic farming in New Zealand all over the world and connects different people to each to other. That is why the social/spiritual farming is the patterns that reaches most people, and which relations are scattered around the globe. Furthermore, the output relations are not only through the social activities, but also in shops and on markets. The shops are often specialized and organic, which means that the butcher who is selling the meat knows what he/she is selling and can explain the differences between the types of meat. For instance, regenerative meat, how this is produced etc. This story is told when the customer is buying the product. Also, local farmer markets give the ability to tell the farming story when the customers are coming to buy the fruit and vegetables. This is also a strategy to establish a direct customer relation and create a stable network of people who are coming to buy your products. Eventually, the output resource and customer relations are established to educate and spread the knowledge about the farming pattern.

Certification relations

As this farming pattern is mainly based on social activities, the certification is not a necessity. The products that are sold in the shops and stores could be certified but would only have a minimal basic certification. The rules and regulations of the certification body are not an interest of the farmers. There is a direct, face to face, trust relation established, a network of people who belief in the story of the farmers and are constantly buying the produce. Besides, the sale of produce is not the main income generation of most farmers. The main income sources are from the organization of social activities, workshops, courses etc. These are, besides, more valuable than the sale. However, with the upcoming national standard, a basic certification would be more attractive as this is a proof to be ‘organic’. Moreover, the farmers will be able to use the label of organic, but this is not always the wish of farms, as they want to differentiate themselves from ‘organic’ farmers. Terms ‘regenerative’, ‘agroecology’ and ‘permaculture’ would be a better description of their way of farming.

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CONCLUSION This chapter was meant to give an illustration of the internal (family), bank and external resource relations of the four farm development strategies. This illustration was set up in such a way that the sub-question below could be answered. With the answer of this sub-question, the main question could eventually be answered.

What are the external, internal and consumer relations of organic farmers, in NiNZ?

The internal (family) relations and the financial investor (bank) are the two types of relations which are common in all the four farm development startgies. Moreover, the relations with the family are common as the land is often family owned and family, such as siblings and parents, are working on the farm. The financial investor is a common relation as most farmers have a loan by a bank and have to pay a certain amount of interest and debt, per month (or year). This has an influence on the farming practices, as the farmer has to generate a stable income to pay this. Furthermore, the external resoruce relations are divided in three sets of relations: the input resource, output resource and customer, and certification relations. These sets of relations are discussed per farming pattern. The ‘old school’ organics strategy has a high level of input resource relations, as the practices are using different inputs of fertilize the land and make it productive. The output relations are quite low as the produce is sold to retailers and wholesalers, and therefore, this pattern is using existing markets. As retailers and wholesalers are involved, no trust relation is directly built with customers, which leads the farmers into a relation with a certification body. The ‘new school’ organics strategy have the same level of output, but a different level of output, as this pattern is using new markets, based on local and regional networks. These networks are built on direct trust relations which enables the farmers to stay out of a relation with a certifier. The last two patterns: soil farming and social/spiritual farming have the same sets of input resource relations, as both have the same farming practices, which enhances the system of coproduction, whereby input is generating output which enables the input again. The farm design of the farms enables the farmers to use a low level of inputs and generates self-sufficiency. However, the output resource relations differ, as the soil pattern have a set of divers output resource relations with existing and new market initiatives. These markets enable partly a trust relation directly with the customer and partly the need to have a basic certification. The output resource relations of the social/spiritual pattern are only based on the direct contact with people, locally and internationally, whereby the need for a certification is non-existent. An overview of these pattern could be found below. In the end, these different sets of resource relations in the four farm development strategies illustrate the context in which the farmers are performing their farming practices and are express their cultural repertoire.

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Farm dev. ‘old school’ organics ‘new school’ organics Soil farming Social/spiritual farming Strategies

Resource High level resource input High level resource input Low input relations: self- Low input relations: self- relations relations relations sufficient sufficient Low level resource output Divers output streams: Divers output relations: Diver output relations: relations: retailer and new market initiatives using existing and new local and international wholesalers Local networks: direct markets networks Existing markets and supply relations customer: trust Coproduction resources Coproduction resources chains relations Basic certification: Social activities with the Strict certification: no direct No certification involved building on direct trust networks relation with customer relations with customers No certification: trust relations with networks

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CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

The growing environmental problems, due to the agriculture and the global agro food system, were the starting point of this thesis. These developments caused an organic current which started a decade ago and is still going strong. The organic currents, different trends of the years, are described by the IFOAM as organic 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Moreover, organic 1.0 is described as the organic movement which is set up by pioneers and visionaries, who disapproved the dominance of the industries and strived for small scale organic farms who produced healthy food. This thought became more popular in the 1970/80’s when the organic current became larger due to the growing support of farmers and citizens. Therefore, the demand on organic products increased, products standardized, commercialized and needed to be certified, in order to be sold at the international food market. Capitalistic mechanism took over the organic food business and forced into mass production. However, a new trend in the organic current arose, organic 3.0, which countered 2.0 and wanted to establish a wider audience of the organic industry. Therefore, the IFOAM strived for a embracement in organic agriculture, whereby the undercurrents as agroecology, regenerative and biodynamic agriculture are included. Moreover, the IFOAM acknowledged the growing diversity within organic agriculture, as the certified organic farmers were not the only ones who wanted to be seen as organic. This thesis did research on this diversity in New Zealand, a country with a large agricultural sector and the same history of organic 1/2/3.0. In this research, diversity is deliberated through the illustration of farm development strategies, which gave an insight the organic agricultural situation on the North island of New Zealand.

The organic agricultural situation is elaborated through farm development strategies. Therefore, the main research question was:

What kind of farm development strategies do organic farmers have, on the North island in New Zealand?

The farm development strategies are defined by three elements; the cultural repertoire, farming practices and resource relations. These elements have a mutual influence on each other and describe the long term strategy that a farmer is enhancing. This research established 19 farm development strategies through qualitative ethnographic research, which used the methods om a semi-structured interview, participant observations and discussions. These 19 farm development strategies are analysed and compared, whereby four farming patterns were discovered. These four patterns are translated to four farm development strategies; ‘old school’ organics, ‘new school’ organics, soil farming and social/spiritual farming (summarized in table 8.). These farm development strategies illustrate the diversity within the organic agricultural sector as each strategy has its own story. 108

THE FOUR FARM DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES In the search for farm development strategies, to sketch the organic agricultural situation in NiNZ, four pattern on which the strategies are based, are discovered. The exploration and analysis of the different farms, is structured by the three elements of Vd Ploeg and started with the categorization of the first fam development strategy: ‘old school’ organics. The cultural repertoire of this category of farming goes back to the 1970/80’s, the time in which large demonstrations took place in different parts of the world, against the dominant order. Therefore, the farmers related to this strategy, contested this order, admitted the environmental problems due to agriculture and wanted a better world. Besides, new business opportunities arose, as the organic sector was a niche market, which established an opportunity for farmers to shift to organic farming. This niche market inaugurated the existence of certification bodies, who institutionalized and defined the organic sector. This timeframe and new institutionalization of certification bodies has a leading role in the farming practices of this category. The farming practices containing an monocropping/livestock underground, whereby the conventional ideas are translated to organic ones. Moreover, the cultivation of crops and the keeping of livestock is performed in similar practices as conventional farms, only the input resources are substituted by organic alternatives. A wide set of input resource relations are therefore available, which establishes a level of dependency. Thereby, farming practices as cover crops and crop rotation are additionally performed to enable a fertilization of the soil. The farming practices are regulated by a set of strict rules and regulations of the certification body. The output is transported to large retailers and wholesalers, who are exporting the produce, or selling it nationally. The set of output relations is small, and the personal contact with the customer non-existent. Existing markets and supply chains are applied, which generates a stable income, but increases the level of dependency.

The second farm development strategy; ‘new school’ organics, refers to more recent timeframe 2000/10’s, whereby the global climate change took the stage. The cultural repertoire is based on this timeframe and elaborates this by characterizing the ‘new school’ organics as farmers who are rebelling against the existing orders of capitalism and the agro food systems. Organic farming is their way of helping the world to a better tomorrow, not with having office jobs, but being practical and pragmatic. As organic farming is developed through the years, new techniques are established, and used by this category. Moreover, new ideas on organic farming arose and therefore new techniques which are applied to the ‘new school’ organics. This is translated into the farming practices by small scale intensive crop cultivation, divers use of crop communities and fertilization. The fertilization is externally purchased and not self-made. This established a set of input resource relations which are mandatory for the production process. However, as the farmers are not connected to any certification body, they have the freedom to experiment and use different organic input resources.

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The output distributed to new markets, which are established by farmer themselves. The new markets are based on personal trust relation with customers which are translated to local and region networks. Therefore, the output resource and customer relation enabled a level independency and freedom of choice and in farming, as they are established by the farmers themselves. The long term vision of this farm development strategy is exploration of new techniques and farming practices to supply a region and protect the environment by enhancing the soil quality.

The third farm development strategy is the soil farming strategy. This category of farming related to the soil, the enrichment and conservation of it. This return in the cultural repertoire as the main belief, and by which most ideas around farming are based on. The farming has to be environmental friendly, whereby the soil the key player is, and most influence has on the environment. Moreover, the soil stores carbon, could be self-fertilized by the right combination of plants and is able to produce nutrient rich food, which is favourable for the society in general. In order to translate this cultural repertoire into farming practices, the farm is designed in specific way. The farm design works together with nature and her ecosystems, to balance the processes out, and establishes a coproduction of input and output resources. This is done through the divers pasture management, combination of livestock on lands and divers crop cultivation. The stimulation of diversity increases the fertility, which enhances the growth of plants and creates healthy food (healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people). Thereby, scientific knowledge and networks are consulted and implemented through the experimentation pf farming practices. Furthermore, as the input resources are minimalized (by coproduction) the web of input resource relations is little and simple. The output resource relations is partly based on customers and partly on wholesalers and retailers, and therefore, the relation with the certification body is basic. The coproduction of resources combined with the use of new and existing markets enables a space in which the farms are able to experiment and be creative with their possibilities. New farming practices and knowledge on the soil is, in the end, the long term strategy is of the soil farmers.

The last and fourth farm development strategy that is identified is the social/spiritual farming strategy. The cultural repertoire of this strategy has similarities with the soil farming, as both repertoires are endeavour the enrichment and conservation of the soil. Healthy soil, food and people is therefore also one of their mantras. However, the social/spiritual farming emphasis the social side, the establishment of a healthy society. In order to create a healthy society, the farming practices are structured around the distribution of their farming knowledge, to customers, citizens and communities nationally and internationally. The education of people is their way of supporting the environment and the bridging the gap between the ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ landscapes. This done through educational activities, workshops, courses, field and farm days, performed by the farmers. The input 110 resources are gained through the balancing of systems and practices, which enables coproduction and the establishment of a small set of input resource relations. The output and customer relations are caught in a larger web of relations, with new networks and markets. The self-sufficiency of resources on the one side, and the large web of output relations on the other, creates a space in which the farmer can act almost freely, to the extent of her/his own standards. The certification body is, therefore, left out and not necessary. Hence, the execution of this strategy is on the other hand based on spiritual connection that the farmer has with nature, the soil and land that he/she is farming on. This deeper relation actives the farmer to adjust its farming practices and develop the resource relations is such a way, that nature is triumphing.

DIVERSITY IN ORGANIC AGRICULTURE The four farm development strategies illustrate patterns, differences and similarities between the studied farmers. Each farm and therefore strategy is seen as a unique being, with its own and personal cultural repertoire, farming practices and resource relations. These key features are analysed and compared into patterns, which represent a current diversity on multiple elements. This diversity displays a the organic history that was stated before (Organic 1, 2 and 3.0) which is recognized in the research. However, as individual farmers were studied, the development and diversity within a farmers’ life is notable as well. Farmer evolve over time and enrich themselves with new sources of information that drivers them to new farming practices and sets of relations. The dynamics on a farm are constantly adapting to new excesses of information, knowledge and networks, which are providing the farm with information. Therefore, there is not only a diversity of farm, but also a diversity of events happening in the farmer’ life. As this is the case, further research on farm development strategies has to be done, in order to sketch the whole situation. Recommendations on this and further research possibilities are discussed below. Thereby, the research questions and methods are also debated and discussed.

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Farm dev. Strategies ‘Old school’ organics ‘New school’ organics Soil farming Social/spiritual farming

Cultural repertoires & Environmental crisis 1970/80’s Global climate crisis 2000/10’s Creation of topsoil Soil biology drivers Hippie times Rebelling against capitalistic Production of healthy food Bridging the rural and urban Market opportunities order/conventional agriculture society communities First certificates Pragmatic: using new techniques Scientifically oriented Spiritual connection with nature

Farming practices Substitution of inputs Intensive production processes Design of farm: diversification Design of farm: diversification Monocropping/livestock Diversification crops Self-sufficient: minimum use of Self-sufficient: minimum use of ‘conventional’ set of techniques High use of input resources external inputs (coproduction) external inputs (coproduction) Ridged rules and regulations Use of new techniques Obverse, evaluate and adapt Social activities on the farm certification body Use of new scientific knowledge

Resource relations High level resource input relations High level resource input relations Low input relations: self- Low input relations: self-sufficient Low level resource output relations: Divers output streams: new market sufficient Diver output relations: local and retailer and wholesalers initiatives Divers output relations: using international networks Existing markets and supply chains Local networks: direct relations existing and new markets Coproduction resources Strict certification: no direct relation customer: trust relations Coproduction resources Social activities with the networks with customer No certification involved Basic certification: building on No certification: trust relations direct trust relations with with networks customers Table 8. Summary of conclusion

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The discussion of the thesis debates different aspects of the research, starting with the research questions. Therefore, I discuss to what extent the research questions are answered and what could be possibly be added to the questions. What other questions could be asked? After this, a brief discussion is held on the methods that are used for the research. The qualitative ethnographic research methods are discussed and future improvements are proposed. Contribution or other works that could have been used in this research, and are left out, due to mainly time and financial limitations, is the next point of discussion. Therefore, a discussion is held on work and literature of authors on this subject, which would have given an additional piece to the thesis. Therefore studies on input substitution and integrated farming systems are described. The discussion ends with recommendations on further research on this subject.

DISCUSSION OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS This thesis raised four questions to be able to answer the main questions: what kind of farm development strategies are do organic farmers have, on the North island of New Zealand? The four questions were asked be able to grasp the context of organic agriculture in NZ, and to discover which ideas, values, notions, farming practices and resource relations farmers have. After the conclusion of the thesis, I want to discuss whether these research questions are fully answered and contributed to answering the main question. In order to do so, I start discussing the first research questions on the context of organic agriculture in NZ. This research question was answered with a literature study, using a report of the IFOAM, Organics Aotearoa NZ (OANZ) and the statistics of the government, the MPI. Reading and analysing this data, it appeared to be that there was not actual data on how much organic farmers were currently farming and in which sectors. The IFOAM and OANZ, had data on the number of farmers who were certified organic, but not on those who are not certified, but definitely organically practicing. There is no actual data available on the number of organic farmers, and therefore, also not on the development and history of organic farming in NZ. This created difficulties describing the context of organic farming in NZ. On the other hand, information on the certification bodies and organic undercurrents was easily found, and established a broad context for the reader of the thesis.

The second, third and fourth research question were asked to form the farm development strategy of the farmers. Starting with the second research question on farming practices, whereby the main data of the farm was gathered, the everyday practices, the establishment of this practice and the future addition on new practices. This question was difficult for me, to gather data for, as my knowledge on farming practices was quite narrow. The first farms that I visited was an opportunity to learn more about the everyday life of farming and its basic process, which were all new for me.

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Therefore, the I could not quite focus immediately on the particularities of farming practices and processes. Later on in the research, I was able to understand how farm in general are working and what differences between farms could be. The content and the understandability developed through the process, as the basics of farming became common for me. Moreover, the points of focus on, for instance, farm designs and substitution of input resources, established later in the research, whereby earlier farms were studied on these elements specifically. However, as participant observation and a wide description of the interview, enabled the opportunity to read the processes from the gathered data. The third research question was on internal and external sets of resource relations on a farm. The question itself was initially not on resource relations, but changed later to this, as the relations were mostly on resources. The main relations with different actors was described and analysed and compared to the theoretical coproduction of Vd Ploeg. This theoretical aspect was added on a later stage, when I discovered the dependency on relations of the different farms. While discovering this, I remembered the peasant and entrepreneurial modes of farming and added this to the theoretical framework and research. I would have been more consistent when this theory was added in the proposal, before I started the research. Besides, it was most difficult to compare the set of resource relations to each other, compared to the farming practices and cultural repertoires, as every farmer has her/his own particular set of relations and therefore context. To find similarities I only focused on specific elements, such as, certification relations and input resource relations. The fourth and last research question studied the cultural repertoire of the farmers. This repertoire was extensively described in the theoretical framework by four elements, which were investigated during the fieldwork. These elements considered farmers’ position towards nature, values, beliefs and notions, personal history and a vision of the current situation on the earth. Some elements were harder to ask then others, and therefore, not easy to get a comprehensive answer. For instance, farmers’ position towards nature were some participants would not know what to answer, and asked for a further explanation. This influenced the answer and made is difficult to use it in the analysis of the question. Moreover, the openness of the participant was an important factor of this question, whereby he or she was comfortable enough to tell about their history, values and beliefs. This differentiated among the farmers, whereby the answers were not always of the same extension and quality.

All these four research questions were structured as sub-question to answer the main question. However, these four sub-questions could be all main questions, by their extension and complexity. That is also one of the reasons why this thesis turned out to be quite extensive. All the elements needed full attention, explanation and argumentation to be able to formulate different farm development strategies. The farm development strategies that are found are discovered through the

114 analyzation of the research questions, starting with the cultural repertoire. The personal repertoires were gathered and compared whereby four patterns came forward. These patterns were subsequently applied to the farming practices and resource relations, which formed the full farm development strategy. However, one should take into account that these patterns are based on a population of 19 farms. These farms are also divided among different sectors (dairy, meat and egg, fruit and vegetables) which made it also hard to compare the farms with each other. Therefore, the resulted four farm development strategies are rather an abstract description compared to the real situation of a farm which entails much more details and complexity. Meaning, the described farm development strategy is a description of the main characteristics that which present a certain discourse within organic agriculture. A more detailed farm development strategy, which would be applicable in different places, is requiring much more research, time and financial resources. Therefore, this thesis is not applicable or generalizable to other regions on the world. The four farm development strategies only account for New Zealand.

DISCUSSION OF METHODS

This section discusses the methods that are used to perform the research. Therefore, I start with critically reflecting the sampling of the population of farmers. The sampling of the farmers is done by using the platform Wwoof, my contact person Sita, the internet and the snowball strategy. These different manners of sampling participants was chosen to be able to select organic farmers from different circles and networks. This, however, did not worked out quite well, as most of the farmers were acquainted and helped me find farmers in their own networks. This happened with, for instance, the dairy farmers, who were happy to give me contact details of their fellow dairy farmers or other organic farmers that they knew. It was difficult to find a lot of farmers outside these networks, as it was challenging to reach those networks. The internet was a possibility to meet ‘new’ farmers, but the contact was often hard to make, emails were not replied and mobile telephone numbers not available. Therefore, most of the farmers that were investigated knew each other, and this established a story of a Dutch researcher who was doing research on organic farming in the region. The organic farmer who I just met knew of my existence and invited me over. This established a new problem, as some farmers wanted to be anonymous. This was a challenge on the one side as organic farmers were curious on the information that I gained from other farmers, whereby I needed to be decent in knowing what to tell and what to keep for myself. The other side, as the thesis needed to be written in a way that farmers would not recognize each other in the thesis and that their anonymity is preserved. Hence, the same circles and networks where the research population was based on, decreased the diversity of participants. Moreover, I did not study the Mauri organic 115 farming population, which is active in the study area of the research. Therefore, the history and culture of this indigenous community is barely discussed in the thesis, which is a shame. During the research, it was quite difficult to reach Mauri organic farmers in the region. This is also because I started this search at a later stage of the research. It would have been possible when I directly started with searching for Mauri organic farming communities, but I started with the other networks of farmers.

Another methodological discussion point are the restrictions in the characteristics of the study population and the study area. The restrictions related to the characteristics of the study population are discussable as I only studied farms who are producing food products, in the dairy, fruit and vegetable, and meat and egg sector. All the other sectors are left out, which made the research quite specific, and broad enough to be able to generalize the farming strategies to other sectors. Besides, the study area of the research concerns only the southern part of the North island, due to time and financial limitations. This means that the results of the thesis are not generalizable to other areas, in other parts of the world. The history, climate and environment have a considerable influence on the findings and therefore the farm development strategies. Further research should be done to establish strategies that would fit in different contexts.

The last point that I want to discuss, related to methods, is the interviews and discussions that are held during the fieldwork. The semi-structured interview were set up before going to NZ, before knowing what I would encounter. During my first interview, I cut the interview down and divided into different blocks; cultural repertoire, farming relations and resource practices. I used these blocks in different orders, while visiting the organic farmers. This was done as some farmers started talking about a specific subject straight away. Therefore the questions often asked to all farmers, but in different orders, and to a different extent. Some interview also ended up with no structure, but in a discussion, whereby the answers needed to be grasped afterwards. Besides this, the answers of the interviews were noted straight after the interview and sent to the farmer, to confirm whether the information was right. It started doing this with the first couple of farmers, but as no farmer replied or gave feedback on the information, I stopped doing this automatically. Instead, I asked the farmers whether he or she would like to have an overview of the answers of the interview. This worked out much better. The last point is the discussion that are taken place at the farms or in social occasions. The format of a discussion was not taken into account, staring this thesis, and therefore, I noted the highlights of the discussions, instead of having a format. The discussion differed per situation, which forced me to be flexible in the format and elaboration of the discussion. Thereby, as some discussion

116 emerged out of nowhere, the participants were not always aware of the fact that I used the information of the discussion for this thesis.

INPUT SUBSTITUTION VERSUS INTEGRATED FARMING SYSTEMS During the fieldwork, several organic farmers discussed the problem of being labelled as organic farmers. Therefore, the farmers explained their problem with the concept organic, as a problem in which organic is a definition which includes all farming practices which are not engaged with chemicals. These farmers have a problem with this, as they argue that their way organic farming goes much further in this, the input substitution of these chemical by organic ones. Moreover, the use of the label organic is not used as a label, as these farmers do not even want to be part of such a concept. This notion is established by the belief that input substitution and farming practices, such as monoculture, could not be part of the organic movement, as both are not sustainable or contributing anything to the soil. This is also discussed by the authors Altieri and Rosset (1997), who are describing the contradiction in sustainable agriculture. Moreover, the contradiction is based in the alternative food systems, organic agriculture, whereby the agribusiness used the input substitution as an alternative food system, which is, argued by the authors, not the case. The input substitution is diminishing the potential of organic agriculture, as this form of practice is stimulating dependency to the agribusiness and monocropping structures (Altieri & Rosset, 1997).

Altieri and Rosset (1997) are describing the differences between conventional input farming systems, sustainable input farming systems and agroecological systems. Their main conclusions are that the shift from conventional to sustainable input farming systems dramatic consequences had for sustainable farmers, as their input prices went up and their production stayed the same. The dependency on the financial resources and the agribusiness increased, as both parties maintain control over the farmers (Altieri & Rosset, 1997). Besides, the input substitution farming system only diminishing the direct environmental externalities of their agricultural practices by abandoning pesticides, nitrogen and other chemicals. It does not reduce any long term environmental externalities as the monocultures are still the main practices, which are causing a disruption in ecosystems, degradation of soils, decrease in biodiversity and a pollution of water systems (Altieri & Rosset, 1997). This circle of dependency and long term environmental externalities can be broken by integrated farming systems, or agroecological systems, which focus on multi-cropping systems, biodiversity and microorganism. Such a agroecological integrated farming system is not only beneficial for the environment as it is diminishing diseases, pests, weed problems, off-farm inputs and above all vulnerability, it also increases the production and the wellbeing of local social/economic communities (Altieri & Rosset, 1997).

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Furthermore, besides the authors Altieri and Rosset (1997) other authors are agreeing to this perspective and recommend integrated farming systems to establish a ‘truly’ sustainable agricultural sector. For instance, the article of Lamine (2011), she is arguing for a ‘ecologization’ of agricultural practices, a redesign of farms, to establish protection for environmental sensible region and improvement of soil and water sources. This article takes it one step further by studying how government policies could play a role in this ‘ecologization’. This step an important one as it investigates the implementation of integrated farming systems in the world of the farmers. What implications and challenges are the farmers facing who want to make a shift to these systems? This are questions that need further research and attention. Besides, further research needs to be done on defining ‘sustainable’ or ‘organic’ agriculture. The article on Altieri and Rosset (1997) already argued the misconception of input substitution being sustainable, which is confirmed by the studied farmers of this thesis. Therefore, a more consistent definition of sustainable and organic agriculture has to be constructed, which includes a program that makes the transition to such a system doable and feasible.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

The last section of this thesis contains recommendations for future research projects. This thesis analysed and studied a small piece of a much bigger picture of organic agriculture. In order to truly understand and be able to comprehend what agriculture needs to become non-polluting, much more research needs to be done. I established three points of attentions, that came forward in as a challenge in this thesis, on which research could be done.

1) The first recommendation is related to the government and the MPI, as more research needs to be done on the current organic situation in NZ. The current statistics are not elaborate enough, the number of farmers who are in organic agriculture are unclear, as are the different sectors in which the farmers are operating. This data needs to be gathered and mapped, so that knowledge networks between farmers can be established and customers know where to find organic food products. 2) More research has to be done on the Mauri farming systems in NZ. The indigenous farming knowledge can not only give insights in the current environmental problems, the farming practices can also be an example for future farmers. The Mauri people have been living on the island for many decades and are therefore knowledgeable. This knowledge needs to be explored and can be used for various purposes.

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3) The last recommendations is related to the discussion on input substitution and integrated farming systems. Further research should be done on integrated farming systems, and how this could be translated to the every farming life. Currently farmers are vulnerable as they are dependent on many different relations. It would be interesting to investigate how this group of farmers can make the transition to integrated farming systems.

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ANNEX

FARMING PRACTICES INTERVIEW QUESTIONS General info farm Question Answer Farm name? Members of farm? Name/age/gender Location? How did I found them? How long did I stayed?

Question Answer Farm size?

Farming type?

Crop types? And seasons?

Animals?

Labour? Volunteers? Other inputs (fertilizers)?

Which main resources are used?

Financial status? (35.000 is low, 50.000 middle, 75.000+ is high income)

Other off-farm activities?

When farm originated?

When become organic?

Member of organic organization?

Where are the products sold?

Practices semi-structured interview PQ-1 Questions Answer

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PQ-1.1 Which farming practices are performed? And how are these practices performed? Description of practice

PQ-1.2 How is the knowledge on these practices gained? - Uni? - Work experience? - History?

PQ-1.3 Origination of practice Why did you choose these practices (to cultivate these vegetables etc)?

PQ-1.4 Which practices would you like to add to the farm? In the future?

PQ-1.5 Off farm activities? What are these and why are these practiced?

PQ-2 Certification PQ-2.1 Are you certificated? And why are you (not) certificated? Yes go on No go to PQ-3 PQ-2.2 Disadvantages?

PQ-2.3 Influence on practices? - Main guidelines? - Who often do they come? PQ-2.4 Costs of certification? PQ-2.5 What would you do different if you were not certified?

PQ-3 Other organization or network (name of alternative) Why you choose for this alternative?

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PQ-3.1 What is the influence of this alternative on your farm (practices)? PQ-3.2 What are the main guidelines or standards? PQ-3.3 Influence on income (costs of organization)?

RESOURCE RELATIONS INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Description of relationships farmers have with consumers, external and internal relations. Relations semi-structured interview RQ-1 Questions Consumers Answers RQ-1.1 To who are you selling the products? Draw supply chain

RQ-1.2 How do you want to present yourself towards your consumers or retailers(image)?

RQ-1.3 Only necessary if farmer sells directly to consumer. Otherwise go to RQ-2.1 How much consumers do you proximally have?

RQ-1.3 Do you have a close contact with the consumers? RQ-1.4 Do the consumers have an influence on the production process?

RQ-1.5 How is the relation with the consumer originated?

RQ-1.6 How do you see this consumer relation in the future? What would you like to change?

RQ-2 Questions Externals Answers RQ-2.1 On which features/relations are you dependent? - Bank? - Input company (fertilizers and seeds)? - Labor? - Machines? And is there some space for flexibility in these relations (or are they super solid)?

RQ-2.2 How is this supply chain originated, and why did you choose these partners?

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RQ-2.3 How is the government related to your farm? - Rules/regulations? - Subsidies? Additional RQ-2.4 How is the (certification) organization related to your farm? - Dependent on consumers? - Strict of flexible? - Demanding? RQ-2.5 How is the competition in the organic farming market

RQ-2.6 How would you describe your own business model?

RQ-2.7 What would you like to change in the future?

RQ-3 Questions Internals Answers RQ-3.1 What kind of internal parties (friends, family etc.) are related to the farm?

RQ-3.2 How dependent or flexible are these relations?

RQ-3.3 How are these relations originated?

RQ-3.4 How would you like to see these relations in the future?

CULTURAL REPERTOIRE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Values Interview semi-structured VQ- 1 Questions Values Answers Origination of farm VQ-1.1 Why did you start farming? What are your motivations?

VQ-1.2 Where did this come from? Historical background? Norms and values? Life principles?

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Worldview VQ-1.3 Current view on the earth How would you describe your worldview? (positive/negative)

VQ-1.4 How do you see the future of the world?

Relations with nature VQ-1.5 How do you see the resource of the earth, as a supplier or as a holistic system? VQ-1.6 How do humans need to treat the world and her resources?

Future view on farm VQ-1.7 What are your prospects?

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