The Emergence of an Organic Food Market in Australia:

An Economic Sociological Approach

Lee Glezos

BA Hons Swinburne University of Technology

This thesis is submitted in fulfillment of the requirements

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Business and Law,

Swinburne University of Technology

2016

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ABSTRACT

Drawing on economic sociology, this thesis adopts Fligstein and McAdam’s A

Theory of Fields framework in order to understand how social movements, or

social movement-like groups, contribute towards the creation of new markets.

Specifically, it examines the interplay of competition and cooperation between

institutional entrepreneurs from sustainable agriculture, the consumer movement,

the conventional food industry and the State in the creation of a market for

organic produce in Australia. In particular, the thesis addresses how Australian

organic food graduated from a state of informal trade, strongly guided by the

values of the sustainable agriculture movement, to become a formal market. This

includes consideration of how structures such as production standards and

certification, a coordinated supply chain and a sense of membership to the organic

industry initially came into being.

The thesis draws upon a variety of texts, often generated by social movements and

industry groups, including newsletters, journals and conference proceedings.

These texts are supplemented through 11 targeted in-depth interviews with

pioneering organic food retailers, wholesalers and certification body actors.

The research offers two main contributions. Firstly it provides novel detail on the

origins of the Australian organic food market. Key market-building projects are

identified across three distinct temporal brackets. They roughly equate to periods

of planning and theorising (1982-1986), execution and expansion (1987-1989),

and crisis and contraction (1990-1995). The findings suggest that the sustainable

agriculture movement aimed to transform mainstream food production by

delegitimising the conventional chemical-based model, and proposing an

alternative that focused on maintaining the health of farming soils, farmers and

consumers. Ultimately this project gained enough legitimacy with key

stakeholders to establish the market, but the extent of success was significantly

limited. Entrenched incumbents with interests in continuing conventional

agriculture deployed extensive resources to secure state and industry support and

reaffirm the status quo, albeit one that accommodated organic food as a marginal

member.

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The second contribution is theoretical. The research confirms the fundamental

argument in A Theory of Fields that new institutional space is often forged in an

inherently political process, which can be entangled in periods of fluctuating

conflict between challengers and incumbents. I also argue that this framework can

be given extra explanatory power by integrating the concept of judgment devices

from the sociology of valuation. Judgment devices are observed as technologies

that influence how key stakeholders such as producers, consumers and the State

evaluate particular products or broader market models. Judgment devices should

then be understood as vital tools available to both challengers and incumbents,

used to spearhead their market building projects while simultaneously curbing the

legitimacy and power of those wielding oppositional interests.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Much like marathon runners, PhD candidates cannot get by without support

crews. I’d like to briefly acknowledge my crew. First and foremost I want to

thank my primary supervisor Professor Michael Gilding. At the many junctures

when I felt challenged and overwhelmed, your guidance, advice and tolerance

always brought things back into perspective. I simply could not have completed

this thesis without your generosity.

Thank you to my secondary supervisor, Associate Professor Karen Farquharson,

for your clarity and care at the most critical times. I am honoured to have such

amazing academic mentors as you and Michael. I will forever be grateful to you

both.

On a personal note, thank you to my family for the support over my academic

journey. A most special thank you to my amazing partner Emma. Emma, there is

no way I could have done this without your unwavering support, care and faith in

me. Apologies for the PhD rollercoaster – I know you don’t like rides!

On a final note, I suspect that librarians don’t get too many mentions in theses

acknowledgements. I want to say a sincere thank you to all the dedicated

librarians who helped me source those obscure documents from the far corners of

the country.

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DECLARATION

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any

other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text of the

thesis. To the best of my knowledge, this thesis contains no material previously

published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the

text of the thesis.

This thesis has been copyedited and proofread by Dr Jillian Graham (Articulate

Writing Solutions), whose services are consistent with those outlined in Section D

of the Australian Standards for Editing Practice (ASEP). Dr Graham’s own fields

of study encompass Social History, Women’s Studies, Musicology and

Psychoanalysis.

Signature: …………………………………

Date: ………………………………………

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………. ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……………………………………………………... iv

DECLARATION ………………………………………………………………… v

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction …………………………………………………................................. 1

The development of organic food………………………………………………...... 1 An economic sociological approach……………………………………………...... 4

The current study………………………………………………………………....... 6

Outline of chapters…………………………………………………………………. 9

CHAPTER TWO Literature Review ……………………………………………………………..... 12

Economic sociology vis-à-vis economics..……………………………………...... 13

Markets and contention………………………………………………………….... 23

A theory of fields………………………………………………………………...... 30

The economic sociology of valuation……………………………………………... 40

CHAPTER THREE Methods…….………………………………………….......................................... 54

Research perspective……………………………………………………………… 54

Breaking into the organic food field…………………………………………...…. 55

Choosing the research site………………………………………………………... 56

Documentary data sources………………………………………………………... 58

Interview sources…………………………………………………………………. 61

Data analysis………………………..……………………………………….......... 62

Consent and confidentiality………………………………………………………. 67 Credibility………………………………………………………………………… 67

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Limitations……………………………………………………………………….. 68

CHAPTER FOUR From movement to market: the initial plan to commercialise organic

food in Australia, 1982-1986………………………………………………….... 70 Event 1 – The consumer movement introduces notions of product safety……… 71

Event 2 – The crisis of the agri-chemical industry…….………………………... 83

Event 3 – Commercialising organic food in Australia………………………….. 92

CHAPTER FIVE From talk to action: disruption in the agri-food policy field and the

implementation of an organic food market, 1987-1989………….................. 106

Event 1 – The beef crisis ripples into broader agriculture fields………………. 107

Event 2 – The agri-food policy field accommodates sustainable agriculture….. 109

Event 3 – The initial implementation of the organic food market……………... 126

CHAPTER SIX

From outside fringe to inside niche: constraining the organic food market, 1990-1995…………………………………………………………….. 143

Event 1 – The organic food market enters into crisis…………………………... 144

Event 2 – The stratification of the agri-food policy field………………………. 156

Event 3 – Stabilising the organic food market niche…………………………… 171

CHAPTER SEVEN: Conclusion…….……………………………………….. 182

Field settlements and judgment devices………………………………………... 184

Australian organic food………………………………………………………… 190

Limitations and future research………………………………………………… 191

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………... 193

APPENDICES………………………………………………………………… 217 Appendix 1: Examples of coded incidents, events and arguments…………….. 217

Appendix 2: Evidence of human ethics clearance for this research project…… 219

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Key attributes of interviewees …………………………………..... 62

Table 2: Events organised around the commercialisation of organic

food production …………………………………………………………..... 139

Table 3: Market-oriented sustainable agriculture media ………………...... 140

Table 4: Installing the ‘clean food’ settlement 1982-1992 ……………....... 188

Table 5: Installing the organic niche settlement 1992-1995 ………………. 190

Table 6: Three examples of coded incidents ………………………………. 217

Table 7: Examples of coded arguments …………………………………… 218

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Industry newspaper advertisements throughout 1990 illustrating

intermediaries seeking supply………………............................................... 150

Figure 2: A common marketing tactic was pushing the chemical-free

message to consumers …………………………………………………….. 154

Figure 3: The cover of the NFA journal signals the States’ validation of

conventional food ………………………………………………………… 169

Figure 4: Incidents representing event: ‘Development of first organic standards

(1982-1986)’ ……………………………………………………………… 218

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ORGANISATIONAL ABBREVIATIONS

ABARE Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics ACA Australian Consumers’ Association ACCC Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ACF Australian Conservation Foundation ACIC Australian Chemical Industry Council ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions AFCO Australian Federation of Consumer Organisations AQIS Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service ASTEC Australian Science and Technology Council AUSTRADE Australian Trade Commission AVCA Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Association of Australia AWB Australian Wheat Board BDAAA Biodynamic Agriculture Association of Australia BFA Biological Farmers of Australia CDFE Centre for the Defense of Free Enterprise CI Consumer Interpol CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation DARA Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Victoria) DPIE Department of Primary Industries and Energy EEC European Economic Community EGOAA East Gippsland Organic Agriculture Association EPAC Economic Planning Advisory Council FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations HDRA Henry Doubleday Research Association IFOAM International Federation for Organic Agriculture Movements IOCU International Organisation of Consumers Unions NASAA National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia NFA National Food Authority NFF National Farmers’ Federation NFSC National Food Standards Council NHMRC National Health and Medical Research Council OGFST Organic Gardening and Farming Society of Tasmania OPAC Organic Produce Advisory Committee ORGAV Organic Retailers and Growers Association of Victoria PAN Pesticides Action Network RIRDC Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (Australia) SASA Soil Association of South Australia SMH Sydney Morning Herald TCAC Technical Committee on Agricultural Chemicals TEC Total Environment Centre WCA Wool Council of Australia

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–CHAPTER ONE–

Introduction

The adoption of non-chemical methods of agricultural production

generally involves commitment to a defined life-style. Inputs are

much higher, holdings must be smaller and there is generally an

associated group commitment to self sufficiency … Despite the fact

that this approach could not work effectively in our extensive

cropping and grazing areas, it would, in theory, involve enormous

life-style change for the community in general if pursued. It is akin

to the peasant-farming approach that exists in some less developed

agricultural economies. AVCA is doubtful whether these very basic

changes would be acceptable by the Australian community – either

urban or rural. (Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Association

of Australia, Senate Submission, 1989a, p. 814)

The development of organic food

The market for organic food in Australia is on a trajectory towards mainstream

acceptance. From being a $128-million industry in 2004, its growth by 2010 had

reached almost $1 billion a year, with around two out of three consumers having

purchased organic food in the past 12 months (Singer 2010a, p. 4). The industry is

now one of the best-performing sectors in the Australian economy over the last

several years, with growth being propelled by consumers wanting healthier

lifestyles, and the involvement of supermarket incumbents Coles and

Woolworths, who now handle 60 percent of all organic food sales, and are

seeking even greater quantities in the future (Tonkin 2014, p. 4-6). Moreover, a

regular succession of mainstream media stories about organic food captures this

general optimism of growth, with some citing experts who predict that ‘whole

sectors of the grocery market could eventually go chemical-free’ (Singer 2010a, p.

4). Such claims would likely have been dismissed even 10 years ago.

The genesis of the international organic food movement has its roots in the first

half of the twentieth century, as a reaction to the observed decline in soil fertility

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and the monoculture that came with the increasing industrialisation of food

production (Geier 2007, p. 176). From the 1920s, individuals concerned about the

turn agriculture had taken began speaking out and joining together. For example,

Rudolph Steiner gave his landmark lectures on ‘Anthroposophy’ in 1924, which

critiqued industrial farming and laid the foundation for biodynamic agriculture. At

the same time, eminent scientist Robert McCarrison studied the differences

between those on traditional Indian diets and those on western diets. He found

that the former diet resulted in people experiencing lower levels of disease and

fewer negative sociological consequences. McCarrison became an advocate for

wholefoods grown on soils fertilised by organic matter. Sir Albert Howard was

also working in India in the 1920s, researching the practices of peasant farmers.

His experiments similarly led him to observe that the health of humans, animals

and plants was inseparably linked with the health of soils. The ideas of these three

pioneers directly influenced a second wave of organic agriculture advocates from

the 1940s, evident in the establishment of organisations such as the Rodale

Institute in the United States and the Soil Association in the United Kingdom

(Kristiansen et al. 2006, p. 4-5).

The market for organic food happened in parallel with this movement from the

1920s. For example, the first organic coffee farm was established in Mexico in

1928, and the first organic logo ‘Demeter’ was also established that year

(Aschemann et al. 2007, p. 123). It was not until after the Second World War that

wider consumer awareness of pesticides in food and food scares involving

chemicals began to emerge (Belasco 2007, p. 69-72). The 1960s saw concerned

individuals forming alternative food distribution networks in the form of

cooperatives and communes. In the 1970s, the environmental movement was

taking an interest in organic farming, and the first dedicated organic retailers were

established in the USA and Europe. Owners of these stores and their customers

were not only concerned about the issues of industrial agriculture, but also about

broader environmental factors such as nuclear energy and industrial pollution

(Aschemann et al. 2007, p. 124).

In reaction to the upsurge in consumer interest, previously non-market-oriented

organic farming organisations around the world began to see themselves as

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guardians of organic integrity and principles. Their role was to carefully nurture

consumers’ notions of sound environmental stewardship and the idea that organic

farming had a social justice dimension which aimed to improve the quality of life

for those involved with it (Sligh & Cierpka 2007, p. 35-36). Groups like the UK

Soil Association became increasingly oriented around the idea of commericalising

organic food. The Soil Association graduated into the first certification body to

develop and oversee commercial production standards (Conford & Holden 2007,

p. 193-194).

By the 1980s, the available lines of organic food had expanded, and involvement

of bigger players such as the supermarkets broadened out the consumer base

(Aschemann et al. 2007, p. 128). Governments, especially those in Europe, began

to shift from being indifferent or hostile towards organic food to supporting its

development through legislated standards and subsidies to convert farmers to the

organic system (Padel & Lampkin 2007, p. 94-95).

Wynen and Fritz (2007) describe how the development of Australian organic food

fits within this international history. Unlike the cases of Europe and the United

States, Australian consumers were still largely unaware of organic food in the first

half of the 1980s. Even by the mid-1980s, there were only negligible amounts of

organic food available commercially, and it was not until the 1990s that

governmental support came in the way of ratifying standards. The Australian case

is one where a coalition of groups within the sustainable agriculture movement

cooperated from the early 1980s to form an umbrella organisation with the

purpose of transforming food production away from conventional methods. From

its inauguration in 1986, the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture

Australia (NASAA) pioneered the first commercial organic standards and

certification system in Australia; raised awareness with both the public and policy

makers about the shortcomings of conventional agriculture vis-à-vis sustainable

agriculture; increased the stock of farming knowledge by organising conferences

and seminars at a time when no agricultural institutions officially taught organic

farming; and identified export opportunities, guiding farmers on how to seize

those opportunities. In short NASAA was crucial to the initial commercialisation

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of organic food.

There are several other studies within the social sciences that have explored the

development of the Australian organic food market. They cover a wide range of

subjects such as: consumer motivations behind organic food consumption (Lockie

et al. 2001; Lockie et al. 2002; Lawrence et al. 2003; Lockie et al. 2004; Lyons

2006); the marketing of organic food (Lockie et al. 2000); the increasing interest

in organic food by major supermarkets (Lyons 2007); large corporate food

companies using organic food to signal environmental responsibility (Lyons

1999); the degree to which the organic food industry is coming to mirror the

structures of its conventional counterpart (Lockie & Halpin 2005); the capacity of

the Australian state to foster the development of organic food (Halpin &

Daugbjerg 2008); issues with organic food labelling (Chang 2005); the discursive

construction of organic food by the media (Lockie 2006); and in the case of

Lockie et al. (2006), a landmark exploration of the entire market, from producers

through to consumers, and the role of the state.

This wealth of research is almost entirely focused on the period after 1990.

Although the market for organic food was still in its early stages and faced a

number of coordination problems, key structures such as standards and

certification, commercial supply channels, and general consumer awareness had

already been established at this point (see Hudson & RIRDC 1996). The account

by Wynen and Fritz (2007) is a harbinger in shedding some light on how organic

food graduated from a social movement to a commercial market, but limited in

that it trades off depth for breadth. For example, NASAA’s role in developing

standards is only accorded two paragraphs. The current thesis will provide the

first major analysis of how the organic food market emerged and initially

developed in Australia from the early 1980s.

An economic sociological approach

In his discussion paper ‘The Social Order of Markets’, the sociologist Jens Becket

provocatively stated that it is ‘surprising how little attention has been paid to the

study of markets in modern economic theory’ (2007, p. 5). Beckert contended that

general equilibrium theory, which propels mainstream neoclassical economics, is

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not interested in studying the empirical operation of markets and its institutional

structures, but rather in gaining ‘mathematical proof of efficiency postulates,

conducted under a variety of simplifying assumptions’ (2007, p. 5). Similarly,

Nobel Prize-winning economist Douglass North (1993) argued in his Prize

Lecture that mainstream economics is an inappropriate tool to examine how

markets emerge and develop, because its frictionless and static worldview

dismisses how institutions and temporality matter in shaping markets.

The current study presents an alternative theoretical tradition drawn from

sociology. Since Granovetter published ‘Economic action and social structure: the

problem of embeddedness’ in 1985, economic sociology has developed a rich

literature that broadly understands markets as social structures known as fields,

networks, cultures and performances. All four camps directly or tacitly draw on

the notion that social structures are vital in influencing economic outcomes

(Fourcade 2007, p. 1016-1019).

The literature within economic sociology has traditionally attempted to understand how

shared social structures work to mitigate period to period uncertainty, and provide a

stable and predictable basis for economic exchange. A major criticism has been that by

focusing too heavily on stability-inducing mechanisms, the discipline has been left with

less theoretical development in understanding how market destabilisation and disruption

can bring about change and emergence (King & Pearce 2010, p. 250).

The recent opening of dialogue between organisational and social movement scholars

seeks to address this deficiency by studying the role of contention and disruptive politics

in markets. The broad view is that stable markets are general agreements between

bounded sets of actors about how to organise their collective social space. These interests

vie for advantage by identifying broader environmental opportunities, framing

alternative courses of action, and building or appropriating collective action vehicles to

mobilise supporters around their vision of the market (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 9-

23). Markets, however, produce unequal outcomes and access points for different groups,

making settled orders the target of rolling conflict from those looking to improve their

foothold and establish alternative, fairer forms of organising vis-à-vis more powerful

actors (King & Pearce 2010, p. 250). Market challengers can either directly face

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incumbents to push for transformation, or forge niches in line with their alternative

visions (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 13).

Using this approach to study how social movements or movement-like actors affect the

emergence of new markets, market categories or industries is still in its early stages

(Weber et al. 2008, p. 529). As noted by Weber et al., few studies have explored ‘why

entrepreneurial producers begin their projects, what guides their technology and strategy

development, and how alternative logics that support a market niche are articulated in the

first place’ (2008, p. 530).

The current study joins this line of inquiry, following the novel approach by Dubuisson-

Quellier (2013), who is the first to explicitly import the economic sociology of valuation

(Karpik 2010) into this converging body of research between organisational and social

movement scholars. By adding the dimension of valuation, this work teases out the micro

details of how social movements or social movement-like actors construct judgment

devices (or knowledge operators) that imbue products with qualities consistent with a set

of moral values. By legitimising particular notions of quality, movements motivate

producers and consumers to act in ways that are consistent with their principles, while

simultaneously de-legitimising products or practices that reflect conflicting principles to

the movement. The study by Dubuisson-Quellier is focused on cases in already-

established markets. My thesis takes its cues from this approach, but applies it to

understanding market emergence.

The current study

In her 1985 book The Food Makers, Australian Financial Review journalist Sarah

Sargent offers a rare snapshot of the relationship between Australian farmers and

transnational agricultural chemical companies during the early 1980s. Sargent highlights

how farmers were overwhelmingly concerned about the role that pesticide usage played

in health and environmental hazards, but were locked into chemical usage for two main

reasons. Firstly, the cost of other farming inputs such as credit, wages and machinery

was rising, which meant that making a profit relied on the increasing replacement of

these more labour-intensive inputs with chemical applications that reduced uncertainty

about crop losses. Secondly, farmers were stuck on a pesticide treadmill, where ‘like the

medical dangers in humans of abusing antibiotics, it often leads to the evolution of

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resistant varieties of pests which require still more pesticides to control them’ (1985, p.

94).

To keep local farmers using their products, the chemical companies used advertising and

the deployment of an extensive network of salespeople, who mimicked the role of

official agricultural extension officers, pushing newer products as solutions. Despite

Australia accounting for only a small fraction of worldwide chemical sales, Sergeant

noted a larger agenda at play for the chemical industry. The Australian climate and

agriculture enabled ‘companies whose head offices are in the northern hemisphere to test

chemicals for application elsewhere in the tropics’ (Sargent 1985, p. 88). In essence,

Australia was treated as ‘a politically inert stepping stone between the West and the

Third World countries of Asia and the Pacific’ (1985, p. 88).

Despite farmers’ recognition of the commercial imperative of chemical usage, evidence

from a 1983 poll conducted by industry newspaper the National Farmer signalled a

strong desire to get off the pesticide treadmill. The poll reported that 97 percent of all

respondents indicated their preference to use alternative methods of weed and pest

control, including biological or organic, if these techniques were proven as effective as

existing chemical methods (Sargent 1985, p. 93).

The departure point of this thesis is that the sustainable agriculture social movement

initially mobilised during the early 1980s, with the ultimate goal of transforming the way

food was produced in Australia. The movement aimed to legitimise an alternative model

of food production that re-imagined mainstream agriculture as avoiding rather than

centralising chemicals. Therefore my starting assumption is that sustainable agriculture

was a challenger to the entrenched incumbent interests within the conventional food

market. Taking a challenger-incumbent approach allows us to track the tactical actions

from sustainable agriculture and their allies, while simultaneously tracking the counter-

response from incumbent actors like the chemical industry, whose interests would be

eroded should organic food become legitimised.

This thesis focused on four research questions:

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(1) What were the main strategic actions deployed by the sustainable

agriculture movement and its allies in trying to commercialise organic

food and similar forms of sustainable agriculture in Australia from the

early 1980s?

(2) What was the response of entrenched interests within conventional

agriculture?

(3) What does this case study tell us about the interplay between disruptive

politics and the establishment of new markets?

(4) What does this case study tell us about the role of judgment devices in the

creation of new markets?

The current study analysed thousands of pages from texts produced by key actors,

who were identified as being crucial in the development or constraint of the

Australian organic food market. Texts were mostly drawn from movement and

industry media (such as newsletters, journals and newspapers), and events (such

as conference proceedings and seminar papers). These were supplemented by 11

targeted interviews with pioneering organic retailers, intermediaries and

certification body actors. To understand market emergence, the data was analysed

with process methods, which are designed specifically to ‘address questions about

how and why things emerge, develop, grow, or terminate over time’ (Langley et

al. 2013, p. 1). Process methods capture rich qualitative descriptions of critical

incidents and events, which are assembled into their temporal order and then

constructed into a narrative of development and change (Langley 1999, p. 692-

693).

My findings suggest that the emergence and initial development of the Australian

organic food market cannot be fully understood without accounting for a broader

political process. This process draws together a wider range of actors into an

extended episode of contention (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 21-22) around

issues of safe food production. From the early 1980s, public awareness and

demand for chemical-free food emerged, which destabilised the conventional

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model of production that relied on chemical farming practices. At that time, the

sustainable agricultural movement planned and implemented structures that

facilitated the commercialisation of organic food. These structures included

production standards, a coordinated supply chain, and supporting the industry

through the establishment of dedicated media and technical conferences.

Ultimately the sustainable agriculture movement gained enough traction to create

a new market niche in organic food, but its plan to transform food production was

stalled in large part by the combined action of the state and powerful incumbents

led by the agricultural chemical industry.

Outline of chapters

Chapter Two provides the context for the research. I briefly set out the

foundational assumptions of a sociological approach to understanding markets

vis-à-vis a mainstream economic approach. I then detail the increasing

convergence between organisational and social movement research, and how

common mechanisms are being used to study the role of contention in

transforming or creating new markets. Next I offer finer detail of Fligstein and

McAdams’ A Theory of Fields framework. This state-of-the-art theoretical

development forms the major lens for the current study. Finally, I present the

economic sociology of valuation. I demonstrate how its inclusion in the

conversation between social movement and organisational scholars can provide a

much more nuanced picture of new market emergence and dynamics.

Chapter Three presents the methods, where I detail my research design. I outline

the research perspective, deciding on a research site, choosing focal actors, and

the selection, collection and analysis of textual and interview data. By adopting

process methods, my aim was to analyse data into temporal brackets (Langley

1999), which present a narrative about successive and distinct periods of a

market’s emergence and development.

The findings chapters that follow present three temporal brackets that equate to

periods of market planning, implementing and consolidating. Chapter Four covers

the period between 1982 and 1986. It focuses on three inter-related events that

were crucial to the initial planning of a commercialised organic food market in

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Australia. The first event was the rise in political prominence of the Australian

consumer movement. The movement introduced notions of consumer safety, and

successfully oriented states and the public around the potential hazards of

conventional food production. The second event was the unfolding crisis of the

Australian chemical industry over the growing perception that its products and

practices were hazardous to society. This pushed the industry to counter-mobilise

and neutralise its critics. The third event was the mobilisation of previously-

fragmented sustainable agriculture movement groups into a federal coalition. The

role of a particularly skilled actor is highlighted as being crucial to this

mobalisation.

Chapter Five addresses the period between 1987 and 1989, and focuses on three

inter-related events that were crucial to the implementation of the Australian

organic food market. The first event was a massive food scare in 1987 regarding

Australian-produced beef. The crisis was large enough to threaten a disruption of

the broader agricultural exports market, and became the departure point for

subsequent events. The second event was that crucial actors within the agricultural

policy domain, such as Departments of Agriculture and key political parties,

began to consider the relative pros and cons between chemical and non-chemical

forms of food production. The third event was that a host of actors from the

sustainable agriculture movement worked to improve the main problem faced by

the market, being the consistency of supply.

Chapter Six covers the period between 1990 and 1995. It focuses on three key

events that were crucial to the constraint and consolidation of Australian organic

food as a market niche. The first event describes how the rapid growth of the

organic food market was stalled by a crisis on two fronts: a sharp drop in

consumer demand due to an economy-wide recession, and the surfacing of

fraudulent incidents that threatened consumer trust in the authenticity of organic

food. The second event was the Federal Government’s unprecedented

transformation of the Australian food policy field, and how this change

legitimised organic food, but simultaneously constrained the criticism towards

conventional food production. The third event tracks how key actors within the

sustainable agriculture movement worked to mitigate their field’s instability. I

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highlight two key projects, being the fortification of the price-premium system

and extension of organic food standards. Taken together, the three findings

chapters offer a novel historical narrative of how the Australian organic food

market emerged and developed from the early 1980s.

Chapter Seven offers the conclusion. This chapter ties together and synthesises

the major findings of the current study. The main theoretical argument is that

during episodes of contention, judgment devices (Karpik 2010) are vital tools

challengers incumbents can use to legitimise products, and more broadly their

models of field organisation vis-à-vis competitor models. Securing the support of

one’s devices from key stakeholders such as consumers, producers and the state

gives great advantage during an episode of contention. In particular, having the

state officially ratify or tacitly support one’s devices simultaneously constrains the

influence of competitors, and helps one gain or maintain dominance within a

strategic action field.

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–CHAPTER TWO–

Literature Review

With its rational actor model, its barely concealed libertarianism,

its assumption that the individual has fixed tastes and preferences

utterly uninfluenced by social relationships, its preoccupation with

the material, its inability to come to grips with non-monetary

values and its intense focus on the price mechanism, economics –

which influences the perceptions of many politicians and business

people, not just professional economists – is blind to many

important aspects of economic life, not to mention being blind to

non-material objectives. Economists simply don’t see many of the

institutions sociologists study. They often take insufficient account

of the role of formal institutions such as laws; norms of behaviour

they are usually oblivious to. And yet those norms affect the vigour

with which firms pursue profits and the choices consumers make.

(Ross Gittins, Economics Editor for the The Sydney Morning

Herald 2008)

Overview

In this chapter I present the theoretical context for the current study. The approach is

drawn from the new economic sociology. Within Australian sociology, political

economy and critical theory have dominated scholars’ approach to the economy. The re-

emergence of economic sociology has been largely ignored (Gilding 2005, p. 310), but

strong foundational statements are beginning to emerge (see Spies-Butcher et al. 2012).

This review will simultaneously counter the sparse discussion on the discipline, and

justify its adoption for understanding the emergence of the organic food market in

Australia. Firstly, I establish the basic differences between mainstream economic

understandings of markets, vis-à-vis the economic sociological approach. Secondly, I

present a major recent development within economic sociology, which is the increasing

convergence between organisational and social movement studies. In particular, I outline

the shared mechanisms adopted by these scholars, and present a small but flourishing

  13  

offshoot of this conversation, which studies how social movements or social movement-

like action can affect the emergence of new economic markets. Thirdly, Fligstein and

McAdam’s A Theory of Fields is explored. This framework is a state-of-the-art

development within this converging literature, and forms the main theoretical lens for the

current study. Finally, I present the economic sociology of valuation. I demonstrate how

its inclusion in the conversation between social movement and organisational scholars

offers a much more nuanced and fine-grained picture of market dynamics.

SECTION 1: ECONOMICS VIS-À-VIS ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY

The historical divide

Around the time Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations, there was not such a

sharp divide between social and economic topics, but rather ‘an easy mingling of the

two’ (Swedberg & Granovetter 2001, p. 3). This is particularly evident in classical

sociology, where the founding commentators were trying to understand the newly-

emergent economy and its implications for modern society (Swedberg 2003, p. 6-22).

The divide of economics and sociology was characterised by academic turf battles,

which saw sociology ultimately retreat from focusing on the economic dimensions of life

to untaken subjects such as the family (Granovetter 1990, p. 89). Between the late

nineteenth century and the 1930s, economics was engaged in what was known as the

‘battle of methods’, which split the discipline into two camps. In one camp was the then

dominant historicist school, which argued that any study of the economy must include

both historical and institutional dimensions. In the other camp was the marginalist

school, which argued for an economics fashioned on hard positivist science, striving to

develop mathematically-driven theories that held at all times in all places (Hass 2007, p.

6). The marginalists were victorious, and by the 1950s, sociology and economics had

developed into mirror images of each other, with economists only seeing rational, self-

interested individuals, while sociologists ‘tried to explain everything in terms of groups,

social structures, the force of tradition, and the like’ (Swedberg 1990, p. 35).

Economic imperialism and the new economic sociology

By the 1980s, the emergence of the neo-liberal paradigm and the rising status of

economists saw a transgressing of boundaries, where economists began taking on topics

traditionally the domain of other social sciences (Swedberg 2003, p. 32). Their

imperialistic logic largely ignored the knowledge already accumulated by other

  14  

disciplines, and attempted to replace it with insights from the economic approach

(Swedberg 1990, p. 36-7). A well-cited example is Nobel laureate-winning economist

Garry Becker, who claimed that economics could be used to understand any

phenomenon in society. In A Theory of Marriage for example, Becker claimed that

marriage functions like any other monetary market. Men and woman compete as they

seek out mates, and attempt to maximise their utility by finding the best mate (1974, p.

814).

In the 1980s, a new wave of sociology countered the imperialism of economics by

examining economic phenomena through a sociological lens. In 1985, an article by Mark

Granovetter entitled ‘Economic Action and Social Structure: the problem of

embeddedness’ built on the concepts of Karl Polanyi and extended an approach already

present in the work of structural sociologists such as Harrison White. This article is

recognised as being the fuse that ignited the resurgence of what came to be known as the

‘new economic sociology’ (Krippner & Alvarez 2007, p. 223), and has since become the

most cited paper in sociology during the postwar period (Fligstein & Dauter 2007, p.

106). The basic argument deployed by Granovetter (1985) was that economics is blind to

the way social structure matters in economic contexts. Actors are re-cast from atomised

utility maximisers – as understood by classical economics – to being always situated and

influenced by ongoing systems of social relations, which are constituted by varying

levels of trust, power, and cooperation. By acknowledging both social and economic

dimensions, Granovetter aimed to steer a middle course between the under-socialised

approach of economics, and the over-socialised approach of sociology.

Trigilia drew on the work of Karl Polanyi to clarify the ‘middle course’ set out by

Granovetter, by describing two contrasting definitions of the economy. The first, which

underpins mainstream economics, defines the economy as ‘activities that involve the

rational allocation of scarce resources in order to obtain the most from the means

available’ (2002, p. 3). This viewpoint emphasises ‘economizing’, which assumes that

because individuals are propelled by rational interests, the market sets the rules of

interaction through supply, demand and the price mechanism. Therefore production,

distribution and exchange are understood in terms of individuals maximising utility.

Trigilia argued that adopting this first definition has allowed for great insight into how

supply and demand operates; it has developed a theoretical model that uses mathematics

  15  

to achieve a high degree of generalisation; and it has produced models for the prediction

and normative prescription of actors’ economic actions. However, it runs into problems

when it needs to understand variation in economic contexts. For example, why it is that

some capitalist societies take different paths or growth rates, or why some countries deal

with particular economic crises better than others. In such cases, ‘the institutional context

must be considered to provide a convincing interpretation’ (2002, p. 3).

This brings us to the second definition of the economy, aligned with economic sociology.

The economy is defined as ‘a body of activities which are usually carried out by

members of a society in order to produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services’

(Trigilia 2002, p. 2). The economy is broadly understood as an instituted process, where

actors follow relatively stable rules in order to satisfy their needs, whether those needs

are physical, cultural, social or otherwise. When actors produce, distribute or exchange

goods in order to satisfy needs, the economy is involved. Although this definition is

more general than the first, it gives the latitude needed to account for social context. Put

another way, it assumes that society may be organised in a variety of different ways, and

therefore it expects a variation in the way actors go about satisfying their needs (Trigilia

2002, p. 2).

This latter definition allows sociology to reconnect with the historicist tradition, which

posited that any study of society or the economy could not separate the economic from

social dimensions. For example:

[Religious] ideas may support an ascetic orientation toward material life and

encourage an anticonsumption environmentalism. Religious beliefs may require

regular tithing, or encourage contributions of time and money to missionaries or

nonreligious causes. Political ideas and institutions may be organized to

redistribute income through social welfare services and progressive tax policies.

Governments typically regulate financial institutions such as banks and

securities exchanges, and establish the rules by which corporations are formed

and business contracts enforced. In developed countries, families are

experienced primarily as consumption units as they buy homes and vacations,

but they may also be economic production units when they run businesses and

farms. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any sphere of social life that is not

  16  

implicated in the economy and, conversely, any part of the economy that is not

involved in noneconomic social realms. (Woolsey Biggart 2002, p. xii)

Woolsey Biggart’s example exemplifies a key assumption within economic sociology.

Topics such as religion, politics or the family are only partially understood unless their

connection to the economy is made clear.

The sociology of markets Market order as a social construction

As Fourcade (2007) noted, economic sociology has taken its departure point as

distinguishing itself from conventional economics. The sociological focus on markets

has been driven largely by the question of how market order is achieved (Fligstein 2001;

Beckert 2007). The conventional economic account goes like this: the presence of a

market implies that anonymous buyers and sellers exchange goods and services for

money. They are brought together through the forces of supply and demand. Prices are

understood to be the outcome of sellers seeking the highest amounts for their products,

and buyers looking to pay the lowest amounts, with exchange happening when both sides

agree that a particular monetary value is a mutually-optimal deal. Exchange is therefore

seen as beneficial to both parties, because any deviation from this would have resulted in

actors moving on until they found exchange partners who gave them what they wanted.

To this effect, exchange is a fleeting situation, because market actors are price-takers

uninfluenced by social relationships in the pursuit of utility maximisation (Hass 2007, p.

20-27). Maximisation can happen because individuals have ‘complete knowledge of

means-ends relationships and act on the basis to optimize their utility’ (Beckert 1996, p.

806). Market order happens because the aggregate of self-interested individuals neatly

clears the market (Beckert 2010, p. 609).

For economic sociology, this model of one-shot fleeting exchange ignores the

institutional underpinnings that contribute to market actors’ ongoing survival (Fligstein

2001, p. 30-31):

Market actors have to find one another. Money has to exist to allow market

actors to get beyond bartering nonequivalent goods. Actors have to know what

the price is. Underlying all exchange is that both buyers and sellers have faith

  17  

that they will not be cheated. Such faith often implies informal (i.e., personal

knowledge of the buyer or seller) and formal mechanisms (i.e., law) that govern

exchange. Furthermore, market actors are often organizations, implying that

organizational dynamics influence market structures. For sociologists, market

exchange implies a whole backdrop of social arrangements that economics does

not even begin to hint at. (Fligstein & Dauter 2007, p. 113)

These social structures work to create a predictability of human activities, thereby

reducing uncertainty around the coordination of production, consumption and

distribution of products (Aspers 2010, p. 17-18). Aspers furnishes the point by presenting

a useful thought experiment:

Imagine entering the local mall, but finding no stores. Instead, all kinds of items

are being sold here and there, by individuals whom you neither know nor

recognize. They also operate as buyers of the items. On top of all this, you do

not recognize any of the brand names of the [products], and you do not know

for how much they are being sold. In such circumstances, an actor is unable

either to predict or to calculate; there is no “market” from the buyer’s

perspective. Turning around to look at the market from the perspective of the

sellers, who do not know who their customers or competitors are, not to mention

prices, and furthermore have no access to quality standards that might provide

information on what [products] mean, the “consumer market” is in chaos, or

rather, there is no market: no “buyers” or “sellers” exist, and no principles for

evaluating the goods. Moreover, if suppliers … cannot identify retailers, or if

the retailers must organize production themselves, there is no supply market for

garments. Imagine, too, that there is no credit market, and it is soon hard to

imagine an economy at all. (Aspers 2010, p. 1)

Aspers’ example neatly illustrates how a lack of coordinated social structures would

likely result in a kind of uncertainty that hindered actors’ decision-making, and by

extension constrained the act of economic exchange.

Different facets of market order

There is a general consensus within economic sociology that the functioning of markets

  18  

rests on the construction and maintenance of social structures that bring stability. There

are, however, diverging approaches that focus on different types of mechanisms that lead

to market order. The new economic sociology has from its beginnings been a broad

church, encompassing several different perspectives (Swedberg 2003, p. 41), but over the

last two decades, its treatment of markets has been distilled into four main camps. These

are: markets as networks, markets as cultures, markets as performances, and markets as

fields (Beckert 2010; Fligstein & Dauter 2007; Fourcade 2007).

The markets as network approach focuses on the concrete social relations between

actors. Powell and Smith-Doerr describe networks as both ‘a lubricant for getting things

done and a glue that provides order and meaning to social life’ (1994, p. 379). Networks

offer market participants three main economic benefits, being access to information or

resources, timeliness in accessing information or resources, and referrals which enable

one to bypass formal structures and benefit from informal relationships (Powell &

Smith-Doerr 1994, p. 379). But those benefits are not spread evenly. On the one hand,

network structures are always undergoing a dynamic process where they change

‘continuously over time as actors, form new relations or drop old ties, enter or leave the

social system’ (Knoke 2012, p. 21). On the other hand, networks ‘penetrate irregularly

and in different degrees’ (Granovetter 1985, p. 491), and that unevenness of connection

affects ‘the information we have and actions we can undertake’ (Hass 2007, p. 11).

The ethnographic study by Uzzi (1997) serves as a clear example. He looked at inter-

firm exchanges within the New York apparel industry, finding that although firms

engaged in exchange that equated to what classical economics describes, it was the

handful of close networks that made a difference to their business. As a counterbalance

to market uncertainty, these firms relied on special relationships underpinned by trust,

which saw the transfer of vital market information as a tool for joint problem solving

(1997, p. 214-218). One of the many salient examples from the study came from one

clothing manufacturer, who would pass on information about ‘hot selling items’ to

people in his network before any other firms in the market knew about it. This

information transfer allowed firms in this particular network to gain a market advantage

by being able to meet future demand faster than their competitors (1997, p. 217).

The markets as cultures approach focuses on how culture constrains or enables economic

  19  

action. Zukin and DiMaggio argued that on one hand culture proscribes action by setting

the limits to economic rationality. On the other hand, culture can also prescribe

legitimate or credible ways of acting via ‘beliefs and ideologies, taken for granted

assumptions, or formal rule systems’ (1990, p. 17). These ways of acting can happen

through templates that are legitimised practices for perusing one’s economic interests, or

by defining the actors that may legitimately engage in particular actions (Zukin &

DiMaggio 1990, p. 17).

The classic study by Zelizer on the emergence of the US life insurance market during the

nineteenth century is instructive. The first attempt to create the market was not

successful, because of an incompatibility with broader moral values that saw the

financial compensation of widows or children for the loss of a husband or father as

sacrilege, and ultimately incommensurable. But by the later part of the nineteenth

century, broader structural shifts such as urbanisation opened the opportunity for life

insurance companies to gain legitimacy for their products. At the time, families were

solely dependent on the father’s wage for survival (1978, p. 594-595). The insurers re-

framed their marketing to justify life insurance on quasi-religious grounds. The claim

was that insurance was far more than an economic investment, but a protective shield

over the dying, and a consolidation next to religion itself. It linked insurance to meanings

of what a good death meant, recasting it as a moral duty of a good and responsible father,

and more broadly how this product would benefit society by alleviating poverty and

crime (1978, p. 602-603). Zelizer concluded that life insurance took on a symbolic

function that was removed from utilitarian calculations, coupling a commercial product

with the sacred rituals around death. In short, this market was enabled because it fitted

with the broad value system of a particular society at a particular time. This study

demonstrates the power of shifting cultural understandings in either limiting action, or

enabling action it deems legitimate (1978, p. 605-606).

The markets as performances approach focuses on how economics as a discipline does

things rather than simply describe ‘an external reality that is not affected by economics’

(Mackenzie 2007, p. 54). Mackenzie argued that performativity happens when an aspect

of economics is used by actors and has an effect on the economic process. This can be a

‘procedure, a model, a theory, a dataset, or whatever’ (2007, p. 60). That is to say, using

  20  

economic knowledge makes a difference to the constitution of the economy and markets

because it enacts the realities it describes (Callon 2006, p. 7).

Callon (1998, p. 19-20) illustrated this perspective by describing the establishment of a

strawberry market in the Solange region of France during the 1980s. Before this time,

exchange between buyers and sellers was informal and depended on interpersonal

relationships. It was the action of an elite from the local council, who implemented a host

of crucial changes that made the market work in accordance with neo-classical economic

theory. Buyers and sellers were physically separated, information about produce quality

was standardised, and computer technology facilitated auctions.

The markets as fields approach forms the main theoretical tradition on which the current

study draws. Therefore I will be presenting an extended treatment below. Before doing

so, I would point out that although these various camps have produced different

mechanisms for conceiving market order, it is important not to overstate their

differences, since in reality, empirical studies often combine these approaches. As

observed by Fligstein and Dauter, many scholars adopt similar concepts, but recognise

them by different terms. For example, all approaches hold culture as a central feature of

economic action, but harmonisation is masked by terminology such as ‘frames, logics,

performativity, scripts, conceptions of control, or local knowledge’ (2007, p. 106).

Markets as fields

The markets as fields approach draws heavily on the neo-institutional perspective within

organisational studies (see Fligstein 2001). The neo-institutional perspective developed

from the late 1970s, largely as a challenge to the sharp distinction ‘between those parts

of the social world said to reflect formal means-ends “rationality” [vis-à-vis] those parts

of the social world said to display a diverse set of practices associated with culture’ (Hall

& Taylor 1996, p. 946). Since Max Weber, the dominant view of organisation has been

that the bureaucratic structures that dominate the modern landscape, whether they be

government organisations, firms, schools or such, are the products of inherent rationality

or efficiency of such forms to perform particular tasks (1996, p. 946).

The foundational paper by Meyer and Rowan (1977) broke the conceptual hegemony by

describing organisations as sharing a common environment which significantly

  21  

influenced them through collective context-specific understandings about what it meant

to be rational. Common environments diffuse beliefs, rules, and roles, which are cultural

‘symbolic elements capable of affecting organizational forms independent of resource

flows and technical requirements’ (Scott 1991, p. 165). By conforming or ‘fitting’ with

prescribed models of action, organisations were in a better position to gain credibility

with the critical others they depended on for resources. This idea gave currency to the

notion that organizational structures were not necessarily manifestations of the most

economically-efficient forms, but rather they could appear to look rational, in order to

‘avoid social censure, minimize demands for external accountability, improve their

chances of securing necessary resources, [and most importantly] raise their probability of

survival’ (Greenwood et al. 2008, p. 4).

Unlike mainstream economics that grounded behaviour in rational action, the

institutional perspective assumed that a major driver of action was the attempt to mitigate

risk and manage legitimacy; therefore actors are cast less as utility maxamisers and more

uncertainty minimisers. Cultural resources such as legitimacy become as important as

economic resources. Of course organisations need money to operate and survive, but if

key market gatekeepers perceive an organisation as flouting the rules – using antiquated

technologies, not having a human resources department, engaging in collusion and so on

– they may withhold funding, tell others to withhold resources, or in the case of the state

or professional organisations, withhold support from certification, training and the like

(Hass 2007, p. 103).

Subsequent to Meyer and Rowan, DiMaggio and Powell offered a sharper definition of

environments. Organizational fields were defined as ‘those organizations that, in the

aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and

product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar

services or products’ (1983, p. 148). At the core of DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983)

argument was that these communities of organisations are shaped by collective or

isomorphic pressures from their shared environments, which push actors towards

homogeneity in form and practice. Three key mechanisms, being coercive, mimetic, and

normative, are observed as underpinning the dynamics of field structure.

By the late 1990s, the neo-institutional approach had come under criticism for giving too

  22  

much weight to the isomorphic approach, which focused heavily on stable taken-for-

granted structures at the expense of questions of political conflict, agency and change

(Greenwood et al. 2008, p. 134). Hoffman offered an important re-casting of the field, as

being more than just a collection of influential organisations that imposed isomorphic

pressures on a focal organisation or an organisational population. Fields were also ‘the

centre of common channels of dialogue and debate’ (1999, p. 352). Hoffman’s own

study looked at changes in the field of corporate environmentalism from the 1960s,

making the point that both the chemical industry and environmentalists occupied a

common field, but shared different views and beliefs about the environment. Therefore it

was important to acknowledge that fields contained collections of homogenous and

conflicting groups which formed around issues that become important to their goals and

interests. To emphasise the point, Hoffman argued that when Rachael Carson’s now-

classic environmentalist book Silent Spring by was released in 1962, the chemical

industry ignored it, but were later forced to enter into field-level dialogue with a raft of

government agencies, scientific organisations and conservation groups around the issue

of pesticide toxicity. More than that, actors’ membership of the field may be finite,

corresponding with the emergence, growth and decline of a particular issue. This meant

that membership could be for a short or extended period, with actors entering and exiting

multiple times, depending on whether they perceived the prevailing or impending field

dynamics to be a threat to their interests and objectives (1999, p. 352).

On the question of institutional change, early organisational theorists largely explained

the effect of exogenous shocks, like wars and crises such as recessions, as disruptors of

environments. How actors inside a field were capable of bringing about change was

largely ignored (Rao et al. 2003). The introduction of the institutional entrepreneur

concept was a crucial way of addressing issues of agency, interests and power. The

concept was introduced by DiMaggio, who argued that new institutions could be created

when key individuals or organisations ‘see in them an opportunity to realize interests that

they value highly’ (1988, p. 14). Maguire et al. defined the process of institutional

entrepreneurship as the ‘activities of actors who have an interest in particular

institutional arrangements and who leverage resources to create new institutions or to

transform existing ones’ (2004, p. 657). Rao and Giorgi drew a distinction between the

narrow conceptualisation of an economic entrepreneur being one who takes on

uncertainty in return for profit, with an institutional entrepreneur whose work includes

  23  

the more broad practice of de-institutionalising ‘existing beliefs, norms, and values

embodied in extant social structures and establish new structures that instantiate new

beliefs, norms, and values’ (2006, p. 271). Specifically, such actors attempt to construct

opportunities for change by proposing justifications for why existing models of action

are ineffective, and then propose a set of practices embodying alternative ways of

organising (Rao et al. 2003, p. 805).

Fligstein and Mara-Drita (1996) neatly drew the field literature together in their

empirical study of the creation of the European Union ‘Single Market Project’ (SMP). In

the early 1980s, the EU hit a series of crises, which included: a slowing down of

economic growth across Europe; nation states finding that their membership was

increasingly constraining their ability to adopt fiscal or monetary policy to stimulate their

economies; business leaders perceiving Japanese and American companies as more

efficient and ready to take away their market share; and leaders of member states deeply

disagreeing on the solution to the crisis. A stalemate between stakeholders ensued,

threatening to end the EU entirely. Then with his ascension to the presidency in 1985,

Jacques Delors began proposing the SMP as a solution to the stalled progress. Rather

than offering a narrow detailed definition of the SMP, Delores framed the project in

broad and ambiguous terms. This allowed room for member states and business elites to

superimpose their own meanings. Many of the key constituents had been won over to the

project ‘because it was an overarching idea that contained few specifics and could be

read as broadly consistent with everyone’s interest’ (Fligstein & Mara-Drita 1996, p. 12).

As president, Delors was in a position of authority, had the credibility to propose a new

course of action, and was able to reach all of the relevant field stakeholders. But he acted

as an institutional entrepreneur, framing a course of action that seemed plausible enough

to satisfy both individual and collective state interests (Fligstein & Mara-Drita 1996).

SECTION 2: MARKETS AND CONTENTION

King and Pearce (2010, p. 250) noted that recent sociological depictions of economic life

are turning from a focus on the stability-inducing mechanisms of exchange to the role of

contention in markets. In their words:

[For] markets to survive, they must be able to connect people and organizations,

as well as satisfy the needs that each brings to the exchange; however, because

  24  

markets tend to centralize resources and power, because not every member of

society has equal access to all markets, and because markets sometimes produce

harmful externalities, markets frequently become locations of contestation and

disruption. One need only turn on the evening news to see the contentiousness

of markets. Markets are at the center of controversial issues such as global

warming, exploitation of child labor, discrimination, and health care inequities.

(King & Pearce 2010, p. 250)

For King and Pearce, the broadening of focus offers economic sociology a dynamic view

of markets, where rolling conflict propels institution-building activity, and negotiated

settlements between competing and disparately-resourced actors (2010, p. 250). The

converging approach between organisation and social movement scholars has broadly

taken up this program, with empirical studies covering a wide range of topics, such as:

the emergence of new markets and industries (Lounsbury et al. 2003; Sine & Lee 2009;

Munir & Phillips 2005; Weber et al. 2008; Carlos et al. 2014); the transformation of

existing markets and industries (Rao et al. 2003); how actors external to corporate

organisations deploy tactics to constrain or enable particular economic practices (Walker

et al. 2008; Schurman 2004; King & Soule 2007); and how elites mobilise to protect

their economic interests (Vogus & Davis 2005). The aim of this section is to explore the

key facets of this converging view.

Shared mechanisms of change

In an early attempt to bridge disciplines, Campbell pointed out that because organisations

and social movements are both types of coordinated collective action, there is great scope

for both phenomena to be analysed in similar ways. More than that, harmonisation is not

a radical step. Although both disciplines had developed separately along parallel paths,

they share common ground on how organisations and movements emerge, develop and

change (2005, p. 41-42).

Campbell described three main mechanisms that form a common basis for a convergent

view on social change. The first is environmental, referring to the external conditions

organisational actors face, which have the propensity either to motivate and trigger

action, or constrain the range of options available. The concept of political opportunity

structure is a staple for social movement theorists. This describes several components,

  25  

being: the extent to which challengers to the status quo can access and influence the

formal political institutions in their environment; whether there is stability in the political

elite; whether challengers have allies within the political elite; and the extent to which

political authorities are prepared to repress a challenge to the status quo (2005, p. 43).

Campbell illustrated this mechanism through the case of opposition to the commercial

nuclear power industry in France, Germany and Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s. In

France the anti-nuclear movement faced a set of closed, protected, and centralised

political structures that gave activists little access to policymaking spaces. By contrast,

the German political institutions were more de-centralised and open. Activists were able

to participate in several political arenas, including successfully organising a Green Party,

and using the courts to slow and stop the construction of new nuclear plants. The

Swedish activists were most successful. Policymaking in their country generally involves

high inclusion of groups on important policy issues, which allowed activists to work

closely with elites in one of the major political parties. In sum, Campbell demonstrated

how the impermeability of French policy arenas vis-à-vis the moderate permeability of

German, and the high permeability of Swedish structures (particularly access to their

elite), presented different structures that affected the range of options and tactics

available to actors pushing for social change. Ultimately these structures shaped the

potential success of those actors in pushing change agendas (2005, p. 45).

Moreover, the opportunity structures actors face at any one time are not static and

immutable, because any general change in social practices or events has the potential to

undermine or contradict the calculations and assumptions of the status quo (McAdam

1982, p. ix). These processes may be as dramatic as economic crisis, war, demographic

shift or pressure from political authorities (Kriesi 2004, p. 67). For example, Rao et al.

(2003, p. 803) described how the political unrest in Paris during May 1968 created the

potential for radical shifts in gastronomy. The instability brought a new anti-

establishment sentiment, which undermined the weakened status quo of classical cuisine

and enabled the rise of nouvelle cuisine.

McAdam et al. (1996) argued that shifts in the political opportunity structures are vital

prerequisites of change, because the status quo is rendered more vulnerable or open to

challenge. Nevertheless, change does not graduate simply because the environment held

  26  

the potential for change. Opportunities need also to be ‘defined as such by a group of

actors sufficiently well organized to act on this shared definition of the situation’ (1996,

p. 8, emphasis in the original). Thus the second mechanism is termed relational, which

refers to the formal and informal organisational vehicles that provide the base of

mobilised actors, and a platform by which they deploy action (Campbell 2005, p. 61).

Institutional entrepreneurs must ‘create an organizational vehicle and supporting

collective identity as prerequisites for action or appropriate an existing organization and

the routine collective identity on which it rests’ (McAdam 2003, p. 218). These vehicles

can vary widely, taking the form of groups, organisations and social networks (McAdam

et al. 1996, p. 3). They can be formal, as in social movement organisations, voluntary

associations or the state; or informal, as in the family, friendship or neighborhood

networks (McCarthy 1996, p. 141).

In essence mobilisation implies the process by which ‘a group secures collective control

over the resources needed for collective action’ (Jenkins 1983, p. 532). As noted by

Campbell, a key to this process lies in the network structures linking individuals and

organisations. As touched on earlier, networks serve as conduits for the diffusion of ‘new

models, concepts, and practices [and] help determine the sources of mass support’ (2005,

p. 61) for a collective action project.

The classic example by McAdam (1982) clarified the dynamics. Studying the rise of the

civil rights movement in America, McAdam argued that although the action by Rosa

Parks was a significant focal event, the infrastructure of action that enabled the ensuing

381-day boycott of busses in Montgomery was already present. Specifically:

These are not the organizations that were formed in the heat of the struggle, but

rather the preexisting political and potentially political organizations that existed

among the aggrieved community. The organizations provide members who can

be recruited as a group, respected leaders, a communications network, and

individual ties. For the early Civil Rights Movements, these institutions

included black churches, black colleges, and the NAACP, all of which saw

rapid growth in the decades immediately prior to the movement. (Caren 2007, p.

2)

  27  

The final of the three mechanisms is cognitive, referring to the creation of collective

meanings in regard to particular phenomenon. The main concept of framing is adopted

here, referring to how actors motivate others by presenting ‘issues that resonate with the

ideologies, identities, and cultural understandings of supporters and others that might be

drawn to their cause’ (Campbell 2005, p. 49). Actors pushing for social change engage in

a process of meaning creation, which involves identifying a problem facing a population

of actors – referred to as diagnostic framing – and supplying a solution to that problem –

referred to as prognostic framing. By creating packages of meaning, actors are better

enabled ‘to locate, perceive, identify, and label occurrences within their life space and

world at large’ (Snow et al. 1986, p. 464). It is through the highlighting of certain

occurrences or events as being more meaningful than others that ‘frames function to

organize experience and guide action, whether individual or collective’ (Snow et al.

1986, p. 464). In short, framing is about making sense of opportunity structures, and the

course of action that will attain certain goals.

Emerging markets and movements

A fledgling line of inquiry that has developed within this convergent approach has been

to study how social movements, or social movement-like actors, affect the emergence of

new organisational forms – whether it is a new industry, market, technology or product.

As argued by Weber et al., few studies have explored ‘why entrepreneurial producers

begin their projects, what guides their technology and strategy development, and how

alternative logics that support a market niche are articulated in the first place’ (2010, p.

530).

The touchstone article by Aldrich and Fiol established the notion that entrepreneurs in

new markets face a vastly different set of conditions than actors ‘that simply carry on a

tradition pioneered by thousands of predecessors in the same industry’ (1994, p. 645).

All entrepreneurs face common problems such as recognising opportunities, pulling

together resources, and recruiting and training employees. However, those actors

involved in new ventures face the additional problem of legitimacy on two fronts. The

first is cognitive legitimacy, referring to the deficiency in general understandings about

what the new venture is about, and what is required to be successful in that venture. The

second is socio-political legitimacy, referring to the deficiency of the new activity

aligning with accepted principles, rules and standards held by important stakeholders

  28  

such as the public, key opinion leaders or government officials. The lack of cognitive

and socio-political legitimacy serves to magnify common problems for pioneering

entrepreneurs, such as gaining ‘access to capital, markets, and governmental protection’

(1994, p. 647-648).

In the next section I will provide finer detail on the handful of key studies that

demonstrate how social movements, or social movement-like actors, populate an

unorganised market space and address these issues of legitimacy. By doing so,

movements can provide the initial platforms that can be leveraged by new ventures .

Supply, demand and resources

Hiatt et al. (2009) argued that social movements can affect the emergence of new

markets in three ways: by facilitating supply, facilitating demand, and providing

resources that can be leveraged by economic entrepreneurs. Regarding supply,

movements create ‘push’ factors that motivate a cohort of entrepreneurs to join a new

space and actively create product alternatives that align with movement values (2009, p.

644). In their study on the emergence of the US soft drink market during the early 1900s,

Hiatt et al. found that the new market was closely linked to the actions of the temperance

movement, primarily the activism of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement

(WCTU). The increasing popularity of support for values of temperance drew a wave of

soft-drink entrepreneurs who were ideological sympathisers, offering alternatives to

alcohol. One example was Charles Elmer Hires, a devout Quaker and teetotaler. Hires

invented root beer as ‘a drink that would replace beer, the typical beverage of hard-

drinking Pennsylvania miners’ (2009, p. 646).

The second way that social movements can facilitate market emergence is by creating

‘pull’ factors, which create shifts in consumption patterns by motivating consumers to

adopt certain values or behaviors in line with the movement ideology (Hiatt et al. 2009,

p. 644). Again the process of framing is pivotal in these cases. Hiatt et al. (2009)

observed a second wave of entrepreneurs entering the fledging soft drinks market, who

were less motivated by a commitment to the values of temperance. These actors

recognised that the success of the WCTU in de-ligitimising alcoholic beverages had

cultivated consumer desire for substitute products. It was this ‘pull’ of consumers that

saw companies such as Coca-Cola re-position itself to better fit with this newly-

  29  

cultivated demand that valued non-alcoholic beverages. The company recognised that it

‘could increase its sales by altering its organizational identity from a pharmaceutical

company to a producer of temperance-consistent leisure drinks’ (2009, p. 647).

The third way in which social movements can inspire entrepreneurial activity in new

markets is by facilitating ‘shifts in resources from one set of activities to new activities’

(Hiatt et al. 2009, p. 644). One crucial factor here is how pre-existing infrastructure

provides entrepreneurs with opportunity structures or vehicles to mobilise within. Again,

Hiatt et al. (2009) described how the success of the temperance movement created the

demise of a number of breweries. This occurrence ‘released resources – employees,

equipment, assets, supplies, and patrons – back into the environment, allowing soft drink

entrepreneurs to exploit them’ (2009, p. 648). In a similar vein, Rao (2009, p. 3-4)

explored how social movements can create the fundamental infrastructure that entire

markets are built on. The study challenged the dominant hero-worshiping notion that

Henry Ford established the US car industry when he automated production and brought

down prices. According to Rao, it was a preceding network of car clubs during the late

1800s that were crucial in legitimising the car as an economic object. At the time, there

was a general misunderstanding about how cars worked; cars had a negative reputation

for being unreliable vis-à-vis the horse and carriage; and there was strong opposition

from anti-speeding organisations. The car club networks were neither financed nor

funded by the manufacturers, but were simply social networks of enthusiasts, pushing to

popularise the car as a form of transport that fitted with the new era. The groups actions

were wide ranging:

In addition to working with state governments to draft laws licensing cars and

mandating speed limits, automobile clubs organized reliability contests that

pitted cars against one another in endurance, hill climbing, and fuel-economy

runs. Each contest … was widely viewed as a test that proved to audiences that

the automobile was reliable. The first reliability contest was in 1895; by 1912

the contests were discontinued because organizers recognized that the

automobile had become a social fact. (Rao 2009, p. 4)

The point is that by the time Henry Ford produced the Model T, the vital cultural

resources were already present for him to build on. The car clubs had lobbied and

  30  

agitated for better roads, laws for drivers, and importantly, the car was becoming an

object that was taken for granted by society.

SECTION 3: A THEORY OF FIELDS

In the previous sections, I have established how the conversation between organisational

and social movement scholars provides economic sociology with a new set of tools for

studying several vital dimension of markets. Pushing this conversation forward, Fligstein

and McAdam (2012) presented a major theoretical framework with A Theory of Fields.

Although some points have been touched on earlier in this review, given that this

framework forms the theoretical backbone of the current study; consideration of its key

elements warrants closer attention. I have also drawn on previous statements by

Fligstein (1996, 2001) regarding what he calls the ‘political-cultural approach’. A

number of concepts are comparable, and because these earlier statements were made

specifically about economic markets, it gives sharpness to the general framework in A

Theory of Fields.

Seven elements of the framework

Strategic action fields

Strategic Action Fields (SAFs) are meso-level social orders wherein actors, who are

endowed with an uneven distribution of resources, vie for advantage. Actors – whether

collective or individual – orient around each other, and interact on the basis of shared

understandings ‘about the purposes of the field, relationships to others in the field

(including who has power and why), and the rules governing legitimate action in the

field’ (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 9). SAFs are analogous to Russian dolls. For

example, a university faculty may be competing with other faculties for resources within

the field of a single institution; the whole university may be competing for resources

with other universities within a broader national field; or a population of local

universities may be competing with overseas universities within a global field. Each of

these examples can be studied as three distinct fields, with each containing different sets

of actors, who are oriented around different sets of interests, and face different sets of

rules and dynamics (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 9).

In an earlier statement, Fligstein (2001) argued that markets are a type of field,

  31  

constructed around understandings called conceptions of control:

Conceptions of control are social-organizational vehicles for particular markets

that refer to the cognitive understandings that structure perceptions of how a

particular market works, as well as a description of the real social relations of

domination that exist in a particular market. A conception of control is

simultaneously a worldview that allows actors to interpret the actions of others

and a reflection of how the market is structured. (Fligstein 2001, p. 35)

Fligstein and McAdam unpack the idea further, by specifying the four types of

collective understandings that structure fields. First, actors come to share a

consensus about what is happening in the field or what is at stake (2012, p. 10-

11). For example there are 2500 colleges and universities in the US. These actors

do not generally see themselves as constituting one SAF, but rather orient

themselves around comparator institutions. It is this more narrow sub-set

conception of who belongs to the field that sets the parameters of competition and

cooperation between actors from period to period. But membership boundaries

can change, ‘depending on the definition of the situation and the issues at stake’

(2012, p. 10). If the US congress passed a reform bill that threatened to change the

tax status of all 2500 US education institutions, a new definition of the field

would likely emerge. Actors would unite over a perceived threat to the entire

education sector (2012, p.10).

Secondly, actors can be viewed as holding more or less power in a particular field.

Field players know ‘who their friends, their enemies, and their competitors are

because they know who occupies those roles in the field’ (Fligstein & McAdam

2011, p. 4). For example, in the Australian grocery retail market, it is easy to

distinguish the main status positions. Coles and Woolworths dominate, wielding

their buying power against smaller less-powerful Supermarkets such as the IGA.

The latter though, is part of a large network of independent grocers, which to

some degree evens up the power differential.

Thirdly fields are structured by collective understandings about the rules of

interaction. Put another way, actors know ‘what tactics are possible, legitimate,

and interpretable for each of the roles in the field’ (Fligstein & McAdam 2011, p.

  32  

4). Fligstein offered a salient example of from the US soft drink market.

Dominant players and fierce competitors Coke and Pepsi have developed a tacit

understanding that competition between them will proceed via the well-worn

strategy of advertising, diversification of products and price discounts. Playing by

these rules of engagement means that the two dominant actors reproduce their

field advantage through equilibrium-producing interaction, guided by mutual

expectation. Institutionalisation of routine tactics does not replace competition,

but it does mitigate the harsher elements of competition, and better enables actors

to reproduce their position (2001, p. 32).

Finally, actors bring to the field general interpretive frameworks that makes sense

of what others are doing, and how best to formulate a response. Here we can

expect that there are multiple and diverging ways of seeing within a field. Actors

in more powerful positions will see field action in a different way to those less

powerful or dominated actors (Fligstein & McAdam 2011, p. 4). The market for

energy generation offers a basic example. Fossil fuel incumbents like Rio Tinto

see renewable sources as inadequate in supplying adequate base loads for energy

needs. Incumbents have pushed new products like ‘clean coal’ as being less

carbon intensive, and still keeping energy affordable and secure into the future

(Hepworth 2015, para. 4-6). Challenger groups pushing renewable alternatives

interpret the incumbents moves as green washing, because ‘clean coal’ does little

to reduce carbon omissions and is expensive to produce (2015para. 5-7, 10-15)

To sum up this first component, Fligstein saw SAFs as becoming stable and organised

when enough actors share a general amount of consensus around collective

understandings known as conceptions of control. This does not mean that everyone in a

field accepts that the status quo is ‘in their interest, but only that they agree on its

contours and accept that definition of the situation’ (2008, p. 9). The proceeding

components will further unpack how these social spaces are constructed, reproduced or

destabilised.

Incumbents, challengers, governance units

Actors within SAFs can be categorised as playing one of three roles. The first is the role

  33  

of incumbents, referring to actors that hold a disproportionate influence in a SAF.

Incumbency implies that these actors hold the bulk of resources, which they use to

‘legitimate and support their privileged position’ (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 13).

One example of incumbents using their advantage over competitors can be seen in the

way supermarkets Coles and Woolworths structure lease agreements with shopping

centers throughout Australia. They stipulated that centre owners could not lease space to

smaller competitors such as ALDI and the IGA. Although this practice was judged as

anti-competitive by the ACCC, it had become an established practice over many years,

having been included in over 750 contracts (Tadros 2009, para. 20-23).

The second role actors can play in a SAF is the challengers. Challengers are those actors

occupying less-advantaged niches, holding less influence over the way a SAF works.

They generally wield an alternative conception of how the field ought to work, but

contrary to their name, challengers are not generally in open conflict over the uneven

distribution of power in a SAF. They will mostly ‘conform to the prevailing order,

although they often do so grudgingly, taking what the system gives them and awaiting

new opportunities to challenge the structure and logic of the system’ (Fligstein &

McAdam 2012, p. 13). For challengers to maximise their period to period survival, they

must essentially ‘find a place in the existing set of social relations’ (Fligstein 2001, p.

18). Extending the example above, challengers in the grocery market like ALDI appear

to have the following survival tactic vis-à-vis the incumbents: they carry very few lines

of any one item (limiting choices); and offer an enormous inventory of the ALDI private-

label products at cheaper prices to incumbents’ offerings (steering consumers to the

home label).

The third type of actor found in many SAFs is governance units. These are the actors that

have the legitimacy to oversee compliance with the rules of the field, and generally

facilitate ‘the overall smooth functioning and reproduction of the system’ (Fligstein &

McAdam 2012, p. 14). Actors such as trade associations, accreditation organisations,

rating agencies and the like are geared towards maintaining field stability, and generally

operate as guardians of the status quo. Such support serves as another advantage of field

incumbency during turbulent periods (Fligstein & McAdam 2011, p. 6). The actions of

the Minerals Council of Australia during the fight with the Government over the

proposed resource super profit tax serves as a basic example of a governance unit acting

  34  

to constrain the uncertainty inflicted by the state. The Council spent over $17 million,

mainly on TV advertisements, and lobbied to have the proposed impost shelved (Davis

2011, para. 6).

Importantly, SAFs are not necessarily organised around a strict incumbent-challenger

hierarchy. It is possible for challengers to flatten power imbalances:

Coalitions can form between incumbent groups or between different incumbents

and challenger groups. Within political coalitions, the relative power of

individuals or social groups can change, thereby increasing the power of certain

actors and undermining the coalition. SAFs can form out of dominant political

coalitions that then operate to structure interaction between incumbents and

challengers. So, instead of thinking of a SAF as divided into incumbent and

challenger players, it may be the case that they are best thought of as a dominant

coalition confronting less organized opposition. (Fligstein & McAdam 2011, p.

6)

Social skill

The third component forms the micro-foundation of A Theory of Fields. It focuses on

how certain actors engage in strategic action concentrated around gaining the

cooperation of others, in order to bring stability to their shared social world (Fligstein

2008, p. 14). Social skill implies that some actors have a superior ability in being able to

assess the conditions of a field, and work out what kinds of action best fit. They then

deploy a host of tailored tactics which aim to generate ‘common meanings and identities

in which actions can be undertaken and justified’ (Fligstein 1997, p. 397). The

fundamental problem facing skilled actors is that they must frame stories in ways that

resonate with their targets, and simultaneously ‘frame actions against various opponents’

(Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 50-51). Put another way, skilled actors are good at

imagining the world from other actors’ points of view, and then present a course of

action that resonates and mobilises collective action (Fligstein & McAdam 2011, p. 7).

Fligstein (1997, 2001) and Fligstein and McAdam (2012, 2011) offered a detailed

treatment of several additional tactics skilled actors can draw on to get action, some of

which include using direct authority, setting the agenda and brokering.

  35  

Broader field environment

Fligstein and McAdam argued that almost all lines of social science inquiry that study

meso-level orders focus on the internal dynamics of those spaces, depicting them ‘as

largely self-contained, autonomous worlds’ (2011, p. 8). Analysts tend to miss the extent

to which external fields act as both stabilising and destabilising forces. The internal

dynamics of a field can certainly cause itself disruption, but it is often the case that

external shocks from nearby fields initiate instability and crisis. Novel to the framework

is the treatment on how fields are embedded in a complex web of other fields, which

have concrete consequences for each other (2011, p. 8-9).

Fligstein and McAdam (2012) offered three binary distinctions that clarify these

relationships. The first is proximate versus distant. Proximate fields are those in which

ongoing ties are present, and regular action affects a particular field from period to

period. Distant fields are the opposite; they lack ties, and have little ability to influence a

particular field in focus. The second distinction orients us to the degree and direction of

power between fields, by distinguishing whether the field is dependent versus

interdependent. Dependent fields are vertically structured, where lower-order fields are

nested in higher-order fields (such as a department within a corporation). By contrast,

interdependent fields are less vertical and have more of a reciprocal influence over each

other (2012, p. 18). The final distinction orients us to the difference between a state and a

non-state field. States are vital to the ongoing stability of non-state fields, because they

have the power to ‘intervene in, set rules for, and generally pronounce on the legitimacy

and viability of most nonstate fields’ (2012, p. 19). The authors rejected the common

characterisation of the state as a singular hegemonic unit. Rather the state is constituted

by a cluster of social orders that are themselves characterised as distant versus proximate,

and if the latter, dependent or interdependent (2012, p. 19).

In an earlier statement, Fligstein drew on the concept of policy domain to flesh out the

degree of state field influence on non-state fields. Policy domains are a type of SAF,

describing the political spaces where governmental organisations and representatives of

other organised groups (such as industry peak bodies) meet to create rules and

mechanisms of governance, and ‘produce stable patterns of interaction in nonstate fields’

(2001, p. 39). The extent to which the state can influence a market depends largely on the

historical structuring of that particular policy domain. Two points are important here.

  36  

Firstly, some domains allow for direct intervention, where governments ‘may own firms,

control the finance sector, direct investment, and heavily regulate firms’ entries, exits,

and competition in markets’ (2001, p. 42). Or domains can be more regulatory, in that

official agencies play ‘traffic-cop’. Here domains enforce the rules but theoretically

police action as neutral arbiters of field rules (2001, p. 42). The second point is that

organised interests can also capture domains. For example, a particular regulatory body

or other political elite may become deeply influenced by, or rely on, periodic advice from

incumbent firms. It follows then that interested actors would endeavor to use policy

domains to further their narrow interests or defend their field position (2001, p. 43).

The three distinctions described above – distant/proximate, dependent/interdependent

and state/non-state – demonstrate the extent of complexity when judging the influences

of the broader field environment on another field.

Exogenous shock, mobilisation, and the onset of contention

The main theoretical implication of the interdependence of SAFs is that the broader

environment is a source of ongoing turbulence. Change in one field is likened to a stone

being dropped into a pond, where ripples are sent into surrounding fields. Changes, much

like stones, come in different sizes where ‘only the most dramatic are apt to send ripples

of sufficient intensity to pose a real threat to the stability of proximate fields’ (Fligstein

& McAdam 2012, p. 19). Fligstein and McAdam identify three main sources of external

disruption. The first is invasion by outside groups. New entrants to an established field,

such as a newly-established organisation or venture, or a new political party, can upset

the established models of action between field players (2012, p. 99). For example, the

entry of Apple into the music industry in 2003 via iTunes popularised the cheap digital

downloadable single, a model that allowed consumers to detach individual songs en

masse from their album context. Effectively, the industry model of selling physical

albums was undermined within a decade of Apple’s entry into the field (Covert 2013,

para. 10-14).

The second source of external instability comes from changes in related fields. Because

fields are embedded in a dense web of other fields, they are susceptible to actions in

proximate fields (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 100). Kungl described the influence of

the policy domain on the trajectory of the German electricity market from 1998 to 2013.

  37  

At the beginning of the period, the domain established a liberalisation agenda for the

power market. An immediate set of mergers ensued, concentrating players, and fortifying

a handful of incumbents. A concurrent policy was to support the growth of renewable

energy ventures. Legislation provided incentives and investment for renewable

businesses, one key feature being a guaranteed minimum payment for electricity

generated by renewables for 20 years (2014, p. 13). In essence, this policy enabled

renewables to be protected from the same free-market forces as the incumbents, and they

were able to develop a kind of sheltered niche. Over the decades, the capacity of the

renewable energy industry to service the market grew, as did its professionalism. The

increased overall supply of energy pressured prices downward, and eventually disrupted

the business model of the incumbents, pushing them into crisis (2014, p. 31-32).

The final source of external instability is macro-events. This includes such phenomena as

economic recessions, wars and political instability, which create a sense of generalised

crisis within one or multiple societies. Such events are powerful disruptors because they

undermine a myriad of relationships in society, and disrupt the actor’s ability to

reproduce their power from period to period (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 101). This

was certainly evident in the recent Global Financial Crisis, which underpinned the deep

recession experienced in many countries around 2008. Several US banking giants such as

Lehman Brothers began to fail, sending shock waves into a number of proximate fields

(Fligstein & Habinek 2014).

Destabilised fields imply that opportunity structures are to some degree open to

challenge. Sometimes the turbulence is seismic and undermines an entire system, but in

most circumstances, field incumbents are able to remain stable in the face of routine

turbulence. Having access to the bulk of field resources means that incumbents can

sufficiently deploy resources to reinforce their position of advantage. Challengers may

not even push for change, because they perceive incumbents as sufficiently resourced. Or

should incumbents feel threat, they can call on internal field allies such as governance

units or allies external to the field in proximate state or non-state fields (Fligstein &

McAdam 2012, p. 20)

Fligstein and McAdam (2012) asserted that a challenging coalition may gain momentum

and graduate a crisis into a serious challenge to the status quo, by engaging with three

  38  

interconnected mechanisms – extensions of those discussed in the previous section.

Firstly, at least one actor must interpret, make sense of, or define shifts in the field or the

external environment, and make clear how specific occurrences are threats or

opportunities to field interests. Second, actors perceiving the threats or opportunities

must have sufficient command over the resources needed to organise and maintain

collective action. Finally, actors enter into heightened conflict with incumbents,

subverting the standard rules of engagement or making new claims about a particular

situation (2012, p. 20-21). When these three mechanisms are present, there is a higher

likelihood that an existing conception of control will rupture into a crisis of some degree,

or graduate into an episode of contention (2012, p. 100).

Episodes of contention

Fligstein and McAdam defined an episode of contention as ‘a temporally bounded period

of intense contestation during which the rules and power relations of a given field are

very much up for grabs’ (2012, p. 176). A field rupture implies that the institutionalised

field understandings or practices have been disrupted, and a general sense of uncertainty

enters the system. These conditions draw challengers and incumbents into the action,

because both share a mutual interest in either advancing or protecting their group

interests (2012, p. 176-177). An episode of contention will last as long as the shared

sense of uncertainty prevails in the field. Uncertainty works to reinforce ‘the perceptions

of threat and opportunity that more or less oblige all parties to the conflict to continue to

struggle’ (2011, p. 10). Therefore under such episodes, strategic framing by skilled

actors is ubiquitous, where actors are attempting to forge a new consensus and dissolve

the uncertainty (2011, p.10).

The study by Gilding et al. (2012), which tracked the introduction of the Resources

Super Profits Tax (RSPT) in Australia, could be read as an episode of contention that

lasted around six weeks. The episode began suddenly on May 2010 when then Prime

Minister Kevin Rudd presented the intended impost to the mining industry with no prior

warning. Miners unified and mobilised via their industry associations, assembling a

$100-million war chest that was used for a massive advertising campaign. The

government retaliated with its own $40-million campaign, and a framing war ensued

over the meaning of the tax. The miners framed the RSPT as being disastrous to the

viability of mining, and as creating a sovereign risk for Australia. The government

  39  

framed the RSPT as ushering in a new era of fair wealth distribution for Australia. The

episode ended as abruptly as it began. Rudd was ousted, and Julia Gillard installed as

Prime Minister. Gillard then took negotiations back-stage. Both sides withdrew their

campaigns, and the episode of contention ended.

Settlement

A field settlement implies that a general sense of stability and certainty is restored,

whether by forging consensus around a new set of rules, or refurbishing the old order to

some degree. In either case, order ensues when a general consensus around the relative

positions between challengers and incumbents is accepted (Fligstein & McAdam 2012,

p. 22-23).

Under conditions of contention, incumbents can be expected to make moves to re-impose

the status quo. As noted earlier, incumbency accords significant advantages, because

other powerful allies such as internal governance units, incumbents in proximate or

related fields or state actors have a stake in returning stability to the field. State actors,

for example, will generally side with incumbents during a crisis for two main reasons.

Firstly, to some degree, the state’s stability is linked to keeping a wide range of fields

stable. Should too many fields simultaneously plunge into crisis, the social or political

stability on which the state relies for its own power and survival is threatened. Second,

states are likely to avoid changing the power structure of fields, because they often share

ties to incumbents, which they have cultivated over time. The same holds for incumbents

in related or proximate fields, who have a vested interest in stalling a proximate crisis

before it ripples into their system. Therefore a common outcome of contentious episodes

is the reaffirmation of the previous order (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 105-106).

Sometimes though, challengers can be successful in introducing a new set of field rules.

Achieving this depends largely on their ability to deploy social skill. One option is that

challengers forge a winning coalition. Challengers must present a new model, which

simultaneously undermines the existing field settlement, but also provides a new vision

for the field (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 107). The earlier example of Apple iTunes

holds. The emergence of disruptive platforms like Napster had ushered in the era of

illegal music downloads, threatening the established model of the record companies.

Steve Jobs convinced the major record labels and some of the biggest music artists to

  40  

work with him in establishing iTunes – despite their entrenched resistance. At the time,

the companies saw digital downloads as a losing game, but Jobs deftly framed an

alternative vision, where users were not pirates, but rabid fans who would eventually pay

for fairly-priced content (Sisario 2011, para. 4-5).

Another strategy for challengers is to seek out elite allies, or get the state to ratify a new

settlement. The state’s aversion to instability means that although they generally side

with incumbents, they could also ‘intervene to affect a new settlement if and when they

perceive the old system as no longer viable’ (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 108). An

example of this was when market incumbent Cabcharge faced industry conflict over its

tactics to monopolise the way electronic payments were made within taxis. Cabcharge

had several taxi networks agree not to install rival meters (Singer 2010b, para. 3-4); they

refused to allow rival meters to process Cabcharge branded non-cash payment products;

and they supplied new Cabcharge hardware to taxi networks for below cost price (ACCC

2010, para. 4). The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission deemed the

behaviour anti-competitive, and issued a $14-million fine to the incumbent (2010, para.

6). Cabcharge rivals claimed the win as a new era of increased competition (Sexton

2010, para. 1-3). In this example, the new settlement reaffirmed the previous challenger-

incumbent structure, but the perception was that all stakeholders in the field were now

oriented around a fairer set of rules that would guide future interaction.

SECTION 4: THE ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY OF VALUATION

A fundamental theme in this review has been that markets rely on stable social structures

if they are to function. We call these stable orders conceptions of control or settlements

that are forged by skilled actors, operating under the influence of particular social spaces.

Missing from this framework, and only implicit in some of the empirical examples

outlined earlier, is a focus on how products or services gain and maintain their value –

which is the fundamental question behind the economic sociology of valuation (see

Callon et al. 2002; Beckert & Aspers 2011). I take the pioneering lead of Dubuisson-

Quellier (2013), who argued that in addition to social movements engaging in

contentious action, they also shape markets by manipulating the evaluation criteria upon

which goods are judged. This final section of the literature review aims to present

valuation literature, and to couch its relevance in studying products such as organic food.

  41  

Exchange revisited

From a classical economics perspective, the process of exchange is understood to be

relatively straightforward. Goods are constituted by a bundle of inherent characteristics

(such as quality, time, location and availability), which buyers appreciate, evaluate,

classify and then rank depending on their individual tastes (Callon et al. 2002, p. 202).

Product qualities are obvious and knowable prior to purchase; therefore the interaction

between supply and demand is restricted to information on price (Karpik 2010, p. 11).

Exchange price is considered a proxy for value, the underlying assumption being

the higher the preference, the more it is valued, and the more a consumer is willing to

pay (Velthuis 2003, p. 185).

For the sociology of valuation, the way consumers judge offerings is problematic,

because product qualities are not assumed to be naturally knowable. The case of Halal

foods, described by Waarden and Van Dalen (2013), is instructive. A technical test may

find that no pork is present in a particular food product, but that does not make it Halal:

Past events have taken place and are therefore in principle knowable, but only to

those who have witnessed them. In the absence of any recording of the event, no

proof exists of what has happened. Hardly any Halal consumer will have

personally witnessed the slaughtering of an animal whose meat he or she

consumes, nor will they have been able to control personally for halal-safe

handling of the meat during the logistics portion of the long value chain. One

hundred percent certainty would require detailed recording of the slaughtering

process and of the subsequent travels of all the parts of the slaughtered animal

along the value chain from farm to fork and into a variety of processed food

products. (Waarden and Van Dalen 2013, p. 208)

At the crux of the valuation literature is the understanding that actors’ disposition to

exchange is underpinned by the offers in markets being mutually observable and able to

be evaluated. This means that supply-side actors can demonstrate the value of their

offering vis-à-vis competitor offerings, and demand-side actors can compare the qualities

of products with others within the same market (Beckert & Aspers 2011, p. 14).

  42  

Symbolic goods and quality opacity

It is useful at this point to distinguish between functional value and symbolic value.

Functional goods are those that ‘alter the state of the world based on the physical effect

of the good’ (Beckert & Aspers 2011, p. 13). A car can get one from A to B. Food can

take a stomach from empty to full. A jacket can provide warmth. Functional value can

also be expanded: a car can be faster and safer, a meal can be bigger, jackets can be

warmer (Beckert & Aspers 2011, p. 108). According to Beckert and Aspers, a symbolic

good is an offering whose qualities are ‘based on inter-subjective shared meanings’

(2011, p. 13). It is within a community and its associated social practices where the

qualities of a symbolic good are established and hold meaning (2011, p. 13). Beckert

(2011) breaks symbolic goods into positional and imaginative. The former refers to

products valued for their status-bestowing qualities. As argued by Koutsobinas (2015, p.

115), such goods are not necessarily just highly-priced luxury goods such as prestige cars

and holiday properties that give the buyer privilege or status. Less expensive goods such

as a branded t-shirt also have the ability to bestow a feeling of status. Stark argued that

positional goods are about belongings, where goods are used to signal actor identity,

whether that is ‘class, lifestyle, or group membership’ (2011, p. 328). Such goods depend

on third parties recognising these signals and meanings of which the ‘owner intends such

goods to perform’ (2011, p. 328).

Beckert defined imaginative goods as those valued because they connect consumers to

‘espoused ideals represented in the object’ (2011, p. 13). By arousing ‘images that alter

the state of associations with desired events, people, places, or values’ (2011, p. 110),

these goods function as ‘bridges to the transcendental’ (2011, p. 13). This was observed

by Zelizer (1978) when studying how purchasing life insurance connected the buyer to

ideals about what it means to be a good father and have a good death. Similarly,

Bogdanova (2013) demonstrated how purchasing antiques connects buyers to a point in

history, or may even create a link between the object and a historical figure. Beckert

further clarifies:

As is the case with the positional performance of goods, imaginative

performance has a magical quality to it: it offers access to past historical events,

distant regions, espoused aesthetic or moral values, or unreachable social

positions by making the object a symbolic representation of the otherwise

  43  

intangible. On the strength of the mental images they arouse, goods can be

vehicles to transcend time as well as physical and social space, allowing actors

to participate vicariously in otherwise unreachable realms. (Beckert 2011, p.

117)

For Beckert, goods are promises of performances. For actors to value an item, they must

have a positive understanding about what a particular good promises to do for them

(2011, p. 108). Markets for goods that are mostly judged on functional performance are

promises that are relatively unproblematic to observe, because measurement is perceived

as generally objective and natural. For example in the petroleum market, the various

types of oil have different quality grades based on different chemical compositions.

Chemical composition stands as the ‘objective characteristic of the product that, based on

the socially established criteria, provides “good reasons” for ascribing higher or lower

quality to it compared to other types of oil’ (Rössel & Beckert 2013, p. 291). Similarly a

technical test on the load-bearing capacity of steel springs from different alloys can grade

products for their relative quality. Different offerings are then rendered observable based

on their price differentials (Beckert 2007, p. 15).

But in markets where goods are to some degree judged on their moral, status-bestowing

or aesthetic qualities, uncertainty over qualities arises because they are contestable, can

change over time, and hold different meanings for different social groups. For example a

century ago, sweet wines were revered as being high-status products, whereas today dry

wines are considered more legitimate (Rössel & Beckert 2013, p. 292-293). In relation to

contested meanings, the case of Halal foods is again instructive. Different cultural

conventions around food exist between Shiites and Sunnis, or between Muslims in Saudi

Arabia as opposed to Malaysian Muslims. This shapes diverging understandings about

how to interpret what counts as an acceptable method of production. A diversity of

certification systems geared towards different market niches holds differing definitions

of Halal (Waarden & Van Dalen 2013, p. 203).

Goods with imaginative or positional value rest on shaky foundations, because qualities

are at least partially ‘anchored in the intersubjective recognition of symbolic qualities

attached to the goods’ (Beckert 2011, p. 107). As observed by Rössel and Beckert

(2013), for stable exchange to happen, buyers must be convinced from period to period

  44  

that certain offerings are worth paying for. It would be difficult to find someone willing

to pay 20 dollars for a bottle of wine if the market offered a bottle of the same quality for

three dollars, unless justifications and rationales were available. Such justifications act as

mediators of the perception of better quality, and underpin the exchange of a more

expensive item (2013, p. 293). The question on how goods gain and maintain their

qualities (or promises) turns to the functioning of meaning-generating market devices.

Judgment Devices

Karpik introduces judgment devices as tools that function to reduce the cognitive deficit

of opaque product markets. Judgment devices are ‘guideposts for individual and

collective action’ (2010, p. 44) designed to guide consumer choices, whether through

product promotion, supplying disinterested information, proposing advice, claiming

consumer protection and so on. Karpik identifies five broad categories of devices. The

first device is the personal network. Actors have access to friends, family, colleagues and

other contacts, who they rely on for informal and credible information about certain

goods and services. Networks are useful, because actors get access to personal

experiences and knowledge ‘while on the whole remaining protected from the dangers of

opportunism’ (2010, p. 45). Van Zanten (2013) looked at how middle-class parents in

France use personal networks to choose the right schools for their children. Although

rankings and reputations are taken into consideration, actors are primarily interested in

accessing those with inside knowledge.

Appellations are the second judgment device, and refer to the broad range of labelling

phenomena, such as brand names, professional titles, country of origin designations,

quality labelling, or certification schemes and production standards (Karpik 2010, p. 45).

As explained by Waarden and van Dalen (2013), Halal foods are valued because they are

certified against a set of standards, which bestow a moral quality to food. Serunjogi

explained how credible musical journalists might reference an artist’s collaboration with

a high-status music producer, which bestows the producer’s brand prestige onto the new

music – even before a consumer has heard it (2013, p. 58). Serunjogi also explained how

quality labelling ascribes ‘an approval, as well as upholding a meaning containing and

maintaining a certain quality or trait connected to the label’ (2013, p. 18). This was the

goal of food giant McDonalds when they earned a series of Heart Foundation ticks on

items such as chicken McNuggets and the Fillet-O-Fish (Squires 2011, para. 1). The

  45  

examples presented here are about objects that are ascribed ‘signals of quality scrutinized

by independent third parties’ (Beckert 2011, p. 22).

Cicerones are the third judgment device, and refer to the soft authority held by critics,

guides and experts. In the art market, we see how gallery owners, curators, collectors or

academic commentators shape the way art is evaluated through their ‘opinions, reviews,

purchasing decisions, and exhibition policies’ (Beckert 2011, p. 20). Similarly, this is the

case with the Guide Michelin, which guides actors in choosing a fine-dining restaurant

(2011, p. 20).

Rankings are the fourth judgment device, and refer to hierarchical arrangements that

stratify product quality. Rankings can be based around expertise, referring to the

stratification of awards such as diplomas, degrees, prizes awarded by juries such as

literary prizes or scholarships, or the ranking of institutions such as schools or academic

journals (Karpik 2010, p. 46). Rankings can also be buyer generated, as in the case of the

music sales charts, bestseller lists for books, or star ratings for hotels. Because user-

generated rankings are structured by consumer action and choice, they give the

appearance of being more democratic than the technocratic appearance of expert

rankings (Serunjogi 2013, p. 19).

Confluences constitute the final judgment device, and refer to the multitude of techniques

used to channel buyers, ‘ranging from territorial location, spatial organization and

displays to selling skills’ (Karpik 2010, p. 46). Trompette (2007) found that a major

technique to channel consumers in the French funeral market is to open businesses

immediately surrounding hospitals and their high concentration of the dead. Here the

territorial proximity to consumers increases the value of their services. By being

conveniently located near the place where families are making choices about products

they had not likely considered previously, funeral companies can gain advantage by

being the first business with whom customers speak.

Devices and the market struggle

Markets are defined as arenas of ‘interaction in which rights for goods and services are

exchanged for money under conditions of competition’ (Beckert & Aspers 2011, p. 4).

Market competition is when at least two or more actors, either on the supply or demand

  46  

side, are vying for the same end that cannot be shared (2011, p. 5). The concept of

market or calculative devices offered by Callon et al. (2002) is generally complementary

with the concept of judgment devices. They conceive of market devices as fundamental

sites of competitive struggle between actors on the production side of the market. In their

conception, actors strategically attempt to gain advantage by creating quality differentials

between similar but competing products. This process is described as attachment and

detachment. Attached consumers have habituated a set of routines. They purchase goods

whose qualities they are familiar with and perceive them as meeting a valued desire, and

whose purchase has a certain ‘taken-for-grantedness’. For example, shopping in a

supermarket can often be done from a relatively stable list, physical or mental (2002, p.

206). Competition implies detaching consumers from their routine or ritual purchasing,

and pushing them into a reflective state about product qualities (2002, p. 205). Callon et

al. drew on Chamberlin (1946) in explaining quality differentiation:

By variation (of the product) we may be referring to a modification of the

quality of the product itself – technological changes, new model, better raw

materials; we may mean the packaging or a new recipient; or, finally, we may

mean better and more friendly service, a different way of doing business.

(Quoted in Callon et al. 2002, p. 200)

Actors then use various devices to imbue, highlight or modify product qualities. The

example recounted by the authors is a study of an orange juice producer whose sales had

plummeted. The producer decided to re-position the product in the market by changing

its taste and packaging. But the tactic chosen to detach consumers was to offer a free

Pokémon, a well-known children’s toy (Callon et al. 2002, p. 200). In another example,

Garcia-Parpet (2011, p. 145) described how wine critic Robert Parker held such

enormous influence over the wine market that the commercial success of products turned

on his assessments. A number of producers strategically ‘parkerize’ their products,

creating a woody-flavoured product, a quality they know Parker values, and by doing so,

they improve their chances of a positive review. To couch these examples in the

framework of Karpik (2010), we can observe the former as strategically manipulating a

confluence (that is, using a selling technique to create a quality differential). The latter

example is the strategic manipulation of a cicerone (that is, attempting to influence a

critic to create a quality differential).

  47  

The competitive struggle can also be broader, where an entire judgment device becomes

the site of contest, pushing action towards political-organisational dynamics (Rössel &

Beckert 2012, p. 8). The recent attempt to establish a nutrition-rating system for

processed foods in Australia saw industry, consumer and health groups strike a

compromise by agreeing that assessment would be via a voluntary star-rating system. A

settlement was forged (albeit a short-lived settlement) based around the idea to copy

classification systems similar to those used to assess white goods, movies and hotels

(Arnold 2014, para. 10-11).

Judgment devices might also be constructed as a direct challenge to similar devices in

the same market. Rössel and Beckert observed this in their study of two competing

German wine-rating systems. The dominant ‘quality in the glass’ system is backed by a

certified test, ranking wines on the chemical composition of the end product. The system

essentially stratifies wines in a simple way so that lay consumers can easily distinguish

quality based on price differentials (2012, p. 12-13). The dominant rating system was

established in the early 1970s and backed by legislation and state agencies. Although the

system has additional levels for evaluating higher-end wines, it became a contentious

issue amongst higher-status producers. They believed that individual vineyards’

reputations and climactic origins ought to be taken into consideration in the quality

assessment. A private association was subsequently founded by high-status vineyards,

accepting only those that complied with terroir, a system copied from France, which is

revered by connoisseurs and used to assess some of the most famous French wines. The

system evaluates quality based on soil, climate, and the craftsmanship of grape growing.

The criteria is considered complex and sometimes ambiguous, requiring consumers to

develop specialised knowledge about wine production and its players in order to make

sense of it. In short, high-end consumers consider the system more legitimate than the

mainstream system for justifying the large price premiums. Therefore terroir offers

market actors an alternative path around the conventional system (2012, p. 13-15).

Gourevitch (2011, p. 91-99) extended the discussion on the importance of consumer

perception of trust in devices that certify symbolic goods. Trust turns on the perception

that verifying actors are to some degree arms-length to producers, display

professionalism and transparency in their process of assessment, and have legitimate

  48  

funding sources. Therefore managing the credibility of a device is also vital for the value

it bestows on goods. In an earlier-mentioned example, Squires (2011) reported the case

of McDonalds gaining a Heart Foundation tick for items such as chicken nuggets. On the

one hand, the exercise was economically advantageous, potentially earning the

Foundation millions of dollars. But its organisation’s product seal suffered a major blow

in credibility. One well-known nutritionist went as far as saying that the public now

ignore the tick, because they associate it with lower standards of scrutiny. In short, the

lower value of the quality seal was seen as a weakening of the organisation’s credibility.

Valuation and social movement dynamics

We have established in this section that judgment devices facilitate exchange because

they equip consumers with the capacity to identify the qualities of products (thereby

reducing opacity) and evaluating them against other market offerings. More than that, the

literature also turns to the collective political-organisational dynamics whereby devices

are established or maintained. The work of Dubuisson-Quellier (2013) is the first

explicitly to demonstrate the utility of importing the valuation literature into the

converging line between organisational and social movement scholars. Dubuisson-

Quellier studied the actions of three major social movement organisations linked to the

broader environmental movement in France. The organisations all adopted contentious

tactics such as boycotts (or buycots) or supported labelling strategies (such as running

certification schemes), which were designed to empower consumers. But the

organisations also recognised that these tactics alone were insufficient to change market

dynamics and force companies to change their practices. The fear was that they might

‘de-responsibilise’ consumers and companies. Actors might well support or participate in

a project like an accreditation scheme, but could still remain generally unaware of the

environmental harm caused by other kinds of products, and think that these simple and

limited solutions were enough to resolve the entire environmental problem (2013, p.

691).

Dubuisson-Quellier (2013) identified two main tactics that were adopted in pursuit of

changing the supply line practices of commercial market actors. The first was to get

consumers to judge products for their low environmental impact. The organisations

focused on advising consumers about conditions of production, their proximity,

  49  

seasonality and packaging as new criteria to evaluate products. For example:

A local piece of meat, a piece of fruit in season, a low-packaging box of

cookies, a recycled sheet of paper or a piece of furniture made from sustainably

managed forests are presented as highly valuable to consumers, whereas exotic

fruits, intensively farmed beef or highly packaged children’s desserts are

presented as products that should not be bought. (Dubuisson-Quellier 2013, p.

692)

Principles such as seasonality and proximity in food production became major issues for

these organisations, due to the enormous amount of carbon emissions generated by out-

of-season produce. But because seasonality and proximity were not criteria supported by

product labelling, consumers had no guide for observing product qualities and

catagorising them for their environmental impact. Therefore judgment devices were

assembled. One device was to connect movement supporters to the variety of alternative

food networks that had developed in France from the 1990s. Consumers were

encouraged to link with farmers’ markets, organic food coops or buy direct from farmers

(2013, p. 692). Here the local network became the device mediating the principles of

proximity and seasonality. Another complementary device was the publication of two

cicerones. The first was Shopping Coach, a purse or pocket sized fold-up leaflet that

listed in-season produce. Shopping Coach was a condensed version of another device

The Small Green Book for the Earth, which was a broad guide for reducing one’s

environmental impact (2013, p. 694):

[Consumers were guided in] choosing in-season products, choosing eco-labelled

products, choosing organic food, checking for the presence of GMOs, reducing

meat consumption by consuming other sources of protein, not wasting food,

using the car as little as possible for shopping, using a basket and avoiding

plastic bags, avoiding packaged food, choosing green products, recycling

batteries, thinking about tropical forests, avoiding disposable products and

finding sustainable alternatives, checking energy labelling, and repairing and

reusing as much as possible. (Dubuisson-Quellier 2013, p. 694)

The rationale underpinning these devices was not to orient consumers to specific

  50  

‘products, brands or shops, but to provide them with principles of value that could help

them identify the kinds of shops, products and producers they should favour’

(Dubuisson-Quellier 2013, p. 694). For example The Small Green Book for the Earth

supplied information such as how a locally-grown piece of fruit consumes 10 times less

oil than an out-of-season import (2013, p. 692). Although the link was not made in the

article, it is easy to imagine how the two cicerones worked synergistically with the

network of local producers in creating a mingling of devices, which guided consumers

towards exchanges based on the principles of proximity and seasonality.

Dubuisson-Quellier identified a second tactic at play. In addition to constructing devices

to guide a movement of consumers, they turned their attention to the production side of

the market. In contrast to contentious tactics such as lobbying the state, threatening court

action, or promoting boycotts to constrain business behaviour, the alternative tactic is to

create business opportunities that assisted the dominant market players (2013, p. 695).

Movement organisations put ‘as much effort into disseminating information about the

shift in product valuation and consumer preferences as they do into organizing that shift

in practice at the consumer level’ (2013, p. 696). This process is a type of storytelling (or

framing) that persuaded market producers that adapting products and practices in line

with movement principles would leverage changing consumer preferences. One specific

action was for organisations to draw on consumer opinion polls in order to give their

arguments an objective appearance (2013, p. 696). For example, one organisation

launched a campaign called Challenge the Earth, which urged consumers to register

online their commitment to adopting eco-friendly consumption habits, such as eating in-

season produce. In 2011 the website registered over 900,000 people, which was used as

evidence of the re-ordering of consumer preferences. There was, of course, no way that

the organisation could verify the quality of commitments, but that was beside the point.

The tactic was to use a confluence (that is to say they drew on selling techniques) to

persuade market players that the new valuation criteria had become established and was

a business opportunity that could be leveraged (2013, p. 697).

The current study

Dubuisson-Quellier’s (2013) work extends the insights of the empirical studies presented

in section two, which observed how social movements affect markets by intentionally or

unintentionally mediating between supply and demand. But here we get a sharper picture

  51  

of how they do this. Judgment devices are constructed and geared towards manipulating

the evaluation criteria of goods. In this treatment, movement actors can choose to be

contentious and challenge the status quo, or they might intentionally peruse a non-

conflict tactic aimed at assisting dominant market players by creating economic

incentives to get them to change their practices. My study will follow this lead. To my

knowledge, there is no other research that integrates the valuation literature with the A

Theory of Fields framework proposed by Fligstein and McAdam (2012), and then applies

this integration to studying new market formation.

The current study aims to understand the emergence of the Australian organic food

market. Fligstein (2008, p. 15-16) understands emerging markets as fields of interaction

where two or more groups orient their action towards each other, but have yet to form a

stable collective template of action. These spaces are conceived as being largely

unorganised and rife with opportunities for actors to shape crucial relationships:

In unorganized social space, everything is up for grabs: what the purpose

of the field is, what positions exist, who occupies which position, what

the rules of the game are, and how actors come to understand what other

actors are doing. (Fligstein 2013, p. 41)

New spaces are political opportunities where actors realise the opportunity to forge new

structures; skillfully wield alternative frames on how to organise that space (convincing

others to back their conception of control); create organisational vehicles to take hold of

resources; and build coalitions with other groups to control that space (Fligstein 2008, p.

15-16).

I see judgment devices as a fundamental tactic in establishing a conception of control in

new markets. Firstly, judgments devices help define the qualities of products, and orient

stakeholders around what that market is about. In establishing a market like organic food,

we can expect that devices such as appellations, in the form of a standards and

certification, become important in differentiating what is an aesthetically-identical

product from its conventional counterpart. Much like the earlier discussion on Halal

food, organic food creates its point of distinction by signalling to consumers the

symbolic moral qualities promised by an alternative system of production. Market

  52  

stakeholders are therefore able to distinguish the boundaries between their market and an

established proximate market for the same type of product.

Secondly, judgment devices establish order between actors that mitigates the harsher

elements of competition (such as having to compete purely on price). As argued by

Fligstein, actors in new markets are more susceptible to failure because there is no

conception of control to guide expected action and buffer against the forces of

competition (2001, p. 78). The example given earlier of the settlement in the soft drink

market broadly described routine action between incumbents Coke and Pepsi. Here these

two incumbents settled the rules of competition around the use of confluences (selling

techniques around advertising, diversification of product and discounts). Similarly,

Rössel and Beckert (2013) described how high-end producers in the German wine

market created a niche by settling the rules of competition vis-à-vis mainstream

producers. Establishing different ranking systems meant that producers could choose

different devices that channelled their products into a high-end or mass market space.

This meant that the same type of product could be placed into mutually-exclusive spaces

within the overall wine market, but did not have to compete directly. Again, in

establishing the organic food market, we can expect devices such as standards and

certification to take a central role in attempting to shield organic food from competing

directly with its mainstream counterpart.

Conclusion

This literature review has been presented in four parts. In the first section, I contrasted

the difference between a sociological and classical economic understanding of economic

markets. I established that a major difference lies in the understanding of market order.

Economics sees the aggregate of rational exchange as creating market order. Sociology

understands order as a result of stable social structures being constructed and maintained.

In the second section, I presented a recent and major development within economic

sociology, being the increasing mingling of organisational and social movement lines of

inquiry. The converging approach focuses on the role of contention in markets. I also

presented examples from a fledging offshoot of this conversation, regarding how

collective actors influence the emergence of new markets. Here we observed skilled

social movements or movement-like actors facilitating conditions that laid the

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foundations for new ventures.

In the third section, I presented a state-of-the-art framework from Fligstein and

McAdam, which pushes forward this converging approach. In presenting A Theory of

Fields (2012), I also drew upon previous ideas from Fligstein (2001). This framework

forms the basis of the current study’s general approach to studying the emergence of the

organic food market.

In the final section, I presented the economic sociology of valuation, which offered a

fine-grained set of ideas around how market order depends on actors being able to view

and compare the relative qualities of market offerings. I addressed the complexities of

imaginative goods, and the judgment devices that are constructed, operated or challenged

in order to stabilise product qualities. In particular, I described a pioneering study by

Dubuisson-Quellier (2013), who bridged the valuation literature with the developing

conversation between social movement and organisational scholars. The current study

follows this example. It joins the fledging line of inquiry exploring emerging markets

and social movement dynamics.

  54  

–CHAPTER THREE–

Methods

Any historical moment is both the result of prior process and an

index towards the direction of its future flow. (Thompson 1978, p.

239)

Overview

This chapter describes the methods adopted in the current study. A qualitative research

approach was taken. Qualitative methods are particularly useful when certain phenomena

are poorly understood or the association between actors is unclear, because they allow for

a rich, detailed, interpretive analysis (Maguire et al. 2004, p. 660). This approach accords

with the research questions, which explore the little-understood case of Australian organic

food market emergence.

Two research tools were used in this study. The first was a process analysis of historical

documents produced mainly by those actors central to key episodes of market

development. The second was semi-structured interviews with pioneering actors from the

organic food supply chain.

In the sections below, I provide detail on the research approach, site selection, and the

collection and analysis of data. To facilitate better clarity, some coding examples can be

found in Appendix 1.

Research perspective As established earlier, scholarship on the topic of Australian organic food has been

primarily focused on the post-1990s period. This means that the body of research is

weighted heavily towards the period after the organic food market was established, with

little attention on how it came into being.

Process methods specifically address questions about how organisational phenomena –

such as institutions, organisational practices or actors – emerge, develop, grow or

terminate over time. Research focuses empirically on the temporal progressions that focal

subjects experience as the crucial element for understanding and explaining change

(Langley et al. 2013, p. 1-4). While quantitative methods can be useful for setting out the

  55  

systemic patterns of relationships proximate to organisational phenomena, they are weak

in providing the temporally-embedded accounts that illuminate how these patterns came

to be (Langley 2007, p. 273). Where quantitative studies might explain social change in

terms of ‘more of X and more of Y produce more of Z’, process studies aim to answer

phenomena in terms of event sequence, such as ‘do A and then B to get C’ (Langley 1999,

p. 692). The aim of process studies is to present nuanced multi-level stories. They make

clear how and why a particular event sequence unfolds, by tracking a range of focal cases

as they progress from period to period (Poole et al. 2000, p. 37).

Breaking into the organic food field

Fligstein (2001, p. 15) argued that strategic action fields operate under unique local

cultures. That is to say, they operate under sets of context-specific formal and informal

rules (or structures) that guide action in a space at a particular point in time. Prior to

commencing the current study, I did not have a background in the organic food industry.

By extension, my local knowledge of this market and its historical trajectory was low.

In order to obtain a grip upon the Australian Industry, I identified two major industry

reports – ‘The market for Australian produced organic food’ (1990) and ‘The domestic

market for Australian organic produce: an update’ (1996) – which offered a thorough

analysis of market structures and dynamics from the early- to mid-1990s. As the title

suggests, the second report was an update to the first, which allowed for continuity in

observation of market development. One overarching observation was that the first report

described a market that was experiencing massive coordination issues across many facets

of the space, whereas the second report was describing a market that, notwithstanding

several problems, had become well ordered. In addition, I found a chapter in an edited

volume, Organic Farming: An International History (2007), written by Wynen and Fritz,

two of the co-founders of organic food peak body the National Association for

Sustainable Agriculture Australia (NASAA). This rare account briefly tracked the

organisation’s central role in commercialising organic food from the early 1980s.

The second tactic to obtain a broad overview of the field was to find a key informant.

Babbie (2010, p. 195) noted the importance of finding informants capable of offering the

richest information possible vis-à-vis the topic of inquiry. My criterion was to find an

individual who was involved in the sustainable agriculture movement or market during its

  56  

formative years, and who had a grip on the market’s historical trajectory and how it fitted

within the broader food market.

In February 2009, I approached several Melbourne-based organic food retailers for advice

on potential candidates. Retailers were approached because they were the easiest access

point to the market. Retailer Paul Simmons from Fork to Fork Organics in Thornbury, an

inner Melbourne suburb, was an appropriate informant. Paul graduated in horticulture

from Hawkesbury Agriculture College during the mid-1980s. Following graduation, he

worked on a massive conventional stone fruit farm in country New South Wales, regularly

interfacing with various sales agents and other intermediaries at the Flemington

Wholesale Market in Sydney. After several months of farm work, he began to experience

certain irritations due to chemical exposure. This led to a deep questioning of the

conventional food production system, and his interest in the nascent sustainable

agriculture industry. In the early 1990s, he joined Willing Workers on Organic Farms, and

over the next twelve months worked on 16 different sustainable agriculture farms.

Eventually he settled in Melbourne, having recognised that a critical mass had formed in

the Victorian organic food market. For the next two years, he worked for an intermediary

at the Footscray Wholesale Market, and then for a large retailer as the chief produce

buyer. This involved responsibility for maintaining product lines and supplier

relationships. By the mid-1990s, he had established his own organic produce home

delivery service in Melbourne’s western suburbs, which eventually graduated into a

‘bricks and mortar’ store. At the time of our discussion, he was also growing produce on

certified organic land in country Victoria, with the aim of eventually supplying farmers’

markets. Paul had the scope to offer great detail on a wide set of topics pertinent to

organic food market development. Two exploratory in-depth interviews were conducted,

accounting for over four hours of discussion.

The data accumulated in this early stage was worked into lists of the key actors,

descriptions on their role in the fledgling market, and a basic chronology of key

occurrences. Although partial, the process enabled me to make further vital decisions

about the research design.

Choosing the research site

Fligstein and McAdam suggested that when adopting field analysis, researchers ought to

be clear about membership in a particular space. Taking a broad definition, they advised

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focusing on actors ‘who routinely take each other into account in their actions’ (2012, p.

167-168, emphasis in the original) and share a stake in a common space. By doing so, the

analyst can simplify the complexity of the social world by: orienting around the key

players and their crucial relationships; tracking the strategic jockeying of those players;

and identifying the key rationales for action (2012, p. 168).

The current study focused on two main fields. These spaces shared proximity, mutually

influenced each other, and consisted of actors who had a stake in the development of the

Australian organic food market (whether supporting or opposing). The first was what I

call the sustainable agriculture field: that is, the collection of actors who shared an

interest in the commercialisation and mainstreaming of organic food in Australia from the

early 1980s. Actors included the sustainable agriculture social movement, constituted by

regional groups like the Henry Doubleday Research Association and Soil Association of

South Australia, and the federation of those groups that made up NASAA. The field also

included the chain of farmer-intermediary-retailers who produced and distributed organic

food throughout the country. The early 1980s was a clear departure point for this field,

because actors were creating and orienting around new structures, such as production

standards and certification, industry conferences, industry peak bodies, and supply and

demand.

Fligstein and McAdam further argued that the long-term trajectory and dynamics of any

one field can be just as affected by threats and opportunities from external fields as they

are by their internal strategic actions. Failing to take account of external linkages can

leave analysis incomplete, because crucial influencing factors are placed outside the scope

of observation (2012, p.168-169). Locating the role of the state is particularly important,

because state action – purposive or unintended – can potentially affect the workings of all

non-state fields. Equally, groups in non-state fields often take their grievances directly to

state actors as a tactic to ‘control the agenda that will regulate relations in their fields’

(2012, p. 173).

The second field is what I call the agri-food policy field: that is, the collection of actors

who shared an interest in the regulation of food production, and were particularly oriented

around the issues of sustainable agriculture and the growth of agricultural chemical

hazards from the early 1980s. This period was a clear departure point for this field in

terms of increasing turbulence over issues of food quality and safety, and the question of

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which methods of production held greater utility. Prominent state actors included the

(state and federal) Departments of Agriculture, the Australian Quarantine Inspection

Service, the National Food Authority, the National Health and Medical Research Council,

and the balance-of-power party in the Australian Parliament, the Australian Democrats.

These actors were jockeying to balance the maximisation of Australian food exports,

while maintaining the country’s reputation as a quality food producer.

Three main non-state groups were particularly important players in this field. First were

the consumer movement represented by the Australian Federation of Consumer

Organisations (AFCO) and the Australian Consumers Association (ACA). These actors

were jockeying to have states implement better consumer safety structures. They

perceived the hazards caused by agricultural chemicals as a major issue for their

movement. Second was conventional agriculture, represented by a coalition between the

Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Association (AVCA) and the National Farmers’

Federation (NFF). These actors were navigating to quell the growing societal criticism

around agricultural chemicals. Finally was the sustainable agriculture movement,

represented by actors like NASAA. A number of actors from the sustainable agriculture

field were simultaneously operating in the agri-food policy field, jockeying to have their

private standards ratified and the organic food market better supported by various state

actors.

Documentary data sources

Unlike quantitative studies that seek to draw representative samples, qualitative research

draws on sources that augment understandings around the process of social life within a

particular context (Neuman 2006, p. 219-220). Esterberg (2002, p. 93) argued that

purposive sampling is an appropriate choice when the researcher understands that

particular sources could maximise insight into a topic.

My preliminary investigations had oriented me towards a particular population of actors

who were active in the development or constraint of the organic food market in Australia.

Although this list evolved and became sharper over the course of the research, an initial

large-scale search of the TROVE database assessed the available data around these actors.

Between June and December 2009, I physically assessed documents held in libraries

across the nation. It was observed that many actors were prolific producers and subjects of

a wide range of documents. Three main types were chosen due to their ability to offer a

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superior continuity in observing actions. I briefly describe them next.

Field media

The first document type I identified was field media, such as journals, newsletters and

newspapers, which reported on the sustainable agriculture and agri-policy fields. A

particular strength of using media accounts is that they often have long-term continuity in

their publication, making ‘them especially useful for looking at changes over time'

(Esterberg 2002, p. 124). A key criticism is that such accounts can display a description

bias, pushing the particular point of view of its publisher (2002, p. 124). Like Hoffman

(1999, p. 356), the current study embraces this bias as a vital tool for identifying strategic

action. These texts offered a historical record, but also displayed the motivations and

rationales behind particular actions from these actors. Their biased interpretation of events

and issues was taken to be reflective of the interests and beliefs of their organisation’s

readership.

Within sustainable agriculture, most organisations had their own publications. These were

particularly useful in observing action during the early 1980s, when initial moves were

made to commercialise organic food. For example, Tasmanian group the Organic

Gardening & Farming Society (OGFS) produced Organic Growing, which reported

frequently on NASAA during its establishment stage. From the late 1980s, a flush of

industry newspapers emerged where key actors were contributors and often subjects of

reports. Publications such as ACRES Australia and Eco-Ag: The Future For Farming

were useful because they were commercially oriented, and detailed the obstacles and

successes of the emerging organic food market.

The key actors within the agri-food policy field also had publications that were useful in

observing the unfolding turbulence over food issues. The chemical industry peak body

AVCA published Farm Chemicals Today, and the consumer movement published titles

like Consuming Interest. Official government agencies were also important publishers.

AQIS produced the AQIS Bulletin, and the National Food Authority produced The Food

Standard.

Conference proceedings

The second document type I identified was conference proceedings geared towards either

issues pertinent to the emerging organic food market, or the hazards around conventional

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agriculture production. Conferences are recognised as being field-configuring events

(FCEs). FCEs are defined as fleeting and temporally-bound social organisations that

‘allow disparate constituents to become aware of their common concerns, join together,

share information, coordinate their actions, shape or subvert agendas, and mutually

influence field structuration’ (Anand & Jones 2008, p. 1037). Conferences are particularly

useful in observing emerging social spaces. As demonstrated by Möllering (2010), they

can offset the uncertainty of nascent ventures by forging new knowledge and collective

practices.

The sustainable agriculture field was prolific in organising and participating in organic

food conferences from the early 1980s. The main goal of these conferences was to create

a context for knowledge accumulation for the nascent market. I identified 12 relevant

FCEs between 1984 and 1994. The content of these events generally took three main

forms: technical scientific knowledge, market-related knowledge and political issues.

Actors from within the agri-food policy field were also organisers and participants in a

number of conferences. Given the many events in this domain, I limited my choice to

those that maximised insight into actors’ positions and actions towards the emerging

market for organic agriculture, or the turbulence over mainstream food hazards. Six were

identified. One was a 1989 food industry conference Pure Food: The challenge to

Agribusiness. The other five were the annual conferences of the chemical industry held by

AVCA between 1984 and 1988. These featured presenters mainly from the chemical

industry, related industries, and relevant government and bureaucratic actors. Topics were

similar to the three themes found in the sustainable agriculture field conferences, with

political topics featuring heavily. These often covered the relationship of the chemical

industry with governments and anti-chemical groups (such as those from sustainable

agriculture), and discussion on how their critics might be constrained.

Official texts

The final document type I identified was public records documents. Public records refer to

materials produced for official purposes by a variety of social institutions (Esterberg 2002,

p. 121). I identified a range of documents discussing relevant food policy issues from a

number of state actors from the early 1980s. Assembling these texts together was

particularly useful in gaining a richer insight into conflict or agreement between powerful

state actors. One example was a 1988 discussion paper published by the Australian

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Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS) entitled ‘Implications of Increasing World Demand

for Organically Grown Food’. This paper made clear that AQIS supported government

involvement in the development of the organic food market, and offered

recommendations on how this might be achieved.

Interview sources

As the coding of documents progressed, it became clear that within the sustainable

agriculture field, the pre-1990s data was skewed towards the political maneuverings of the

movement, or internal projects associated with the development of NASAA. In terms of

describing market dynamics and the challenges faced when coordinating the supply chain,

information was inconsistent. In particular, the accounts from intermediaries and retailers

were thin. In order to bring balance, I conducted targeted interviews. Individuals listed in

two industry directories were approached, being ‘Organics: A directory of businesses and

services’ (Morgan & DARA 1989) and the ‘Organic Industry Membership Directory’

(ORGAA 1997). I set the criteria that wholesalers and retailers ought to have entered the

organic food industry no later than the early-1990s, assuming that latecomers would not

have experienced an emerging market, but one already established. From over 30 entries,

18 were not contactable due to being out of business. Of the remainder, 10 individuals

agreed to face-to-face interviews, which were conducted between September 2009 and

November 2010. Five were conducted in Melbourne, three in Sydney, and one in New

York, USA. Eight were organic retailers, three were intermediaries (two of whom had

graduated from being retailers), and one was the former chief produce buyer for a well-

known health food chain. All retailers were owner-operators of outlets that sold a range of

fresh and dry foods.

Almost all interviewees identified becoming involved in the organic food market because

of an association with the sustainable agriculture movement. For example, most were

active members of groups such as NASAA and ORGAV. Of particular importance to the

study were the intermediaries. Although they represented a small sample, these particular

actors were responsible for establishing and developing the two biggest wholesale

operations in Melbourne and Sydney. Moreover, the retailers talked extensively about the

massive influence these intermediaries wielded in shaping market dynamics. Table 1

summarises the key attributes of participants.

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Table 1: Key attributes of interviewees representing the organic food supply chain Name Role Organisational affiliation Period of entry John Williams Retailer then intermediary Montrose Organics,

The Organic Wholesaler (Melbourne)

Early 1980s

Ian Diamond Retailer then intermediary Upwey Health Foods, The Organic Wholesaler (Melbourne)

Early 1980s

Phillip Rougon Intermediary Eco Farms (Sydney)

Late 1980s

Bruce Standish Retailer Natural Health Supply (Melbourne)

Mid 1970s

Dennis Alexander Retailer Eastfield Natural Foods (Melbourne)

Early 1980s

Ian Nixon Farmer and then retailer

Vic Market Organics (Melbourne)

Late 1980s

Heather Wilson-Steel Chief produce buyer Russells Natural Food Market (Sydney)

Early 1980s

Michael Thornton Home delivery service then retailer

Go Vita Caringbah (Sydney)

Late 1980s

Scott Kinnear Retailer Organic Wholefoods (Melbourne)

Late 1980s

Sam Staley Retailer Dynamic Veggies (Melbourne)

Early 1990s

Total: 10

Each interview ran over two hours in length, with a follow-up conducted with one retailer.

In total the interviews amounted to almost 30 hours of discussion. Interviews were semi-

structured, beginning with a question as to how they got involved in trading organic food.

This broke the ice, and allowed me to gauge ‘on the fly’ how to weight certain lines of

questioning. For example, questions about how retailers sourced supply prior to the entry

of wholesalers were not directed to those who entered the market in the early 1990s.

Questions were structured around five main topics: motivations for trading in organic

food; the relationship dynamics between intermediaries and farmers; the relationship

dynamics between intermediaries and retailers; the relationship dynamics between

retailers and consumers; and broader political events and influences. Spot checking

interviewees for clarity on certain points or confirmation of particular occurrences was

deployed regularly.

Data Analysis Qualitative data analysis is a process in which the researcher actively constructs meanings

from raw data such as documents and interview transcripts. Two researchers facing the

same data might analyse it in vastly different ways. The aim of a qualitative study is then

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to achieve plausibility in approach rather than allowing for rigid replication (Esterberg

2002, p. 152). My analysis involved several stages, which are described below.

Organising the data

Following the approach taken by Maguire and Hardy (2009, p. 153), I chronologically

ordered the data into a document database, which represented the flow of who did what

and when, and who said what and when. As noted by Poole et al. (2000, p. 91-92),

temporally ordering the data enables the researcher to systematically evaluate action as it

unfolds, and inductively construct a narrative of social change. At the time of coding,

there were no available instructional guides on setting up an event sequence study in

NVivo. My tactic was to digitise all collected texts, including interview transcripts and

researcher notes. Texts were imported into relational database software NVivo as

‘internals’, where a tree-type folder structure was developed to keep the document data in

order of year and month of publication. This brought order to the data, and enabled quick

access for editing, analysis and reporting.

Familiarisation with the data

The next step was to engage in the process of immersion. Each data source was read

systematically, focusing on one actor at a time. This allowed continuity in observing the

unfolding of action from each actor’s angle. It also enabled me to get a sense of the levels

of contribution by particular actors, and to start to form a picture of the trajectory and

dynamics of the two fields of focus.

Throughout the process, memos were generated by constantly asking the data a set of

sensitising questions drawn from Fligstein and McAdam (2012, p. 165). These included:

Who were the key actors that vied for control of the emerging field? What alternative

conceptions or models did these actors bring to the field? What resources – whether

material, political, ideological – did key competing actors bring to the founding struggle?

Who triumphed and why? What role did external actors – especially state actors – play in

the outcome of the founding episode?

One major understanding from this process was the realisation that conflict between

actors from both the sustainable agriculture and agri-food policy fields was generally over

competing versions of sustainable agriculture. There was variance in opinion within both

fields over whether sustainable agriculture meant completely substituting farm chemicals

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for alternative non-chemical methods, or whether it meant using synthetic chemicals in

safer and more judicious ways.

Observing process patterns

It is useful for process studies to distinguish between incidents and events: ‘incidents are

operational empirical observations, while events are abstract concepts of bracketed or

coded sets of incidents’ (Van de Ven 2007, p. 217). On their own, incidents are just raw

materials, in that they are qualitative summaries or indicators of what happened (Poole et

al. 2000, p. 140). By contrast, events are not directly observed but rather constructed by

streams of incidents. Constructed events can vary in qualities: holding different temporal

durations, overlapping with other events, nesting in larger events, or happening in

different spatial contexts (2000, p. 131).

Following Poole (2000, p. 133), I began by turning the raw data into incidents (the basic

unit of analysis). The current study observed incidents when key actors gave a

retrospective description about: (1) the actions they or others had taken regarding the

development or constraint of some aspect of the organic food market (such as standards,

or creating peak bodies); or (2) the actions they or others had taken regarding the

development or constraint of sustainable conventional agriculture (such as creating

chemical safety accreditation systems, lobbying the state for particular food policy

outcomes); or (3) environmental factors described by key actors as having a bearing on

their goals (such as recessions or food scares).

Each incident became a separate unit in the database. Following the decision rule set by

Poole et al. (2000, p. 158), at the minimum, units needed to contain summary descriptions

about the action taken, details of the main actors involved, the outcome, the date of action,

and if possible a rationale for why the action took place. I drew over 500 individual

incidents from the data, representing occurrences between 1982 and 1995.

To identify events, the analysis took a grounded approach that circled between raw data

and incident sequences (See Langley 1999, p. 699-700). Incidents were open coded based

on the goal of action (the main focus of action), or for environmental incidents according

to their effect (the main impact). I was mindful that new information might disrupt past

coding labels and require reappraisal (Green et al. 2007, p. 548). For instance, the initial

codes relating to organic food production standards were coded as ‘developing standards’,

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but it quickly became clear that coding categories needed to discern between standards

being developed, standards being implemented, and standards being ratified.

As the database was assembled, collections of time-ordered incidents became observable.

Some of these were then identified as events. In particular, incidents were identified that

initiated, extended and brought closure to a particular type of occurrence (Poole et al.

2000, p. 141). For example, I observed that the initial proposal to federate sustainable

agriculture happened at a 1983 conference on chemical hazards in Australia. Then a

succession of incidents elaborated upon the proposal: for example the lobbying of

sustainable agriculture movement groups, the formation of a steering committee, several

committee meetings, and the drafting and passing of a constitution. The final incident was

one that described the official inauguration of the organisation and how it was poised to

implement its agenda. I judged this as a closure (or cap over the incident stream) because

the planning phase ended and a clear change had occurred. I labeled this event:

‘Establishment of NASAA (1983-1986)’.

Events can, in turn, be ‘recoded into higher-order categories’ (Poole et al. 2000, p. 145).

For example, the ‘Establishment of NASAA (1983-1986)’ was one of several events.

along with ‘Development of first organic standards (1982-1986)’, that were nested within

a higher-order event category, which I labelled as: ‘Sustainable agriculture federates

(1982-1986)’. The process of inductively nesting events laid the path for temporal

bracketing, where clusters of events were worked into distinct time-blocks marking

‘certain continuity in the activities within each period and … certain discontinuities at its

frontiers’ (Langley 1999, p. 703). Decomposing data into consecutive adjoining periods

allows the analyst to explicitly examine how the ‘actions of one period lead to changes in

the context that will affect action in the subsequent periods’ (1999, p. 703). This process

required taking a wider lens, identifying larger themes that explained the array of

accumulated events. For the sustainable agriculture field, I identified three blocks:

planning and theorising the organic food market (1982-1986), implementing the organic

food market (1987-1989), and consolidating the market niche (1990-1995). For the agri-

food policy field I also identified three blocks: increasing orientation towards food

production hazards (1982-1986), crisis and sense making over solutions to production

hazards (1987-1989), and transformation of the agri-food policy field (1990-1995).

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Observing framing patterns

According to Fligstein and McAdam (2012, p. 50-51), a basic problem key field actors

face is framing stories that convince others to cooperate, while simultaneously framing

against opponents. Specifically, framing implies that actors define problems, diagnose

causes, make moral judgments, and propose remedies (Entman 1993, p. 52).

Capturing incidents and events are about identifying retrospective action. Such accounts

might miss descriptions of actors’ intended actions, or the nuanced position stakeholders

hold on a range of topics pertinent to particular actions. In order to capture actors’ framing

tactics, I followed Beckert (2008, p. 295-297), who analysed patterns of argumentation.

Arguments were coded when key actors were identified in the data as deploying a

statement of position coupled with justification for their intended action, or their

understanding about a particular topic. For example: we ought to do X because of Y

(arguing for a course of action), or agricultural chemicals are hazardous because of Z

(arguing on a topic). I identified almost 400 arguments between 1982 and 1995.

Arguments were kept in their temporal order, and nested within the events already

identified through the process coding. For example, the event ‘Chemical industry enters a

crisis (1983-1986)’ contained a range of codes with arguments making sense of the crisis,

and what ought to be done about it. Similarly, the event ‘Establishment of NASAA (1983-

1986)’, contained a range of codes with arguments for and against the federation, and

what type of action the organisation ought to engage in.

Creating a market emergence narrative

The aim of a process narrative is to achieve an understanding ‘not through formal

propositions but by providing “vicarious experience” of a real setting in all its richness

and complexity’ (Langley 1999, p. 695). In order to turn this process data into a

meaningful narrative, I followed the tactics described by Woiceshyn (1997, p. 461), who

advocated the adoption of literary devices. I began by constructing tables in a word

document, which corresponded to the temporal blocks that had emerged from the data.

For each event within these blocks, I built up information around plot (being the

description of event progressions, connections between events, how climaxes and

conflicts unfolded); characterisation (being the actors’ goals and motivations); and theme

(being the summation of the central conflict or ‘situation’ of that story). This process

involved a constant flipping between the data in NVivo, key concepts within A Theory of

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Fields, other theoretical concepts and the word document tables. The final consideration

of style involved decisions about how the three former elements would be presented, in

terms of their weightings and what gets omitted (Woiceshyn 1997, p. 467).

Consent and Confidentiality The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research sets the framework in

Australia for protecting research participants from harm, whether physical, emotional,

social, economic or legal (NHMRC 2015). In light of this framework, there were two key

ethical considerations around consent and confidentiality. Consent implies the researcher

has offered participants full explanations about the goals and scope of their research.

Participants ought to have enough information to know what they are getting into prior to

participation (Neuman 2006, p. 135). Confidentiality means that certain information

deemed to be harmful to participants is withheld from public presentation, or written as an

aggregate that masks the link between individuals and their information (2006, p. 139).

With this in mind, all interviews began by reading over the informed consent statement.

The statement detailed the aim of the research, the potential uses of the data, the right to

refuse participation, the right to request anonymity, and to let me know when comments

were off record. All interviewees agreed to participate under their real names, and all off-

record comments were kept in confidence. At the end of each interview, I asked

participants whether they wished to retract any comments. Each was given contact details

of my supervisor and me, and encouraged to get in touch should they develop concerns

associated with participation. I am confident that my representation of these actors is fair,

authentic and done in the spirit of no harm.

Credibility

A number of measures were taken to enhance the credibility of the current study, some of

which have been mentioned throughout this chapter. Two warrant explicit mention.

Firstly, I adopted data triangulation. This implies that multiple data sources have been

assembled that share a similar focus but ‘obtain diverse views about a topic for the

purpose of validation’ (Kimchi et al. 1991, p. 364). My tactic was to bring together

documents produced by as many as possible of the actors identified as key players in the

sustainable agriculture and agri-food policy fields. In this sense, I was striving for a

comprehensive understanding of occurrences by assembling a variety of views (whether

contested or congruent) in different settings (being sustainable agriculture and agri-food

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domain), and at different time periods (from the early 1980s through to the mid-1990s).

The adoption of interviews with key supply chain actors also bolstered the variety of data

sources.

The second tactic I used to facilitate credibility was a variation of member checking.

Member checking refers to taking the findings back to the subjects of the study – usually

interviewees – for feedback on the accuracy of conclusions or narrative accounts

(Creswell & Miller 2000, p. 127). This technique has drawn some criticism, because

subjects may not be the best judges of what counts as valid research, or their interests

might clash with the goals of the analyst (Koelsch 2013, p. 170-172).

My approach was not to take the subjects backstage, so to speak, but to conduct specially-

designed in-depth interviews to calibrate the weightings given to particular events and

issues, and also add more detail to them. Two member checks were conducted. The first

happened approximately halfway through data analysis with Scott Kinnear, retailer and

founding Chair of the Organic Federation of Australia. The second was conducted

towards the end of data analysis with Tim Marshall, the founding president of NASAA,

and one of the country’s most preeminent voices on organic growing.

I offer one brief example of how this approach was beneficial. Prior to the current study,

there was no research discussing the link between the beef residue crisis (explained in

Chapter 5) and organic food. My analysis had weighted this crisis as a major initial driver

of consumer demand for organic food, and also a departure point for tightening legislation

around agricultural chemicals. Tim Marshall confirmed this weighting, and also added

new detail on how it also propelled NASAA’s initial public profile.

Limitations

The main limitation of the current study was that some key actors’ contributions to market

emergence were not explored. A main example of this was the lack of account from the

Biological Farmers of Australia (BFA), which formed after NASAA to become the

second main organic certification body in Australia. Their initial focus was more in line

with a traditional farming association than identifying with the broad social movement

mobilised by NASAA. Unlike NASAA, the organisation left very little on the public

record prior to the 1990s. Moreover, requests to interview the organisation’s founders

were not accepted. Therefore there was little capacity to gather adequate information.

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The BFA was a competitor of NASAA, but it still shared similar interests in

commercialising organic food, and lobbying states for better market supports. In a sense

then, this organisation is represented in a more aggregate form via the coverage on

NASAA. Notwithstanding this limitation, the research presents a first-cut narrative that is

broad enough for future information on associated market-building projects, or the role of

actors whose actions were not adequately accounted for.

Summary This chapter has described the methods used in the current study. The case of Australian

organic food market emergence has not been a topic of focus by social science scholars or

other commentators. An exploratory qualitative approach was justified, because it better

captures rich temporal detail of actors’ actions in context than could quantitative

approaches. Two main fields were chosen as the research setting, and key focal actors

were identified as being crucial to the case of market emergence. A range of historical

documents and targeted interviews was assembled and analysed. Key events were drawn

from the data, temporally ordered, worked into bracketed events, and then graduated into

a narrative of market emergence.

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–CHAPTER FOUR–

From movement to market: the initial plan to commercialise organic food in Australia, 1982-1986

Public opinion is moving in our favour, presenting a golden

opportunity to jump in with the good news that chemical-free food

is on its way. We knew this trend was growing, but perhaps we

didn’t know how far it had got. (Organic Growing 1985a, p. 1)

Here you are, devoting most of your waking life to help grow the

food and fibre needed by every [Australian]. There the anti-

chemical activists are devoting most of their waking lives to

putting you out of business. Before you can do anything about the

problem you have to realize this basic fact: anti-chemical activists

are the world’s number one crop pest … Once you recognize that,

you must treat them like a noxious weed or a pernicious disease

that attacks public opinion and public policy. They are just another

hostile organism that must be controlled … You are trained and

experienced in dealing with biological pests. Anti-chemical

activists are a social and political pest ... You cannot rely on

scientific facts alone in dealing with society and politics. (Ron

Arnold, Centre for the Defense of Free Enterprise 1985, p. 171)

Overview

In this chapter I argue that between 1982 and 1986, three events were crucial in

contributing to the initial commercialisation of Australian organic food. The first event

was the rise in political prominence of the consumer social movement. Here I track the

movement’s push to challenge the states’ capacity to protect the public from hazardous

consumer goods. A particularly prominent target of the movement’s attribution of threat

was the practices of the chemical industry, and the way its products were used and

regulated.

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The second event focused on the unfolding crisis of the Australian chemical industry.

This crisis pushed the industry to become increasingly oriented around strategies to

neutralise their political critics, and to reaffirm its dominant position within the agri-food

policy field. One key outcome of the conflict between the consumer movement and the

chemical industry was the creation of favourable conditions for the commercialisation of

organic food. The idea to curb chemicals in food production was gaining currency with

both Australian consumers and key elite within the agri-food policy field.

The third event that contributed to the commercialisation of organic food involved the

mobilisation of previously-fragmented sustainable agriculture groups into a federal

coalition.

This event marked a departure point for the emergence of a new field that was

established to develop a dedicated market in organic food, and directly address the

hazards of conventional agriculture.

EVENT 1: THE CONSUMER MOVEMENT INTRODUCES NOTIONS OF

PRODUCT SAFETY

In this section I will be offering a narrative of how the Australian consumer movement

emerged as a political force in Australia, and contributed to the new awareness around

consumer health and safety issues for both the agri-food policy domain and broader

Australian society.

The development of a consumer movement master frame

Frames function as interpretive devices that highlight the importance or unfairness of a

social condition, or re-define a situation as being unjust and immoral and worthy of

correction. They also function to attribute a sense of blame or causality to a given

situation, coupled with a ‘corresponding sense of responsibility for corrective action’

(Snow & Benford 1992, p. 137). Master frames are bigger ideas that tell larger narratives

about a particular social issue. Due to their generic nature, they ‘enable heterogeneous

groups to be allied in common political struggles and thus lend coherence to the

movement politics of an historical conjuncture, or even an era’ (Carroll & Ratner 1996,

p. 603). Below I detail how the consumer movement constructed and then modified a

master frame around consumer rights from its emergence in the 1960s, and then into a

period of radicalisation in Australia during the 1980s. Understanding this progression is

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vital to contextualising the sentiment that propelled consumer demand for organic food

in Australia.

The initiation of the consumer movement

The intensification of organised consumer activism grew rapidly throughout the west

from the 1960s, with consumer groups from countries including Australia, the US and

the UK forming an umbrella organisation known as the International Organisation of

Consumers Unions (IOCU). Their cooperation was built on the notion that economic

markets were fraught with unacceptable power imbalances between individuals and

corporations in relation to political influence, economic resources and access to

information (Marsden et al. 1996, p. 7). In 1962, the IOCU galvanised around a core set

of values, outlined by US President Kennedy in a historical address to Congress

(Marsden et al. 1996, p. 15). In that address, Kennedy (1962) explained that since the

Second World War, the enormous growth in consumer products brought complications

for consumers in assessing whether some met minimum standards of safety, quality and

efficacy. To offset the economic shift, Kennedy outlined the need for four basic

consumer rights: to safety, to be informed, to choose and to be heard.

Underpinned by these values, the IOCU cultivated the worldwide growth of the

consumer movement during the 1960s and 1970s (Marsden et al. 1996, p. 11-13),

coordinated through collaborative product testing, a global newsletter, and regular

international conferences to share information (Consumers International 2013).

Emblematic of the IOCU’s level of credibility in voicing consumer concerns was its

being granted consultative status with the Economic and Social Council with several of

the United Nations’ specialised agencies, including UNICEF, FAO and the WHO

(Halpin 1984, p. 31).

In Australia there were two main consumer organisations linked in the IOCU network.

The first was the Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA), which was established in

1959 as a small volunteer-led, independent and non-political organisation, which

undertook consumer research, product testing, and published its findings in its magazine

Choice. By the mid 1980s it had become a potent force, employing almost 100 staff, and

deriving its annual budget of over $5 million dollars from more than 200,000 magazine

subscribers. The second key organisation was the Australian Federation of Consumer

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Organizations (AFCO), which was established in 1974 as an umbrella organisation that

developed consumer movement policy. AFCO drew its annual funding from the

Commonwealth, initially supported by the Whitlam-Labor government to build and

coordinate consensus within the consumer movement (Kelly 1984, p. 1270). The

Government had established grants for voluntary community groups who acted as

community watchdogs, but lacked the resources available to governments and the private

sector. The rationale at the time was that democracy worked efficiently when competing

interests had a level of equality in their access to resources (Cohen 1985, p. 3598). By

the mid-1980s, AFCO represented over 50 member organisations, ranging from

agriculture groups like the Country Woman’s Association, a host of workers’ unions, and

other groups with narrow interests such as Action for Public Transport and the Allergies

and Intolerant Reactions Association (AFCO & ACA 1984, p. 4).

Shifting to a radical agenda

By the early 1980s, a mood of insurgent radicalisation was growing within the

movement. The IOUC had for some time been conservative, in that it focused on

activities like product testing rather than direct political contestation (Halpin 1984, p.

28). For most of its history the organisation had been dominated by developed nations,

but then:

[Many] third world developing countries, which had set up their own

organisations, affiliated with the IOCU [and] they were more radical ... because

they were the ones feeling the whip as it were – rotten products, and hazardous

products, and being exploited ... [The] Malaysian regional director – Anwar

Fazal [began] pushing in the direction of most consumers living in the third

world needing consumer rights, basic rights to decent food and water and non-

polluted air, safe products, basic health and so on. (Halpin 1984, p. 28)

This shift pushed the consumer movement to focus on the increasing evidence of harmful

externalities caused by multi-national corporations. The products and practices of the

worldwide chemical industry were especially prominent. The classic text, Circle of

Poison: Pesticides and People in a Hungry World by Weir and Schapiro (1981),

highlighted the widespread dumping of restricted or banned pesticides from developed

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nations onto developing nations with weaker safety protections. Other reported incidents

included corporate giant CIBA-GEIGY intentionally spraying Egyptian children with a

known carcinogenic pesticide to test the chemical levels retained in their urine

(Consumer Views 1983b, p. 4), and the worst industrial chemical disaster the world had

experienced, India’s Bhopal tragedy in 1984, which killed 2,500 people, and continued

to injure many more (Consuming Interest 1985, p. 6-7).

In 1983, the IOCU international meeting in Tokyo saw 350 delegates assembled around

the theme of ‘Health and Safety and the Consumer’. The meeting unanimously passed a

declaration that drew on the consumer rights proposed by Kennedy, but highlighted the

notion that the fundamental right of the consumer was to be protected against the

marketing of goods hazardous to health and life. The declaration was rigid: ‘It doesn’t

matter whether it’s a car, drug or seemingly harmless toy; if it’s unsafe it shouldn’t have

been sold’ (Consuming Interest 1983, p. 23). Incoming IOUC President Anwar Fazal

captured the growing mood:

Like Auschwitz and Hiroshima, [these hazards are] a manifestation of

something fundamentally wrong in our stewardship of the earth … We need

actions that will go beyond mere “fire fighting” to directly confront and

fundamentally rethink the present paradigms ... We need to change the value

system of our industrial enterprises so that the health and safety of both people

and environment is paramount, superseding any technical or commercial

considerations. (Cited in Weir 1987, p. xii)

The Australian movement embraced the IOCU’s radical turn, with the ACA widening its

scope to encompass a range of activities from consumer education, advocating for

consumers to governments, and diffusing information via channels such as conferences,

seminars and the mass media (Halpin 1984, p. 3). Most emblematic of the change was

establishing an ACA Public Affairs Department to convert the ‘something ought-to-be-

done’ tone of Choice articles into coordinated action (Halpin 1984, p. 20).

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Constructing local frames

According to Benford and Snow, master frames function ‘as a kind of master algorithm

that colours and constrains the orientations and activities of other movements’ (2000, p.

618). By contrast, collective action frames are narrower in scope, ‘limited to the interests

of a particular group or to a set of related problems’ (2000, p. 618). Crucial in

negotiating shared understandings of a particular problematic condition or situation is the

attribution of blame or causality to particular sources (2000, p. 616).

Between 1982 and 1986, the Australian consumer movement had assessed in detail what

they considered to be major consumer hazards in Australia, with agricultural chemicals

featuring prominently. There were three main areas of concern: product dumping, current

legislative and regulatory arrangements, and official attitudes towards chemicals. They

warrant closer consideration.

Product dumping causes consumer hazards

The first and perhaps most prominent issue for the movement involved the issue of

product dumping. In Circle of Poison, Weir and Schapiro explained that pesticides

known to be hazards were being widely exported from developed to developing

countries. In the US, at least 25 per cent of total exported pesticides had been banned,

heavily restricted or never registered. Some were known to cause cancers, birth defects

and genetic mutations, but considered legal for export (1981, p. 4). Workers in the

developing nations were powerless to avoid hazards, facing obstacles such as general

illiteracy, repressive working conditions that gave rise to risk-taking, and governments

reluctant to scrutinise developed nations’ corporations (1981, p. 15). The overall results

were dire, with the World Trade Organization measuring rates of pesticide poisoning at

one person each minute, equating to 500,000 each year, with pesticide-related deaths

occurring every 45 minutes (1981, p. 11). These hazardous chemicals were then

imported back into the developed countries as food items, thereby closing the circle of

poison (1981, p. 28). Moreover, it was estimated that about 60 per cent of pesticides used

in developed nations would fail detection by health authorities, because chemicals

manufactured for export only were not originally required to lodge technical clearance

data with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Consuming Interest 1982b, p.

22).

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Weir and Shapiro’s text demonstrated that pesticide hazards did not respect national

borders, making product dumping an issue for both developing and developed nations

(1981, p. 28). Commenting on the Australian case, David Weir labelled it an anomaly,

because it was neither a major manufacturer nor an exporter of chemicals, with the

majority of its pesticides imported. This was problematic, as Australia legally allowed

the usage of a number of chemicals that had been restricted or banned in the US –

effectively making it a developed nation that experienced pesticide dumping by other

developed nations (Consuming Interest 1982b, p. 22).

A broader assessment of the issue by AFCO identified that dumping was prevalent

across many consumer categories beyond chemicals. For example, in 1983 it discovered

that five people died due to faulty heart valves, dumped in Australia following a US

FDA ban; pacifiers that risked babies swallowing them and suffocating were dumped

into Australia when a manufacturer faced rejection by US authorities; and salmonella-

laced baby formula was sold for over 12 months after a manufacturer knew about the

problem. According to AFCO director John Braithwaite, transnational corporations had a

general awareness that their below-standard goods were being dumped, but

investigations were blocked by a type of wilful ignorance (Braithwaite 1984, p. 31-32).

Consumer laws

The second key hazard identified by the local consumer movement was that current

consumer recall and labelling laws exacerbated the threat to health and safety. Australia

in the early 1980s did not have laws for the compulsory recall of hazardous products. All

levels of government did have the power to ban unsafe products, but a ban did not

guarantee the removal of products from the market. A product banned in one state could

be freely sold in another that had not imposed the ban (Brown 1985, p. 1). The ACA’s

assessment of widely-used agricultural pesticide 2,4,5-T highlighted the problem with

the system, arguing that ‘the label states that the product is registered in New South

Wales and South Australia. Presumably this means it’s not registered in other states even

though we bought it in Victoria!’ (Consuming Interest 1982a, p. 10). More than that,

even if the Federal Government imposed a nation-wide ban under the Trades Practices

Act, no level of government had the power to force a recall after the product was offered

for sale. The only protection accorded to consumers was the integrity and resources of

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manufacturers or distributors, or if product recalls were built into voluntary industry

codes (AFCO & ACA 1984, p. 14). However, industry codes were problematic, because

they were not compulsory and ‘often seem observed more in breach than the observance’

(Consuming Interest 1982a, p. 11).

The movement also saw an inadequacy in relation to the labelling of agricultural

chemicals, which had enabled companies’ product literature to contain a dismally-low

standard of advice to users of their products (Consuming Interest 1982a, p. 10). The

ACA highlighted the hazard:

A leaflet for [a particular pesticide] boldly warns on the front panel: “Read

safety directions before opening” but the print on the reverse side is so small

you’d need a magnifying glass to read it … The leaflet’s first-aid advice reads:

“If poisoning occurs, contact a doctor or Poisons Information Centre” … But in

country areas medical facilities aren’t readily available. As well, country

telephone exchanges are often manual and close down on weekends and public

holidays. The advice also assumes that, when poisoning occurs, the consumer

will be able to recognise the symptoms. Nowhere are symptoms listed in the

leaflet … Under the heading ‘Precautions’, the ... label goes on to warn: “Do

not contaminate dams, pools, waterways or drains with the pesticide or used

container”. But what happens if the dam is accidentally contaminated? How

long should stock be kept away from the water before it is fit to drink again?

(Consuming Interest 1982a, p. 10-11).

Official attitudes

The third assessment of consumer hazards in Australia highlighted the concern over

perceived bureaucratic bias towards the chemical industry by key government bodies.

Australian authorities were perceived as taking a more lackadaisical approach to

authorising pesticides than countries such as the United States (Choice 1983, p. 30).

Chemicals were accepted as a tool that maximised agricultural production and produced

commercial stability, while largely ignoring their harmful externalities. This attitude was

difficult to challenge, primarily because the key federal and state assessment and

registration bodies did not allow independent groups to scrutinise findings and present

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alternative arguments. The Australian system operated in such a way that in order to sell

a pesticide, manufacturers and distributors had first to gain clearance by the Technical

Committee on Agricultural Chemicals (TCAC), which operated out of the Federal

Department of Primary Industries (DPI). The Committee was chaired by the DPI, and

consisted of representatives from each of the states and territories and a representative

from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). TCAC would refer

products to several NHMRC sub-committees for recommendations, such as setting the

maximum residue levels and poison classification. ACA concluded that the committee

system lacked diversity, and ought to have consumer and environmental representatives

rather than being dominated by a narrow group of medical professionals (Choice 1983, p.

30-31).

Mobilising resources and structuring opportunity

In addition to actors attributing threat or opportunity, collective action turns on

organisational vehicles marshalling resources sufficient enough to deploy novel lines of

contentious action (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 20-21). The section below describes

how the Australian consumer movement appropriated its organisational structures to

spearhead their safety agenda. It also highlights how key political elite validated this

agenda.

Mobilising via international networks

The Australian consumer movement was sceptical over whether governments would act

on consumer hazards. ACA public affairs manager Allan Asher claimed that the

movement held little faith that governments were willing to resolve key problems, as was

evident in the state of play in 1983, when ‘not a single government has legislated for the

compulsory recall of dangerous products’ (Consuming Interest 1983, p. 22). The general

mood was that until slow-to-move governments acted, the consumer movement would

fill the vacuum by leveraging its international network − across 120 groups in 50

different countries. ACA and AFCO joined two particular IOCU networks. The first was

Consumer Interpol (CI), an investigative citizens-alert network concerned with product

dumping (BEUC News 1981, para. 3). Consumer Interpol was described as:

[A] system for notifying consumer groups and governmental authorities around

the world of hazardous products which may be sold in their markets. A network

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of consumer groups around the globe [are] sent regular Consumer Alerts by

Consumer Interpol. When a product is banned, recalled or otherwise found to

be hazardous in one country, consumer groups everywhere are alerted to watch

for this product on their home markets. Consumer Interpol is therefore a

constructive remedy to the dumping of a hazardous product from one country in

which it is banned into other unsuspecting countries. (Consumer Views 1984, p.

5)

The Australia arm of CI was officially launched by Barry Cohen, the Federal Minister

responsible for consumer affairs, as part of World Consumer Rights Day activities in

March 1984. The local CI network involved 100 geographically-dispersed Product

Safety Monitors, quickly assessing a product under international alert (Consumer Views

1984, p. 5). AFCO explained:

When a Consumer Alert is received, each of the [Australian] Product Safety

Monitors will visit five suitable retail outlets in their locality to ascertain

whether the hazardous product is on sale at any of them. In this way, the

network will cover over 500 retail outlets. If the product is found the

Commonwealth-State Consumer Product Advisory Committee will be notified

and government action requested. (Consumer Views 1984, p. 5)

The second IOCU vehicle joined by the Australian movement was the Pesticides Action

Network (PAN). The proposing of PAN in 1981 was the catalyst for IOCU and key

supporters such as OXFAM to address the proliferation of agricultural pesticide hazards

(Pesticide Monitor 2000, para. 9-15), given the perceived inability of the UN to curb

related hazards (Organic Growing 1985b, p. 20). By 1985, PAN membership had

swelled to 300 groups in almost 50 countries. While CI had a defensive agenda oriented

around filling a regulatory vacuum in consumer protection laws, PAN was an attack

vehicle pushing an aggressive public and political awareness agenda. In 1985 it launched

its first major global campaign known as the Dirty Dozen, a worldwide education effort

to present governments and citizens with 12 particularly hazardous pesticides, and

proposing their reduction or regulation. Specifically, this involved pesticides that were:

banned or significantly restricted by one or more key exporting counties; labelled

dangerous by actors such as the World Health Organisation; sold widely in significant

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quantities; highly toxic to humans, the environment, and wildlife; recognised as having

caused poisoning, injuries, environmental damage; or involved in abusive practices such

as product dumping (Organic Growing 1985b, p. 20).

PAN observed that Australia still used at least five of the dozen, which had been banned

or severely restricted in other developed countries. New Zealand had banned or heavily

restricted all 12, while Australia had banned none (Organic Growing 1985b, p. 20). The

local PAN network launched an education and media campaign to diffuse information

about pesticides such as DDT and 2,4,5-T, which were being sprayed on Australian food

crops. The campaign rationale was that Australian consumers faced great barriers in

assessing information on pesticide safety, and that these attributes needed to be made

clear (Short 1984, p. 110).

Proposing alternatives to agriculture chemicals

The consumer movement began prosecuting the case for more sustainable methods of

farming, with several PAN affiliates working with farmers and ramping up their

publicity of non-chemical alternatives to pest control (Asher 1986, p. 18). The shift saw

the Australian movement increasingly recognise that ‘many agricultural chemicals have

had detrimental side-effects, some of which have been so severe as to prompt a complete

cessation of pesticide use’ (Brown 1986, p. [6]). The local movement heavily supported

the development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as a reduction in pesticide usage:

[IPM] schemes involve an overall planned approach to pest problems

encountered in the agricultural industry. This includes consideration and

application of pest control alternatives which may or may not include some use

of chemicals. Fundamental to IPM schemes, however, is the aim of substantial

reduction in chemical usage. An IPM scheme may involve trap crops, stubble

burning, or ploughing under, hand or machine weeding, biological control, and

a variety of other mechanisms and activities, some of which formed the basis of

pre-chemical pest control and some of which have become available as a result

of new technology. (Brown 1986, p. [5-6])

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A favourable political context

With the election of the Hawke-Labor government in 1983, the opportunity opened for

the movement to pursue its consumer safety agenda. Following the election, key figures

– from Prime Minister Hawke to the Minister of Home Affair and Environment, Barry

Cohen – had meetings with the consumer movement to field opinions on a range of

matters of concern to consumers, and to enable the movement to foreshadow its

legislative reform intentions (Brown 1983, p. 1). Consumer movement actors were also

invited to participate in a number of official events and to join influential committees.

For example, AFCO Director John Braithwaite became the representative for consumer

and community groups on the Economic Planning Advisory Council (Brown 1984a, p.

1). The Attorney General also began to advocate for the establishment of a National

Consumer Product Safety Commission as a way of harmonising the states’ diverging

legislative frameworks around the recall of hazardous products (Brown 1985, p. 1).

In order to keep up with the increased demands of official duties, the Government’s

1984/1985 budget increased AFCO’s funding by over 40 per cent (Brown 1984b, p. 1).

Meeting with ACA’s Allan Asher, Prime Minister Hawke explained that there was no

theoretical limit to consumer movement involvement in government policy:

It’s a matter of looking at particular areas of activity [and seeing whether]

there’s an obvious link between the work of the body in question and the

consumer – a nexus which can be adequately represented ... If there’s a

possibility of having an effective input then there is no problem … There is still

much to be done to ensure that consumer concerns are addressed in a

comprehensive and adequate manner. The government looks forward to

meeting this challenge in cooperation with a strong consumer movement.

(Hawke 1984, p. 11)

The consumer movement also drew support for their health and safety agenda from two

further influential allies: the Australian Democrats and the media. The Democrats were

important, because they had held the balance of power in the Federal Senate since 1981,

and were considered the ‘vanguard of environmentalism in Australia’ (Madden 2009, p.

2). They were particularly aligned to the consumer movement on the issue of agricultural

chemicals. Democrats leader Janine Haines saw the current usage of chemicals as

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unsustainable, and also supported the development of IPM:

We don’t subscribe to the belief that increased farm profits and a more efficient

“farming sector” in the way that is often being used, are necessarily good for

the public, or for that matter the farming community itself. If I cited the

example of a farming sector which produced high yields of crops ... by over

farming the land and eventually destroying its ability to bear crops at all, I am

sure most people would agree ... that short term profit gained in this way was

not in the long term public interest ... [To] determine the efficiency of a set of

practices we have to take the long term view, asking ourselves whether the

practices are sustainable in the long run, and that in determining the

productivity of that set of practices we need to consider the environmental,

social and cultural costs as well as the benefits in dollars and cents. (Haines

1986, p. [1])

The second influential supporter was the media. From the year of the 1983 election, the

consumer movement’s media profile increased dramatically. The first four months of

that year saw several AFCO media releases graduate into news and get pushed through

major media channels (Consumer Views 1983a, p. 1). In the three months between

November 1983 and January 1984, the ACA conducted 136 radio and television

interviews, and received coverage in a range of print media (Halpin 1984, p. 21). The

media support was exemplified by ABC current affairs host Andrew Olle in his address

to the chemical industries 1986 annual conference:

Sometimes you mislead us; you have made mistakes on occasions; sometimes

you have cheated and rather more often you’ve simply avoided saying anything

… You’ve taught the public to depend on the stuff that you manufacture,

develop, distribute and use. They depend on it being effective and they depend

on it being safe. If they can’t depend on those things it has no place on the

market … The hard fact is that Australians are sometimes little better than

guinea pigs for your products (Olle 1986, p. [1-2])

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Olle ended his address with the following conclusion:

What you are up against in the end I suppose is that your critics are usually

saying something that demands attention that something nasty is going to

happen unless. You’re simply saying it won’t happen. The bottom line then is

that if [your critics] are wrong there will be far less harm than if you are wrong.

(Olle 1986, p. [5])

EVENT 2: THE CRISIS OF THE AGRI-CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

The destabilisation of a field can come from a variety of sources. A key source is the

invasion by adequately-resourced challenger groups wielding an altered conception of a

field. Destabilisation can also come from changes or crises in related or proximate fields

(Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 99-100). As this next section demonstrates, while the

consumer movement was gaining increasing levels of political support and successfully

changing the conception underpinning the agri-food policy field, the chemical industries’

incumbent position was being disrupted. They experienced increasing pressure and

scrutiny from organised critics, the public and the elite over their role in food production.

This pushed the industry to make sense of its situation and to counter-mobilise in order

to fortify their field status.

Making sense of the crisis Pre-1985: It’s not our fault

From the early 1980s, the Australian chemical industry faced increasing political and

public scrutiny. The publication of a House of Representatives 1982 report Hazardous

Chemicals: Second Report on the Inquiry into Hazardous Chemicals, identified a host of

problems including: widespread inadequate labelling that provided users little or no

safety guidance (Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation 1982, p. 1); key

government bodies such as the DPI and official assessment bodies downplaying hazards

rather than addressing strategies to control them (1982, p. 29); a great number of

chemicals used in Australia having been registered years earlier when little or no

toxicological assessment was required, and with no program to re-evaluate in light of

current toxicological knowledge (1982, p. 28); and that registration data on health and

safety impacts was largely generated from overseas tests, and accepted by officials with

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little or no local assessment. The Committee concluded that ‘the overall control of

hazardous chemicals in Australia is poor, particularly when compared to [other]

developed countries’ (1982, p. xi).

The election of the Hawke Labor government in 1983 signalled a period in which the

scrutiny was intensified. This was most evident in a landmark conference that same year,

which was entitled Hazardous Chemicals in the Australian Environment. Co-organised

by consumer movement organisation the ACA, the event sought to address the growing

sense of public concern on the topic of hazardous chemicals in society. The conference

brought together for the first time ‘the full spectrum of opinion from government,

industry, consumer and environmental groups, academics and concerned individuals’

(Dunphy 1984, p. 1). Its key objective was to establish a dialogue with all actors

involved in the use and control of toxic chemicals; to increase general awareness of the

serious hazards posed; and to discuss potential changes to legislation to protect the

environment from the potential overload of hazardous chemicals (Beauchamp & Hough

1984, p. [iii]). In the opening address, Minister for Home Affairs and Environment Barry

Cohen explained that ‘in Australia we need to be more informed about chemical hazards

and ways to manage them better and this will require more dialogue amongst concerned

persons’ (Cohen 1984, p. 5).

Representatives of the chemical industry assessed the 1983 conference differently,

arguing that they had been invited to participate under false pretences. Brian Flower,

communications Manager for industry peak body the Agricultural and Veterinary

Chemicals Association (AVCA), explained that the industry had expected meaningful

dialogue between concerned people interested in the truth about chemicals. Instead, the

conference had been stacked with consumer and environmental groups pushing ‘a tirade

of doom and gloom’ (Flower 1984, p. 116). The Australian Chemical Industry Council

(ACIC), the peak body for industrial chemicals, argued that the public’s negative image

of chemicals had less to do with chemical products, and more with a public’s heightened

emotions around cancer, stoked by other industries’ products – specifically cigarettes and

asbestos. The public needed to put emotions aside in a ‘risk versus cost versus benefits’

assessment:

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In weighing up the balance, bear in mind we are already at the stage that were

sunlight invented today it would be banned – it is a cause of cancer ... [Also]

bear in mind ... most vegetables if invented [now] would also be banned. They

contain benzopyrene – which is also formed when meat is barbecued or roasted.

Also bear in mind that total outlawing of suspects would close down the steel

industry and petroleum industry and hence anything that builds on them. Life as

we know it today would not be possible. (Lester 1984, p. 95)

In short, the criticism from the early 1980s around chemical hazards was met with strong

denial and opposition from local chemical industry peak bodies. The next section

illustrates how this industry held its position against critics.

Post-1985: It’s still not our fault

In 1985, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO) published

the results of a consumer sentiments survey that registered the depth of public concern

about chemical hazards. The findings implied widespread scrutiny of chemicals in food

production, signalling support for the consumer movement’s calls for reduced use. The

results showed that:

57% of those questioned felt that sprays, even if carefully used made our food a

danger to health ... 53% felt food grown with chemical fertiliser was less

healthy than food grown with natural fertilisers, and, surprisingly, a third felt

that food could be satisfactorily produced without the use of pesticides. A hefty

56% felt it was important to eat organic food. (Organic Growing 1985a, p. 1)

The post-1985 period was one of intense introspection. The industry reflected heavily on

how its organised opponents had risen to prominence to dominate public and political

debate, and what strategies could be deployed to regain control. There were two main

assessments as to why the industry had lost its credibility. Firstly, it claimed that the

increasing emergence of globalisation had brought with it an internationalisation of

public awareness about consumer product hazards. Hermann Mani, Australian Manager

of CIBA-GEIGY, explained that prior to the 1960s, the public’s attitude towards the

chemical industry was largely neutral, but by the 1970s the industrialised world had

increasingly become preoccupied with quality of life concerns (Mani 1986, p. [2]). Mani

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characterised the public as now being:

… increasingly aware of ecology and environment. Pollution issues such as air

and water contamination intensified this awareness; increasingly concerned

about safety issues, especially in relation to chemical products; increasingly

sceptical about technological progress ... Bhopal, Chernobyl and food

irradiation are examples reflecting these intensified concerns. (Mani 1986, p.

[3])

The second assessment of why the chemical industry had lost public credibility was

pegged on its under-estimation of consumer issues and the skill of industry critics.

Hermann Mani argued that the chemical industry had ignored the depth of public

concerns and emotion chemical hazards evoked. Instead of engaging the public, it

confined discussions about products and practices exclusively to traditional

communication partners, such as industry members and a small set of outsiders including

suppliers and governments. Meanwhile, the consumer movement had developed from a

loose set of amateur groups to being highly professionalised and highly sensitive to the

public’s new concerns (Mani 1986, p. [5]). This positioned it as a real political force:

[The anti-chemical movement] not only controls a highly efficient

communications network, it also has access to quality information cases,

competent representatives, who are not just skilled in their particular field of

interest but quite often also experts in public debate and dialectics. These

groups are often dedicated, professional, closely linked together, have good

relations with the media, represent popular and newsworthy causes, are well

organised, and are increasingly well respected. And, most importantly in

comparison to industry, our industry in particular, they are gaining power to

influence not only public opinion but also governmental and semi-

governmental organisations. Their effect can be seen in legislation and

increasingly in corporate policy. (Mani 1986, p. [5])

At the annual chemical industry conference in 1985, AVCA researchers warned that the

industry was currently ill equipped to deal with the new business environment. They

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offered a recent cautionary tale from the food processing industry. Having faced a

succession of international criticism over salt and cholesterol in their products, some

major processing companies had failed to recognise or take seriously the shift in public

sentiment and the corresponding expectation that they ought to correct the problem. The

result was a loss in both market share and profits (Hill & Luker 1985, p. 136-137). They

saw the chemical industry, like other Australian industries, as being on this same

trajectory:

Internationally, the potential destructiveness of issues has forced many leading

corporations to allocate more and more money and resources to identifying,

tracking and acting in this area. Generally this function has fallen in part or in

total, to public relations professionals, both within these organisations and

through external advice. So far only a relative handful of companies and

industry associations in Australia ... have formally made an increased

commitment in this area … [demonstrating] a failure to appreciate the depth and

commitment of the environmental lobby. (Hill & Luker 1985, p. 136)

The keynote speaker at the 1985 AVCA conference was Ron Arnold, Director of US

conservative think tank the Centre for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Arnold argued that

understanding the organisational structure of the anti-chemical movement was the first

step to neutralising its growing power. Firstly, he explained that anti-chemical critics

were segmentary, meaning that their movement involved many leaders, rather than one

single group or person speaking for the whole. This accorded them advantage, because a

single large company could be attacked by a procession of critics. A company might shut

down a particular critic via legal means, but there was an endless supply of others ready

to fill its role. Secondly, critics shared a common ideology. Although critics differed on

peripheral points, at their core, they had a synchronised notion that nature was sacred and

technology was sacrilege. Thirdly, critics were able to diffuse ideology within their

networked structures. Their networks provided the average citizen with a group to join

and to become active within, and ultimately a structure that could diffuse ideological

materials throughout a large audience. The logical extension was that recruits became

personally committed to an ideology, and developed an outlook of ‘us versus them’

(Arnold 1985, p. 168-169).

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In short, Arnold and others were describing the skill of the anti-chemical movement in

being able to frame the chemical industry as causing health and environmental hazards;

to construct collective action vehicles that mobilised valuable resources; and to engage in

innovative collective action against the industry.

Constructing new frames and mobilising vehicles

Social movements perceived to be potentially powerful are likely to trigger counter-

mobilisation from actors whose interests are threatened. This is especially the case when

states refrain from repressing the emergence or development of a particular movement

(Kolb 2007, p. 63). Both of these variables were present for the chemical industry,

spurring a simultaneous re-fashioning of the industry peak body to become more

oriented around public relations, and the forging of a new set of frames geared towards

justifying the need for chemicals in pure economic terms.

Restructuring the industry interface

From 1985, the industry prepared to communicate directly with the public for the first

time. Accepting that critics like the consumer movement were now part of their policy

field, the chemical industry set out the new rules of engagement. Hermann Mani from

CIBA-GEIGY explains:

[Past] attitudes such as “NO COMMENT” or “IT WON’T HAPPEN TO US”

are not conducive to advance the debate. They rather reflect resistance to the

new climate of the 1980s and a reluctance to stand up and be counted as a

credible participant in public discussion ... [I] understand the reluctance to

commit time and resources to the debate with the new players in the

communications game. Their demands are new and often unexpected. They fall

outside our traditional organisational structures and paths of communication.

They complicate decision-making and may involve loosing some grip on hard

earned success ... [But] unless we seek public debate and respond to the new

players, our financial success is placed at risk. Failure to do so could result in us

being regulated out of existence. But let me emphasise, public debate does not

mean – necessarily – acceptance of the new players’ point of view. They are

often single minded, dogmatic, even obstinate in the defence of their position,

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in their argument. Public debate means to discuss to argue an issue in detail

with the aim of, hopefully, an improved outcome! (Mani 1986, p. [6-7])

AVCA contracted a communications firm to assess available tactics, who urged them to

mimic the Australian mining industry’s successful campaign from the late 1970s, which

had promoted mining as being the ‘backbone of the country’ (Macnamara & Royal 1985,

p. 141). Addressing the 1985 AVCA conference, the head of peak body, the Australian

Mining Industry Council, explained that critics of mining had previously won public

support because they ‘attracted attention with their emotional appeals and intrinsically

“good” goals’ (Strong 1985, p. 126). The emergence of a more ecologically-aware

Australian public marked a significant erosion of support in mining during the 1970s.

The industry became politically vulnerable to governments who ramped up

environmental legislation and taxation. The industry countered with a range of public

affairs initiatives, the centrepiece being a national advertising campaign communicating

to the community the role mining played in Australia (1985, p. 128). The result was a

sweeping shift in positive attitudes towards their industry:

The majority of people were less suspicious of the industry now that it was

providing information about itself … More people believed that Governments

exercised too much control over the industry ... There had been an improvement

in the public’s mind in regard to the industry’s performance on the environment

… Mining was seen as an “industry” rather than by “issues” as had previously

been the case [and] the campaign received positive support from politicians.

(Strong 1985, p. 131)

Deploying new tactics

The 1986 annual AVCA conference, entitled Agvet Chemicals – Production Technology

for Modern Agriculture, saw the industry make a major play to reclaim its power within

the agri-food policy domain. As detailed in the conference pamphlet, it marked a break

with the structure of past conferences, which had been designed to offer industry

participants a competition-free environment in which they exchanged views on issues

around innovation in the application, handling and distribution of chemicals, as well as

new safety procedures. Critical views from the outside looking in had not featured – until

now. The event would allow the views of government, farmers, business, consumers, the

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media and others to voice opinions on the industry’s performance, and what future

practices and products it ought to provide for achieving safer and more effective

agricultural production (AVCA 1986, p. [ii]).

A number of organisational details, however, showed how AVCA set out to constrain its

critics by setting the agenda. AVCA had not allowed its more outspoken critics (such as

PAN) to participate. AFCO president Robin Brown noted in his presentation that it was

disappointing that no representatives of the environmental movement or the union

movement were present to discuss the impact of chemicals on the environment and on

workers. On a practical level, that left him unable to adequately deal with the broad issue

of chemical hazards in just one presentation. Secondly, AVCA had imposed presentation

titles on participants, effectively setting the range of issues they could talk about. AFCO,

for example, was given ‘Chemicals and the Food Chain – Are there any Missing Links?’,

which put Brown in the position of having to interpret the title given to him, and then

keep within the topic of pesticides and agriculture (Brown 1986, p. [i]). Finally, AVCA

set out the expected rules of engagement with delegates before the event. The

overarching aim was to put the image of ‘a cloak and dagger industry … permanently to

rest’ (Kudelka 1986b, p. [2]). But that involved stakeholders approaching the conference

without their preconceived prejudices. The President of AVCA Victoria offered an

impassioned plea:

I urge you all to ensure your deliberations reflect concern for the common good

and are not clouded by emotional antagonism, both of which fly in the face of

rationalism and constructive debate. The eyes of all Australians are on us in

Canberra over the next two days. Members of the public have a right to know

how and why decisions are made about matters affecting their health and safety

as well as that of the environment in which they live. Part of our role this week

in Canberra is to answer consumers’, farmers’ and governments’ questions and

concerns about agvet chemicals. (Kudelka 1986a, p. [i])

Presentations from the chemical industry at the 1986 conference were highly cohesive,

mimicking the mining industry’s strategy of presenting itself as the backbone of the

nation. AVCA President Robin Bligh exemplified the tone:

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Let me make no bones about it. Like any other industry worth its salt, our

members are motivated by profit and growth. But we have an additional level of

satisfaction in knowing we contribute to the productivity of rural Australia …

The farm component of our product mix is valued at around $500 million, at

factory gate values, annually. This is conservatively worth in the order of

$2,000 million a year to Australian agriculture in terms of increased production

and productivity … Recognising the rural sector’s vital role in generating export

income, our industry in fact contributes considerably more than this to the

whole of Australia in economic terms through flow-ons. It also provides

inestimable benefits to all Australians in terms of maintaining a reliable supply

of high quality, pest and disease-free food and cloth. (Bligh 1986, p. [2])

In April 1986, the chemical industry was hit with another public image crisis, when a

leaked confidential memo from within CIBA-GEIGY made the front page of The Sydney

Morning Herald. Originally sent from the company’s regulatory affairs manager to the

director of agriculture, Hermann Mani, it acknowledged they would have great difficulty

in defending some product lines if questioned about their hazardous impacts. An internal

company audit discovered a range of problems, such as: chemicals used for pineapple

and apple crops having the potential to cause reproductive issues in farm workers; a

chemical known to be carcinogenic sold several years after agreement with Australian

authorities to remove it from market; and a food crop trialling unregistered chemicals

that was accidently harvested and sold to the public. The article also claimed that some

agricultural chemicals cleared for use on the Australian market were first tested by

chemical industry-owned US laboratory Industrial Bio-Test. This laboratory had been

heavily criticised by the US Environmental Protection Agency for falsifying its

toxicological data in over 100 pesticides (Roberts & Harris 1986, p. 1).

Despite the scale of the fallout, Mani described the occurrence as a major victory for the

chemical industry. It had marked a break with the traditional blanket industry silence that

had previously allowed critics to misrepresent it. This time, right from the outset, CIBA-

GEIGY adopted an open-door policy, engaging with anybody looking for answers. By

positioning front and centre of the debate, the industry successfully curbed the usual high

profile accorded to its critics by the media. For the first time, journalists came back to

check facts and verify information. The process enabled the industry to keep abreast of

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how the issue developed, while simultaneously countering the usual scare tactics from

critics. They were able to deploy a positive message around their commitment to

improve safety (Mani 1986, p. [8-9]).

EVENT 3: COMMERCIALISING ORGANIC FOOD IN AUSTRALIA

This section tracks how the sustainable agriculture industry changed from a set of

non-commercial, loosely-connected state and regionally-based groups to a

federated organisation that planned to transform mainstream agriculture. This

process is captured in the construction of a new industry association known as the

National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia (NASAA), and the

assembling of resources in order to coordinate organic farmers and cultivate

consumers.

Uncoordinated: organic food before 1983

Before the mid-1980s, organic agriculture held significance for four different

groups. The first consisted of a small number of commercially-oriented farmers

who had experienced the negative effects of chemical-based agriculture, either to

their own health or that of their produce or livestock. They had originally adopted

non-chemical farming methods as a way of solving or preventing potential health

hazards. These farmers were not aware of each other, and many only realised they

were farming organically when a recognisable market later emerged (Wynen &

Fritz 2007, p. 227). Almost all organic products in Australia during the early

1980s were simply mixed in with, and sold as, conventional produce (NASAA

1989, p. 269).

The second group consisted of sustainable farming and gardening associations, which

were specific to a particular state or local region. The large distances between these

groups hindered any meaningful collective action, and saw them working largely in

isolation from each other (Wynen & Fritz 2007, p. 227). When reading journals from

these groups, it is clear that they did not have strong commercial interests in the growing

of organic food, motivated mostly by a set of broader social values. For example, the

Soil Association of South Australia was founded in 1975 with the specific aim of

promoting the interconnection between the health of the soil and the health of South

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Australian plants, animals and humans (The Living Soil 1991). Similarly, the Henry

Doubleday Research Association in New South Wales was established in 1970 with the

aim of promoting farming, gardening and research that facilitated ‘lifestyles that are in

harmony with the environment’ (Natural Growing 1984, p. 3).

The third group consisted of a small number of health-food stores and green grocers

(largely concentrated in Victoria) that were dedicated to supplying organic food. These

actors were selling produce to a range of consumers, from people with health issues such

as food sensitivities or cancers to those who had developed a general healthy eating

orientation (Diamond 2010, 3 January).

One pioneering retailer, John Williams, recalled that sourcing organic produce was

fraught with obstacles. Retailers could rely on a basic amount of produce from a small

number of organic farmers selling out of the conventional wholesale market, but

maintaining a broader range depended on forging direct supply relationships with

farmers. This led to many retailers constantly cold-calling growers to work out if they

farmed organically, and solving the problem of getting supplies farm to store. Moreover,

the whole exercise was expensive to maintain, with the phone calls alone adding

significantly to the overheads of their small businesses (Williams 2009, 7 September).

Upon finding an organic farmer, the retailers faced the major problem of how to trust

authenticity. Established relationships with farmers over time enabled retailers to build

up knowledge of individual growers’ farming practices (Williams 2009, 7 September),

but when it came to establishing new relationships, they often had to judge farmers’

claims with very little information:

In those days organic was measured by whoever you bought [from saying] ‘I

don't use any chemicals’. It was a trust thing. (Alexander 2009, 18 August)

It was one of the difficult things, and yes we were making assessments in that

regard, whether we think this is organic or not. That was the best we could do at

the time, but we were certainty not [completely] comfortable as far as viewing

it from the perspective of consumers. (Diamond 2010, 3 January)

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The final group of actors interested in organic food was the Australian branch of the

Appropriate Technology and Community Environment (APACE). APACE was a

movement founded by German economist E. F. Schumacher, whose seminal book Small

is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered (1973) solidified the concept of

appropriate technology, and set the philosophical foundations for an international

network of affiliates. The basic assumption of the movement was that modern industrial

society was on a collision course with people, their environment and the world’s stock of

resources. Moreover, western technology benefited the few, because it set high cost

barriers for developing countries to acquire and use technology in a way that improved

their collective living conditions. Appropriate technology was about democratising

access to technology by designing objects that were decentralised and people-centred.

This meant building technology that was small scale, energy efficient, labour intensive,

environmentally sustainable, community controlled, and a whole host of other elements

(Hazeltine & Bull 1999, p. 3). At the 1982 APACE Schumacher Memorial Conference, a

workshop was held to discuss emerging environmental issues, and organic food was

presented as an appropriate technology in contrast to the prevailing methods of food

production. It was at this point that the local branch was first oriented around the

coordination of organic food supply (APACE Newsletter 1983, p. 3).

A stalled attempt to cultivate supply

In early 1983, an APACE task force was established to create a supply channel of

organic produce directly between local New South Wales producers and consumers. The

project leader, Sandy Fritz, took up the task of contacting buying clubs and food co-ops

in order to gauge what level of demand there might be. This involved ascertaining the

quantities and range of lines needed, and the location of these potential buyers

throughout New South Wales. On the supply side, Carl Hoipo, president of sustainable

agriculture group the Henry Doubleday Research Association, took up the task of

contacting farmers (mainly members of the HDRA), with the aim of gauging their

capacity to supply (APACE Newsletter 1983, p. 3). Once this diagnosis of supply and

demand was completed, a meeting was held between representatives of producers and

consumers to discuss standards, pricing and distribution. Fritz reported that she had

received initial interest from two food co-ops and 15 individual households wanting to be

part of the direct supply of organic produce. To broaden out the consumer base, she

flagged a plan to approach the Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA) with the hope

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of soliciting the readership of Choice. The sticking point came from the supply side.

Hoipo reported that of the many growers approached, only one, Warrah Farm, was able

to supply bulk quantities (Fritz 1983, p. 3-4). The others he approached were not

enthusiastic about a commercial prospect:

Most of the small scale homesteaders produce small amounts of surplus and are

philosophically oriented towards self-sufficiency and exchange with friends and

neighbours. The numbers of commercial farmers who consciously, deliberately

use organic methods are small. Some commercial produce is organic in an

‘accidental’ sense, as with some fruit deliberately produced for processing, but

the first reaction of some organic farmers was that they would not want to be

associated with a system which mingled their produce with ‘accidental’ organic

produce. So as you can see, even before addressing the problem of linking the

farmer with the householder, it doesn’t look very easy. (Hoipo 1982, p. 13)

The type of growers Hoipo referred to were known within the sustainable agriculture

movement as the ‘back-to-land group’, who had grown from the counter-cultural

movement of the 1960s and 1970s. They were semi-organised in that they were generally

members of the established gardening and farming associations, and also produced their

own publications, which were mostly ‘how to’ guides offering practical advice and

ideological guidance to newcomers on ways to ‘reject current societal values and change

their way of life’ (Jones 2010, p. 101). As one commentator described:

Back to landers were rebelling against an amorphous, intangible enemy dubbed

‘the system’. The system was the derisive name given to modern industrial

living and all its perceived excesses: consumerism, materialism, complicated

dehumanising technology, bureaucratic control, over-exploitation of resources,

environmental destruction and alienation from nature. (Jones 2010, p. 89)

Sandy Fritz conceded at the meeting of stakeholders that the project to establish an

organic market did not appear possible at this juncture (Fritz 1983, p. 3).

According to the economic sociologist Jens Beckert, for a market to be present there

must be elements of both exchange and competition. At the very least, markets are pre-

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supposed by three actors oriented towards each other, where there is ‘one on one side of

the market confronting at least two other actors on the other side whose offers can be

compared’ (2007, p. 7). Based on this assumption, it can be argued that there was a

market in organic food in the early 1980s, but it was haphazard and faced major

coordination problems. Retailers faced problems with verifying authenticity of organic

food, and were judging ‘organic-ness’ on a case-by-case basis. The majority of organic

food was not distinguished from its conventional counterparts at the point of sale.

Finally, the farming and gardening associations were not oriented to organic food as a

commercial object, and their farmer members rejected a commercialisation project.

Emergent mobilisation

Fligstein and McAdam used the concept of emergent mobilisation to capture the process

by which collective actors forge new paths of interaction with other actors based on

understandings of the threats and opportunities facing their collective interests. For a new

field to emerge, actors must create or appropriate organisational vehicles that have the

capacity to spearhead action and occupy a previously-unorganised space (2012, p. 91).

Wry et al. (2011) saw the process of field emergence as involving skilled actors forging

new collective identities. These actors work to supply rationales to potential targets

around the boundaries of group membership (who we are) and a set of core goals to be

carried out by the group (what we do).

Defining who belongs to the federation

In mid-1983, Sandy Fritz changed her strategy. Aside from being a driver of organic

food within APACE, Fritz was part of the organising committee of the earlier-discussed

landmark conference Hazardous Chemicals in the Australian Environment. Following

the conference, she reflected how she and other participants were both surprised and

disappointed at the general lack of awareness attendees had about organic agriculture as

an alternative to the use of hazardous chemicals. Integrated Pest Management was a

production method accorded some discussion by presenters, while organic methods rated

little mention. Fritz decided that ‘a meeting of those involved in organic agriculture in

Australia was needed to consider forming a federation [so organics] could be more

influential and more likely to be recognised by, and as a part of, mainstream agriculture’

(Fritz 1984a, p. 22). She began by approaching the different sustainable agriculture

gardening and farming groups around the country, offering a detailed proposal for a

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national organisation (Wynen & Fritz 2007, p. 228).

At the beginning of 1984, Fritz initiated a series of workshops around the country, many

of which piggybacked several local organic festivals and conferences. The first meeting

was held at the Organic ‘84 festival in Richmond Tasmania, and drew wide attendance

from groups including APACE, HDRA, Allergy Recognition and Management

Association, the Soil Association of South Australia, Willing Workers On Organic

Farms, the ABC, the Department of Agriculture, Organic Gardening and Farming

Society of Tasmania (OGFST), and individuals from organic groups in other states

(Organic Growing 1984b, p. 1). At each event, Fritz formally presented her plan for a

federation of groups, and then invited dialogue about the perceived obstacles and

opportunities for cooperation. Fritz cast a broad net in defining the boundaries of

potential members:

Although the idea originally centred on organic agriculture it is obvious that

many other agricultural practices share the same ideals: to produce food in a

way that is non-polluting, regenerative to the soil and conserves energy and

resources … So to begin with, participation in this national association would

include permaculture groups, [the] bio-dynamic agriculture association, organic

farming and gardening societies, soil associations, ecological or biological

farmers and others. (Fritz 1984b, p. 18)

The rationale for why members ought to join the federation was then framed along three

main lines. The first was to highlight the common ecological interest all groups shared

regarding modern-day Australian agriculture (Fritz 1984a, p. 22). Fritz elaborated:

The structure of many soils has broken down and they have been degraded by

salinity, acidity and wind and water erosion. The erosion has carried not only

sedimentation into the river systems causing flooding and disturbing the

ecology of the river; but agricultural chemicals runoff with soil. These

chemicals pollute the water creating a hazard for waterlife and for animals and

humans who rely on these supplies for drinking purposes. (Fritz 1984b, p. 18)

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The second rationale for federation was that the current structure of fragmentation

between the groups was the major obstacle to the wider uptake of sustainable food

production. Fritz understood that groups held a determination to keep identities localised

and regional. Even groups within the same geography that shared identical values were

concerned about their autonomy (Fritz 1984b, p. 19). Fritz countered by claiming that on

the one hand, fragmentation constrained credibility:

The current situation with many small organic gardening and farming societies

spread throughout Australia is ineffective in changing the direction of how food

is produced here. These small groups … serve to endorse the idea that organic

practices are limited to backyard gardens … An association of existing groups

would be big enough to be recognised by mainstream agriculture and the wider

community of farmers and consumers. (Fritz 1984b, p. 19)

On the other hand, Fritz argued, fragmentation hindered the efficient use of resources:

A united association is more likely to have the resources (money and people

power) to respond to enquiries from this broader sector and to communicate

with government bodies … Considering the contrast in conventional and

organic systems, one might question why more farmers don’t practice organic

agriculture. Farmers are caught on a chemical treadmill which is not easy, but

not impossible by any means, to transcend. Establishing a program that would

assist farmers in making the transition to organic agriculture and resolving

some of the problems and obstacles that hinder existing organic farmers is what

I think an association of organic societies can accomplish. (Fritz 1984b, p. 18)

In other words, Fritz argued that a federation of groups was the best placed to assist

farmers in transitioning away from chemical-based food production.

The final rationale for federation was that the structure of cooperation between groups

would function as a network rather than a bureaucratic amalgamation. A network would

value regionalism and autonomy as the pivotal mechanism to achieving the movement’s

shared goals. Each group operated in its own unique geography with varying climates,

markets, problems and people. It followed then that effective lobbying and promoting of

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organic agriculture would rely on the skill and knowledge of local people embedded

within local settings (Fritz 1984b, p. 19). In her words:

This in no way threatens the independent activities of individual societies or

their own communication systems (i.e. newsletters, meetings). It merely, but

significantly, joins them in communication amongst one another and in working

together to establish a healthier and more sustainable food system in Australia.

(Fritz 1984b, p. 19).

At the workshops, participants were asked to vote on the proposal, make suggestions on

how the new organisation ought to function, and even elect officers to begin the process

(The Living Soil 1984, p. 5). The response by the Soil Association of South Australia

reflected the common sentiment:

The proposed association will almost certainly go ahead with or without the

support of the Soil Association of SA. Our best option is to support its good

work, for the benefit of organic farmers and gardeners, the environment and the

community, making whatever contribution we feel appropriate about how it

should function, finance itself, what problems it must address, and what

affiliations it should have … There will always be a need for state and regional

organisations, because Departments of Agriculture exist at a state level, as does

labelling legislation. Also, climactic and edaphic problems require local

knowledge and solutions. A national organisation should strengthen local

groups by keeping them informed, sharing knowledge and skills ... [and]

consolidating state advances at a national level. (The Living Soil 1984, p. 5)

In short, Fritz had skilfully proposed membership boundaries, identified chemical

hazards as the common enemy, and proposed a federation that advanced collective

interests in transforming agriculture, but still kept individual group identities intact.

Consolidating the movement

By the beginning of 1985, it was widely agreed that Fritz’s proposal should be put into

practice. An interim steering committee was established with Fritz as its coordinator

(Organic Growing 1985c, p. 1). The fledgling federation was galvanised by three key

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tactics that served to mobilise organisational membership. Firstly, all groups were given

democratic access to the decision making over the structure and focus of the federation.

Following Fritz’s initial series of workshops, state councils were formed, where regular

meetings enabled geographically-similar groups to create a forum for discussion and

debate. All groups were given equal voting rights, regardless of their membership size or

status within the sustainable agriculture movement. This meant that despite HDRA

having 800 members, it only had one vote on the state council, the same as the

Hawkesbury Ecological Farming Group that had only 30 members (Fritz 1985, p. 2).

From the state councils, two members were elected as delegates to the national steering

committee, which set the task of preparing a constitution, and also the aims and

operation of the association, such as how to get funds, use funds and achieve collective

goals (Fritz 1985, p. 1). Steering committee members had two broad functions: to reflect

at the national level the opinions of state councils, which in turn carried the opinions of

grass root members; and to keep state councils in the loop on developments at the

national level (Wynen et al. 1986, p. 2).

The second tactic was that the steering committee would focus on broader topics of

agreement between groups, rather than dealing with micro disagreements that came from

identity cleavages. As described by one Tasmanian steering committee member:

Previous attempts [to bring groups together] failed because there were those

who considered that a particular name or system of representation was more

important than whether or not we had a national body. On this occasion we

have risen above those things ... Of course we are all individuals and inevitably

we can’t agree on everything. Equally, we can all agree on the need to limit the

use of dangerous chemicals or unsound ecological practices, and on the right of

consumers to a safe food supply. If we begin with those concerns we all share,

and resolve to bring about change, all will benefit. (Jordan 1985, p. 2)

The final tactic was to change Tasmania’s Organic Growing journal to accommodate the

new commercial orientation being pushed by the federation. Its print run was ramped up

from 4,000 to 13,000 to be distributed commercially throughout the country. Editorial

focus shifted from inward-looking ‘how to’ stories for small-scale growing to covering

the bigger ‘outward’ occurring issues which organic food could help combat, such as

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‘the outcry against chemicals, the threat of PVR, plus global horror stories of soil

erosion, deforestation and famine’ (Organic Growing 1985c, p. 1). The editor

contextualised the ascendency of the federation and the new role of the journal:

We are part of a huge world-wide movement working for the long term survival

of our soil, food, health and livelihood. From the smallest backyard gardener to

the large commercial organic producer, we are all part of a jigsaw which will

succeed one day (it will have to) in putting the world back on the right track. So

it should cheer us all on to learn what is happening overseas, where perhaps

things are a few jumps ahead. When we see where we fit in, we [will] no longer

feel isolated. (Organic Growing 1985c, p. 1)

By the close of 1986, the steering committee had finalised and agreed upon a

constitutional framework, with the federation formally inaugurated as the National

Association for Sustainable Agriculture (NASAA). NASAA was constituted by 30

organisations with a total of 5,600 members (Wynen & Fritz 2007, p. 229). An executive

was established with delegates from each of the states, and Sandy Fritz was elected in the

crucial coordinating role of Secretary (Fritz 1986b, p. 2).

Defining what the federation will do

While the new federation developed organisational structures that set out the appropriate

rules of interaction amongst member groups, a simultaneous discussion occurred about

its main goals. Discussion was largely oriented around issues of improving the supply of

organic food. HDRA president Carl Hoipo, for example, had reiterated in Natural

Growing that the major constraint on general supply was the philosophically-committed

back-to-land farmers, who produced very low quantities of organic food, and presented

shops and distributors with constant issues of continuity. The sentiment within the

developing federation was that securing better supply depended on recruiting

commercial conventional farmers who recognised the hazards of pesticide usage, and

were interested in learning more about sustainable agriculture (Hoipo 1985, p. 25).

NASAA identified two broad obstacles that hindered these farmers stepping off the

pesticide treadmill. The first were structural. Governments subsidised conventional

agriculture in forms such as a fertiliser subsidy and access to credit. Moreover, private

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agricultural research stayed away from organics because it was perceived as a public

good, where once the technology was available, it was available also to non-payers. By

extension, little income could be leveraged from such research. Second were issues of

viability. A conversion to organic farming meant that farmers would initially face a

reduction in yields while they and their land adjusted to the alternative methods. The

problem was that a general lack of information on alternative farming implied great

uncertainty around how organic farmers might survive during this period, or a broader

question of how their businesses would fare in the longer term. It was NASAA’s view

that farmers could not clearly judge the utility of organic methods against the established

body of knowledge on chemical methods (Wynen 1985, p. 24).

NASAA proposed two key solutions to counter the lack of alternative farming

knowledge. The first was that they would establish an information clearinghouse that

centralised knowledge on alternative agriculture. The idea was that farmers could write

to the clearinghouse for advice on any problems relating to organic growing (whether

practices or policies), and for a small fee, staff would obtain specific answers. Over time,

the clearinghouse would database a detailed understanding of the unique problems faced

in the different regions and the different practitioners in these regions. This would enable

staff to put farmers in direct contact with others in their proximity who had faced and

overcome similar issues. Also, when common problems were identified, they could be

addressed in detail by supplying information to the national journal Organic Growing

(Fritz 1984b, p. 19). In addition, the clearinghouse would collect a list of potential

farmers who could speak at functions to share their knowledge; identify areas most

needing research; identify farmers willing to participate in future research on organic

farming; gather data on growers (where they are and what they produce); gather data on

potential retail channels for farmers; and prepare fact-sheets on current issues being

debated by or lobbied on by the movement (Fritz 1986c, p. 2-3). In short, the

clearinghouse would be the information one-stop-shop for sustainable agriculture.

The second solution to offset the information asymmetry was the development of organic

production standards. A fundamental issue for those interested in growing organically

was the widespread confusion about what actually constituted organic food. One

particularly telling example was in 1984 when representatives of Tasmania’s OGFST

attended several meetings in Victoria to share farming knowledge accumulated by their

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membership. The Tasmanian delegation recalled regularly being asked for their exact

definition of organic growing. The difficulty was that some in the movement defined

organic as a ‘do nothing’ approach, where simply refraining from using chemicals

qualified food as organic. Others believed it was more than that, involving extra

processes such as recycling plant wastes and nutrients to create rich healthy soils

(Organic Growing 1984c, p. 1). Others again called themselves organic, not realising

they were applying substances to their crops considered by some in the movement as

inappropriate for organic production (Williams 2009, 7 September). Meanwhile, retailers

had to make case-by-case judgments on whether the produce they were selling was

organic (Diamond 2010, 3 January). In short, the uncoordinated definition of ‘organic’

enabled a wide scope of interpretation by different actors.

The development of production standards was seen as a solution to synchronising

expectations about what constituted ‘organic’, from the growers down the line to

consumers (Pollard 1983, p. 18). A standards development committee was established in

1984, headed by Lionel Pollard, founder of Willing Workers On Organic Farms

(WWOOF). Pollard’s Victorian-based committee set the goal of producing two

documents to be used as touchstones for organic farmers. The first would consist of a set

of basic statements ruling in and ruling out particular substances and practices, thereby

creating a basic production standard. The second would go deeper into the reasoning

behind particular decisions, and offer instructions for input usage, details of practices,

and general how-to guides for organic growing. Pollard proposed a collaboration, where

any interested movement member could attend standards development meetings or

supply farming recipes, encouraging experiences, management practices, details of

scientific experiments, or other relevant information. Then those new organic farmers

entering a standards scheme would have both formal and practical information to guide

their practice (Pollard 1984, p. 2).

A draft of the basic standard was circulated in late 1984 to every sustainable growing

group in the country, as well as to environmental and health food groups. Pollard

estimated that the draft reached approximately 200 farmers, 150 interested groups and 20

media outlets (Pollard 1985, p. 23). The standard adopted a definition from the British

Soil Association (BSA), which balanced commercial productivity with human and

environmental health and safety. ‘Organic’ was formally defined as: ‘a form of land use

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designed to produce optimum yields from crops and livestock, of the highest nutritional

values, free from anything detrimental to health and without impairing future

productivity’ (Victorian Organic Standards Committee 1985, p. 23-24). To

operationalise this definition, the standard set out approved alternatives to synthetic

chemicals. In relation to pest control for example, a list of techniques and substances was

proposed that avoided harm to the biological life in the soil. For example, farmers could

choose to control insects through methods such as the encouragement of natural

predators, setting insect traps and companion planting; fungal diseases could be treated

by choosing from a list of herbal and homeopathic sprays, seaweed extracts and the like;

and troublesome weeds could be controlled through crop rotations, mulching, timely

sowing and planting. In relation to soil fertility, synthetic fertilisers could be replaced by

list substances originating from animals (like fish meal), vegetables (like seaweed) or

minerals (like limestone). For the first time, Australian farmers were given a single clear

statement of rules that could be followed in order to produce ‘organic’ food (1985, p. 23-

24).

Following the circulation of the draft standard, initial concern surfaced from the New

South Wales and Australian Capital Territory state councils that ‘while 100% chemical-

free conditions should be compulsory for the [top] organic label, nevertheless there is a

need for more lenient grades to encourage farmers during the conversion stage’ (Fritz

1985, p. 2). The standard was further fine-tuned with the structuring of three grades by

which produce could be categorised. Grade A included produce grown to the basic

standard for over three years. Grade B included produce grown on soil in conversion to

organic methods, or where harmful spray residues still resided in the soil. Grade C

included produce where chemical sprays had been used, but only under severe economic

threat or for legal requirements (Pollard 1985, p. 23). By the third and final draft in 1986,

further specifications were added around implementation, such as how inspection and

enforcement would work (Wynen 1986, p. 2).

Ready to enter the agri-food policy domain

The idea to orient sustainable agriculture around the commercialisation of organic food

gained momentum, with a rapid fire of decisions by the NASAA executive throughout

1986. It was decided that the Federal Government would be approached to fund both the

clearinghouse and research into the development of the domestic and export market for

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Australian organic products. NASAA itself would be professionalised, creating paid

positions in administration, publicity and other special project duties. Moreover, NASAA

would enter broader debates in agriculture by developing clear policies and position

papers on important issues such as genetic modification or soil erosion. Finally, they

would end their moratorium on keeping a low profile, and communicate to the public

through a wide-reaching campaign about the importance of sustainable farming. The new

association was poised and ready to operationalise its plan to offer farmers a viable

alternative to conventional agriculture (Fritz 1986a, p. 24).

Conclusion

This chapter first tracked the onset of contention between the consumer movement and

the chemical industry. We saw both movement challengers and industry incumbents

engage in a process of appropriation of organisational structures in order to spearhead

their agendas within the agri-food policy field. One key outcome of the conflict was the

creation of favourable conditions for the commercialisation of organic food. In the

consumer movement’s push for consumer protections, support for the curbing chemical

use in food production gained currency with key state elite and consumers. Both

occurrences happened while the NASAA coalition was still in its planning stage.

The onset of this episode of contention was also the departure point for the emergence of

the sustainable agriculture field. We tracked the pivotal role of one skilled actor, Sandy

Fritz, who mobilised a previously-loose network of small sustainable agriculture groups

into the federal coalition. This mobilisation was framed around commercialising and

nationalising organic food as a technology that would reverse the hazards of

conventional agriculture

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–CHAPTER FIVE–

From talk to action: disruption in the agri-food policy field and the implementation of an organic food market, 1987–1989

Few in the community would not have seen, heard of or read of …

chemical related problems concerning a variety of agricultural

products. In the last two years in particular Australia’s farm

leaders, agriculture Ministers, consumer groups and many farmers

as individuals have called on Australia to lead the world in

producing clean, unpolluted and residue free produce. (Powell

1988, p. 1553)

Australians would not only prefer their food to be grown and

processed without the use of chemicals, but they are willing to pay

more for food produced in this way ... The national poll [for the

The Sydney Morning Herald] found 83 per cent of people said they

would prefer their food without chemicals. (Schauble 1989, p. 8)

Overview

The previous chapter covered the period of 1982 to 1986, and identified the conditions

that led to the initial orientation of the sustainable agriculture movement towards

creating a commercial national market in organic food. This chapter is set in the period

between 1987 and 1989, and describes how the idea to commercialise organic food

graduated from talk to implementation. To capture the change, I track three interrelated

events. The first event was a food crisis in 1987 involving chemical residue violations in

Australian exported beef. This crisis created a general threat to the overall agriculture

market, and became a major driver of demand for organic food. The crisis also became

the departure point for two subsequent events. The second event tracks the heightening

episode of contention within the agri-food policy field. Players were increasing their

orientation towards ‘clean agriculture’, with the debate centred on whether food ought to

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be produced by the judicious use of chemicals, or whether there should be a complete

cessation of chemical usage. This event also marked the entry of the key sustainable

agriculture actors into the agri-food policy field. The third event tracks how the massive

growth in the demand for chemical-free food pushed the sustainable agriculture field to

address the major market issue of stable consistent supply.

EVENT 1: THE BEEF CRISIS RIPPLES INTO BROADER AGRICULTURE FIELDS

As observed by Fligstein and McAdam (2012, p. 100), proximate fields can have certain

dependencies that serve to stabilise order, but these relationships also make the routine

operation of dependent fields susceptible to disruption. Much like the rippling of a stone

dropped in a pond, the onset of a crisis in one space could become the source of crisis

and disruption in a proximate space.

In May 1987, a major food production crisis ‘forced [Australian] governments, the

agricultural industry and the community at large to make adjustments to their use of

certain pesticides, and to their perception of pesticide use in general’ (Rutherford 1989,

p. 2). The crisis began when American Food Safety Inspectors from the Food and Drug

Administration discovered three shipments of Australian beef, originating in Western

Australia, Southern Queensland and Western Victoria, as containing irregular levels of

the pesticide DDT – an organochlorin pesticide that had been banned in the US for

several years. Washington officials were particularly concerned, because two of the

shipments showed chemical residues far in excess of acceptable Australian levels, the

latter being set 40 per cent higher than US limits (Fray 1987a, p. 9). Over the coming

months, a succession of incidents signalled the deepening of the crisis. By July, at least

30 separate lots of beef had tested positive for excessive residues (Fray 1987b, p. 11). In

August, the US Department of Agriculture registered their intent to ban $80 million

worth of Australian beef that had been produced before May (Fray 1987c, p. 1). Citing

the US restrictions, Australia’s largest meat exporter laid off around 500 workers and

shut down its New South Wales abattoir. The crisis then began to spread to other

countries. Japanese quarantine officials discovered that a consignment of Australian beef

had five times the residue level allowed by Australian regulations – a higher

concentration than any found in the US. The Japanese Government moved to impose

stricter safety inspections on Australian beef than any of Australia’s other trading

partners (Casey & Hartcher 1987, p. 2). Particularly worrying was the decision by two of

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Japan’s biggest retail chains to withdraw Australian beef from display, prompting the

Japanese Government to warn Australian officials of the significant domestic pressure to

clear doubts about the quality of Australian beef (Hartcher 1987, p. 2).

At the onset of the initial violation, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service

(AQIS) immediately deployed 150 veterinary officers and 1,800 meat inspectors as part

of a program of test export abattoirs (Corrigan 1987, p. [2-3]). The process discovered

another four lots of beef bound for the US with pesticide levels similarly exceeding US

standards (Fray 1987d, p. 4). The primary concern from the agricultural peak body, the

National Farmers’ Federation, was that the situation played into the hands of US lobby

groups currently pushing to install protectionist policies and to restrict Australian access

to food markets (Fray 1987a, p. 9). Some Australian political commentators went further

in arguing that the incident had the ability to completely undermine Australia’s

competitive advantage of being known as the home of natural, pure, rural products. Since

the Chernobyl nuclear incident in the Soviet Union, some Australian rural products had

experienced an enormous jump in demand (Fray 1987b, p. 11).

Attributing responsibility for the crisis was complex. DDT was a widely-used

organochlorin in Australia, having been used for decades following World War Two,

though by the 1990s it had been phased out (Harrison 1997, p. 7-8). DDT was celebrated

for its effectiveness in controlling a wide range of pests and diseases, but since the

publication of Rachael Carson’s book Silent Spring, it had come under increased

scrutiny. Common criticisms included the increase of plant ‘resistance, secondary pests,

widespread environmental contamination, biomagnification and effects on animals

higher in the food chain (including humans)’ (Radcliffe & AATSE 2002, p. 2). The

assessment of the crisis by AQIS avoided blaming a particular group or organisation,

framing the violation scientifically as being caused by the ‘persistence of organochlorins

in soils and their illicit use or contamination of storage facilities’ (Corrigan &

Seneviratna 1990, p. 56). The export violations were caused by animals grazing

contaminated pasture, ingesting contaminated feed or held in contaminated yards over a

period, [which] bioaccumulated residues in their adipose tissues [and] eventually

exceeded maximum residue limits (1990, p. 56).

Describing the incident as a national scandal, the Australian Democrats argued that they

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had attempted to have agricultural chemical legislation tightened two years prior, but

were ridiculed by the major political parties (The Sydney Morning Herald 1987, p. 9).

The federal Minister for Primary Industries, John Kerin, conceded that many states had

not properly regulated the use of some pesticides while being fully aware of residue

hazards for almost two decades (Fray 1987e, p. 9). This position was supported by the

environmental activists the Total Environment Centre, who cited a 1975 report warning

the New South Wales State Government about the presence of pesticide bio-

accumulation, and its potential to end beef exports to the USA – a warning not passed on

to farmers, but now a prophecy potentially fulfilled (Fray 1987f, p. 2).

For the newly-federated network of organic agriculture, the timing of the crisis was

fortuitous. The first NASAA president Tim Marshall remembers:

We had basically formed NASAA and had our media releases ready to go pretty

much, and we woke up one Sunday morning … to the Sunday papers having the

huge headlines that said: DEFECTS FORCE USA BAN. Basically Els Wynen,

Sandy Fritz and myself got on the phone to each other, we said: ‘are you ready

to go’? We went to our fax machines … and faxed every media outlet that we

could find the number for across the country, and for the next year we did

massive amounts of media. And you’ll find that in all the rural papers, in the

state based [mainstream] papers, and even in the national papers. Nobody

within the organic industry could ever have prayed for the publicity we got

from that headline on one day. (Marshall 2013, 3 December)

EVENT 2: THE AGRI-FOOD POLICY FIELD ACCOMMODATES SUSTAINABLE

AGRICULTURE

Policy domains imply political fields where governmental organisations such as state and

federal departments of agriculture, quarantine bodies, and representatives of other

organised groups meet to forge rules and governance mechanisms, and to create orderly

patterns of interaction for non-state fields such as markets (Fligstein 2001, p. 39). The

states’ aversion to instability propels them to facilitate or impose routine interaction

when fields they oversee enter into crisis (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 108).

This section shows the reactions from within the agri-food policy field in the wake of the

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beef crisis. The crisis forced actors to seriously assess the future usage of chemicals in

food production. Simultaneously, the field’s increasing orientation towards ‘clean

agriculture’ led to a reckoning between organic agriculture and conventional agriculture,

where stakeholders offered competing models for the future of Australian agriculture.

Governmental orientation towards ‘clean agriculture’

Reactions from state governments

In response to the beef crisis, the states began to directly address the issue of chemical

hazards. The Queensland Government banned the sale of DDT and other organochlorins

(Fray 1987d, p. 4). New South Wales implemented a suite of tougher fines on individuals

or companies illegally selling or using banned pesticides (Aubin 1987, p. 3). In other

states, the goal of reducing these hazards involved giving greater voice to stakeholders

beyond the conventional farming industry. South Australia, for example, formed a new

advisory committee on agricultural chemicals in 1988 that included environmentalists,

unionists, organic farmers, and various health advisers, including toxicologists and

allergists in particular. In order to give the issue a broader perspective, the Minister of

Agriculture, Kim Mayes, argued that the group represented the wider community. The

minister also believed that it was timely to consider alternative methods to chemical-

based food production (Powell 1988, p. 1553).

The Victorian response to the beef crisis was the boldest. The concern was that any

erosion of local and international confidence in Australian agriculture would directly

affect the states’ trade. To counter this, in 1988 the Government executed the so-called

‘Cleaner Agriculture’ strategy. One main component was instituting the annual

‘Chemical Awareness Week’, which largely aimed to communicate to farmers the

concerns of the community about chemicals in food and the environment, and the correct

way to use, store and dispose of farm chemicals (McGowan 1991, p. 4-5). The

Government targeted farming families, chemical re-sellers, the community and rural

school children. A wide variety of channels were used, including television commercials,

rural press, posters and pamphlets at chemical re-seller stores, and departmental field

days (McGowan 1991, p. 9-11).

The third focus of ‘Cleaner Agriculture’ was to research the area of ‘chemical use and

their alternatives’ (McGowan 1991, p. 4). The Department of Agriculture and Rural

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Affairs directed scientists at the Vegetable Research Station in Frankston to evaluate

ways of producing good-quality food with fewer chemicals. In 1989 the preliminary

trials showed promise, with the Department’s Minister Barry Rowe explaining that they

were ‘developing new farming techniques, using less, and in some cases, no chemicals at

all – for instance, using naturally occurring compost instead of fertilisers, using

biological control instead of pesticides’ (Eco-Ag 1989d, p. 18).

It is clear from the projects initiated by DARA that the department held a broad

definition of ‘clean agriculture’ which spanned from the use of chemicals in an informed

judicious way through to chemical-free and organic farming.

Reaction from the federal political sphere

During 1988, the Federal Government initiated a number of measures to deal with the

fallout from the beef crisis. In April, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill

1988 proposed a new body, the Australian Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals

Council, to oversee the transformation of two problem areas. The first was the

inconsistency between state legislative frameworks. The Bill would establish a single

federal law around the availability, levels of use, claims, labelling and packaging of

agricultural chemicals. Through standardisation, the Federal Government foresaw ‘that

efficacy, toxicity and environmental impact [would be] fully evaluated’ (Blewett 1988,

p. 2303). Moreover, it suggested that cleared chemicals would be those that did not cause

undue hazards to people exposed to them during manufacture, handling, transportation,

use, disposal or consumption in food products (ASTEC 1989, p. 1). The second issue the

Council would tackle was the general lack of information on chemical usage available to

farmers. For example, a product may be safe at the correct dosage, but hazardous at

higher doses. Similarly, it may be effective on one particular crop, but if used on another,

it may reduce the crop value to zero. Chemical users therefore needed practical

information on the potential problems and consequences of using products outside of

their recommended parameters (Blewett 1988, p. 2303).

In July 1988, Prime Minister Hawke requested the Australian Science and Technology

Council (ASTEC) to examine the issues of chemical residues in food, with particular

focus on the implications for domestic consumers and international trade (ASTEC 1989,

p. iii). Although supportive of the ASTEC study, the Australian Democrats saw the need

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for more of a root-and-branch inquiry that took ‘stock of where chemical dependence

could lead us and of the alternative options that are open to us’ (Powell 1988, p. 1553).

They proposed a senate inquiry that would explore the pros and cons of conventional

agriculture vis-à-vis alternative methods such as IPM and organic. They reasoned that

conventional agriculture as practised in Australia had created a host of problems. If this

situation continued, the environment would be further degraded, and the future

productive capacity of farmland would be at risk (Coulter 1988, p. 1562). On the other

hand, they saw the development of non-chemical methods as a potentially-lucrative

economic opportunity, having perceived that for Europe and the United States, ‘clean

food’ production was becoming a major international trade issue. For example, the

European Community had begun to actively develop policy on rural alternatives that

were ‘not dependent on the use of fertilisers, chemicals and high energy inputs’ (Powell

1988, p. 1553). In the case of West Germany and Denmark, this included incentives for

farmers to switch to organic systems (1988, p. 1553).

The Democrats’ argument about the economic potential of organic food was validated in

December 1988 by AQIS upon the release of the discussion paper entitled Implications

of Increasing World Demand for Organically Grown Food. The paper was a landmark,

because for the first time, an official recommendation was put to Department of Primary

Industries Minister John Kerin about why and how the Government ought to support the

growth of the Australian organic industry. On the point of why, AQIS’s argument came

in two parts. Firstly, it argued that demand for organic food had rapidly expanded

internationally, driven by consumers in affluent western nations like Germany, the UK,

Japan and the USA (1988, p. 6-7). Germany, for example, had the biggest organic market

in the world, estimated at $100 million per annum, and growing at an estimated 25 per

cent annually. Likewise, the UK market had grown in the order of 100 per cent in the

past few years. The Japanese market had also established a loose-organic category of

produce called ‘healthy vegetables’, produced with minimal chemical inputs (1988, p. 7).

Underpinning the growth of these markets were new consumers who shared a common

concern over health issues. Many consumers, not happy with scientific research on the

safety of pesticides, were actively seeking out organic food, and were willing to pay a

price premium (AQIS 1988, p. 2). Other than health concerns, AQIS found that

demographic variables such as age, education or socio-economic group did not capture

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the typical organic consumer. For this reason they claimed that organics were becoming

part of a general world health trend, meaning ‘the future potential of organics could be

much broader, being supermarket items rather than products found in specialty stores’

(1988, p. 7). AQIS saw the increasing interest of overseas supermarkets in stocking

organic food as a major indicator of economic potential, claiming that ‘these chains

undertake careful research and their survival depends on the accurate prediction of future

consumer demand’ (1988, p. 9). Most significantly, these emerging markets were all

struggling with consistency of supply, especially due to seasonal fluctuation. Australian

producers had opportunities, because overseas organisations were looking ‘for out-of-

season suppliers so they can offer year round organic produce’ (1988, p. 7). Based on

these signals, AQIS concluded that substantial export markets for Australian organic

produce existed (1988, p. 9).

The second part of the argument was that Australia should not stall in positioning itself

to exploit organic market opportunities, because competitors, specifically New Zealand,

‘will take the markets’ (AQIS 1988, p. 10). Both Australia and New Zealand had a

comparative advantage over other countries because they were generally perceived as

clean and free from environmental hazards, including radioactivity. Yet New Zealand

had the edge because of its Department of Agriculture being actively involved in

assisting the development of organic food exports (1988, p. 11).

The main issue for the fledgling local organic industry was that farmers were struggling

to meet local demand. The availability and volume consistency of organic produce was

erratic in nature, and generated ongoing uncertainty for intermediaries and retailers

further down the supply chain (AQIS 1988, p. 5). AQIS’s main recommendation was to

have the state provide resources for its expansion:

If organic agriculture is to expand in Australia to meet local and overseas

demand, research programs and extension services will need to be developed

and implemented. The main objective of this work could specifically address

the needs and problems of organic farmers and … assist conventional farmers

who may wish to move towards organic farming, adopt some organic methods,

or reduce their dependency upon agricultural chemicals. (AQIS 1988, p. 10)

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AQIS had acknowledged that many conventional farmers were primed to adopt organic

growing because of three main incentives. The first was that the Federal Government’s

incremental removal of subsidies from agriculture had facilitated a new era, in which the

minimising of inputs was central to farm profitability. This made organic farming

attractive, because it involved eliminating fertiliser costs by substituting chemicals for

the biological control of plant pests (AQIS 1988, p. 1). The second incentive was that

recent pesticide residue problems had acted as a catalyst for conventional farmers to

genuinely assess chemical-free farming and other sustainable agriculture practices. AQIS

observed that farmers in recent years were already moving incrementally towards

practising lower-input farming, and the trend was gaining pace. This meant that the drive

to use fewer artificial fertilisers and agricultural chemicals was aligning farmers’ desired

practices with the philosophy of organic farming. The final incentive to conversion was

that consumers of organic food were willing to pay price premiums around 20–30 per

cent above conventional foods, but often this was higher – sometimes in the order of 100

per cent (1988, p. 8).

Chemical industry repositions towards clean food

The deepening crisis for chemicals

At the close of 1988, the stakes were raised for the chemical industry. The Australian

Democrats secured support from the Labour Government to establish a senate inquiry

into Australian farming practices (Australian Democrats 1988, p. 1). The Democrats’

Primary Industry Spokesperson, Janet Powell, offered the following rationale:

In recent times farm leaders and agriculture Ministers have called on Australia

to lead the world in producing clean, unpolluted and residue-free produce -

precisely because it is this produce which is in great demand in overseas

markets and will increasingly be demanded by the domestic market … The

Democrats are convinced that Australian farmers and policy planners must take

heed now of the warning signs from within Australia and overseas and look

seriously at the future implications of chemical usage and the alternatives of

non-chemical and integrated management systems. This inquiry will be a

valuable contribution to the task of ensuring that Australian agriculture

continues to be productive and, importantly, that it has an economically and

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ecologically sustainable future … The Terms of Reference have been designed

specifically to ensure that the Committee will primarily emphasise future

directions and strategies for Australian agriculture so that as a nation we can

address problems and challenges with foresight and in a responsible way.

(Australian Democrats 1988, p. 1).

The terms of reference for the inquiry were set around three main areas: to explore the

adequacy of agricultural and veterinary chemical legislation; to explore the value of

chemical, non-chemical and integrated management systems; and to explore the

economic, social and environmental impact of agricultural and veterinary chemicals and

their alternatives (Powell 1988, p. 1553).

Chemical industry peak body AVCA immediately began lobbying Minister Kerin to

rescind government support for the inquiry. They explained that the beef residue crisis

had dealt a blow to Australia’s international credibility as a healthy food producer, but

following the crisis, the chemical industry had cooperated with the DPIE and others to

convince trade partners that the monitoring of residues was under control, and a repeat of

the beef residue crisis would not happen. The proposed inquiry, they argued, would

signal to those trade partners that Australia lacked confidence in its own system, and

expected further problems to occur in the future. AVCA’s real fear was that the anti-

chemical sentiment would be exacerbated by media reporting of ‘sensationalised

unsubstantiated comments and allegations [by] the industry’s opponents under the

privileged protection of parliament’ (Farm Chemicals Today 1988a, p. 3).

Addressing a major food industry conference entitled Pure Food: The Challenge to

Agribusiness’, NFF President John Allwright added his support for the chemical

industry, arguing that the ‘media hype on the use of farm chemicals is far more corrosive

and damaging than the use of those chemicals themselves’ (Allwright 1989, p. ii).

Following the conference, Allwright proposed a new coalition:

Consumers are surprised, almost shocked, for instance when told that residue

limits are set at one thousandth of the level which shows no effect in laboratory

animals … If there is one issue on which (the NFF and AVCA) should join

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forces and co-operate to secure our joint future, it is the image of the safety of

food and residues. (Farm Chemicals Today 1989a, p. 1).

Neutralising negative judgments

Accepting that the Inquiry was going ahead, AVCA began addressing the growing

credibility of ‘clean agriculture’. At the 1988 annual AVCA conference, its Executive

Director Allen Morley offered a rationale for why the industry ought to strive to embed

itself in the emerging concept:

The term ‘clean agriculture’ has become a favourite for politicians looking to

assure the Australian public and our international trading partners that the use of

chemicals does not threaten the future of this nation’s most significant export

markets. [It] is a term this industry must embrace if it is to remain a partner in

the business of agriculture … Clean agriculture, however, does not presuppose

the absence of farm chemicals. What it does imply is the competent

management of farm chemicals and that is why Australia has a unique

opportunity to build its reputation of being a producer of healthy agricultural

commodities … In order to maintain and enhance that reputation, we must play

our part to ensure Australia becomes the international leader in agricultural

chemical management. (Morley 1988, p. [2-3])

In other words, AVCA’s definition of ‘clean agriculture’, related to the prudent use of

chemicals, rather than the wholesale withdrawal from chemicals. AVCA deployed a suite

of measures in order to stop the increasingly perceived dichotomy between food

produced with chemicals and the idea of ‘clean agriculture’. The first was to neutralise

public fears about chemicals. This included a host of measures. A half-page

advertisement ran in The Sydney Morning Herald over two weeks entitled ‘No. You are

not being poisoned’, which redressed factual omissions made by biased media reporting

on ‘alleged pesticide poisonings and high residue levels in foodstuffs’ (Farm Chemicals

Today 1989b, p. 8). AVCA established a community chemical factory open day, where

40 manufacturing plants across the country opened their doors for a weekend to 60,000

members of the public. The goal was to showcase the plants as safe, interesting, and as

producing products that have a profound influence on the public’s quality of life (Farm

Chemicals Today 1989d, p. 7). AVCA also produced a health and safety poster, entitled

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Protecting Your Family, Garden and Pets, that was distributed as an insert to New Idea

magazine, a publication that had a circulation of over 1,000,000 (AVCA 1989a, p. 880).

In their words:

It is not a poster to sell chemicals; it is a poster which says, if you have pets,

gardens, a house or premises or dwelling whereby there may be pest problems,

there are a number of ways to look at them without treating them chemically;

but if you decide that a chemical treatment is necessary, then here are the

instructions. You should go about reading the label, mixing, choosing the right

equipment, application, disposal and preparation for emergencies. (AVCA

1989a, p. 880)

The second tactic was to target farmers about safety practices. In 1988, AVCA partnered

with the National Farmers’ Federation to promote and distribute posters to 150,000

farmers detailing the correct means to dispose of their unwanted chemicals and empty

containers. They also negotiated with the mainstream rural press to run a major safety

education campaign aimed at encouraging the 220,000 rural sector workers to read and

follow the correct chemical product labelling instructions (Morley 1988, p. [3]).

The final tactic, the centrepiece of their project to take control of ‘clean agriculture’,

targeted the retail and wholesale part of the chemical industry. An accreditation scheme

for chemical resellers was designed to harmonise with existing government regulatory

controls. All companies that stored and sold farm chemicals would have to make

employees take compulsory and professional safety training. AVCA built tough and

uncompromising sanctions to be placed on companies that did not meet or maintain the

standards, or whose employees failed to get the training. Ultimately, AVCA could refuse

to supply product from the chemical manufacturers to these companies. If the

manufacturers supplied an unaccredited reseller, they faced expulsion from AVCA

(Morley 1988, p. [2]). A pilot course was developed by the chemical industry and TAFE

South Australia, and was launched in February 1988 (Farm Chemicals Today 1988b, p.

6). AVCA estimated that over the next four years, the training course would target

around 10,000 industry individuals (Farm Chemicals Today 1989c, p. 8). At the 1988

AVCA industry conference, executive director Allan Morley argued that the scheme

would be vital for restoring industry credibility: ‘This industry will not simply be judged

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on how well we perform the tasks we are legally required to perform. The industry will

be judged on what responsibility we accept beyond that which governments place upon

us’ (1988, p. [1])

The reckoning of agricultural methods

Fligstein and McAdam (2012, p. 22) argue that during episodes of contention, framing is

ubiquitous, where ‘all manner of combatants … can be expected to propose and seek to

mobilize consensus around a particular conception of the field’. The senate inquiry

proposed by the Democrats was unique, because it brought together a wide

representation of agricultural stakeholders to a forum that overtly pitted conflicting

production methods against each other during a period of heightened chronic scrutiny

towards conventional farming methods. The inquiry offers an opportunity to gain a

snapshot of the key stakeholders within the agri-food policy field, framing what they saw

as the future direction of sustainable agriculture.

The section below tracks the attempt by the pro-chemical and pro-sustainable agriculture

groups to frame their methods as being the future model for Australian agriculture.

The pro-chemical camp

Two incumbent agricultural peak bodies, AVCA and the NFF, dominated the pro-

chemical case during the inquiry. They presented three main arguments to rationalise

chemical-based farming as the only possible path towards simultaneously producing

‘clean agriculture’, and maintaining the economic viability of agriculture and the

Australian economy. The arguments were similar to those developed earlier by AVCA,

but were now refined and augmented with a richer quantitative dimension.

Argument #1: Wholesale adoption of organic farming threatens living standards

AVCA proposed that commodity markets, particularly agriculture, were pivotal to the

overall wealth of Australian society. The current chemical-based system was capable of

maintaining acceptable levels of trade (AVCA 1989a, p. 910), whereas a shift to

chemical-free farming would cost Australia $2 billion per annum in lost export earnings

(1989a, p. 799). To bolster the claim, several scientific studies were presented. One study

claimed that replacing herbicides with tillage for weed control on wheat resulted in a 10

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per cent crop loss. Another study on apples claimed losses between 70% and 100%,

which led AVCA to claim that potentially no apples of an acceptable standard would be

available in Australia within a few years of chemical-free farming (1989a, p. 798).

A shift to organic farming would also forgo future economic opportunities that might

arise through population growth. Citing a key 1981 report by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO), entitled Agriculture – Towards 2000, AVCA

argued that by the turn of the century, two-thirds of the population in developing

countries would experience shortages of fertile land. The expectation was that developed

countries with the technology and capacity would need to supply the bulk of the increase

required to meet global food demands (AVCA 1989a, p. 799). Australian producers

currently had the capacity to substantially ramp up their yields with the aid of chemicals.

By contrast, organic agriculture was a system that produced lower yields. Chemical

abstinence invited increased insect attacks and resulted in larger crop losses than

conventional methods (1989a, p. 798). AVCA went further in dismissing organic

farming:

The adoption of non-chemical methods of agricultural production generally

involves commitment to a defined life-style. [Labour] inputs are much higher,

holdings must be smaller and there is generally an associated group

commitment to self sufficiency … Despite the fact that this approach could not

work effectively in our extensive cropping and grazing areas, it would, in

theory, involve enormous life-style change for the community in general if

perused. It is akin to the peasant-farming approach that exists in some less

developed agricultural economies. AVCA is doubtful whether these very basic

changes would be acceptable by the Australian community – either urban or

rural. (AVCA 1989a, p. 814)

Argument #2: Agricultural Chemicals are safe

The second frame proposed by AVCA was that farm chemicals were safe to both

producers and consumers. The recent release of the ASTEC report, Health, Politics,

Trade: Controlling Chemical Residues in Agricultural Products, was quoted heavily by

AVCA, and its key allies were the NFF, the Wool Council of Australia (WCA) and the

Cattle Council of Australia (CCA). ASTEC had concluded that chemical residues were

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not an undue health hazard to consumers of Australian produce, and that the system kept

residues below the regulatory limits. As such, farm chemicals did not represent a cause

for community alarm (ASTEC 1989, p. ix). AVCA also cited findings from two pillars of

the regulatory system, the NHMRC Market Basket Survey (MBS) and the DPIE National

Residue Survey (NRS). Both 1986 surveys showed negligible pesticide violations. The

MBS, which tested the average diet as consumed and prepared by Australians,

demonstrated a near-perfect compliance with maximum residue limits, with over 80 per

cent of samples showing undetectable levels of pesticide residue (AVCA 1989a, p. 876).

Similarly, the NRS had shown that 99.7 per cent of 45,093 samples complied with the

maximum residue limits. AVCA concluded that no other country could match

Australia’s pesticide compliance level (1989a, p. 819).

Despite the effectiveness of the regulatory system, AVCA argued that the industry took

responsibility for ensuring that its products were used carefully after they left the factory

gate (AVCA 1989b, p. 5150). This was being achieved by a suite of education and

training programs such as the industry accreditation system (1989a, p. 878), and by

awareness campaigns that focused on encouraging farmers to understand, read and

follow label directions (AVCA 1989a, p. 816).

Argument #3: Conventional agriculture is compatible with sustainable methods

Both the NFF and AVCA submissions validated the development of IPM as a credible

future tool for farming. The NFF argued that biological methods – central to organic

farming – may have proven to be effective on their own in some cases, but generally

needed to be supplemented by other control techniques (NFF and WCA 1989, p. 3732).

They supported the development of IPM, because it represented a whole-system

approach to pest management that evaluated and integrated ‘biological, chemical and

natural or cultural control factors into a unified program’ (1989, p. 3858). Bundling

chemical with non-chemical methods meant ‘economic damage is avoided, the

effectiveness of control strategies are optimised and better sustained, and adverse effects

on the environment and environmental quality are minimised’ (1989, p. 3858). The

essential point was that IPM was not a rejection of pesticides as a control tactic, but

rather ‘requires and promotes a more precise use of pesticides, and the development of

and use of materials with greater selectivity and shorter environmental persistence’

(1989, p. 3730).

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AVCA claimed that the chemical industry’s overwhelming support of IPM contradicted

the myth that they were only interested in needlessly pushing chemicals on users. It was

a fact that chemical companies had already poured millions of dollars into joint ventures

with scientific bodies to develop more sustainable crop protections. AVCA cited 13

members currently cooperating with CSIRO on projects to develop IPM and to improve

the ability of farmers to apply chemicals judiciously (AVCA 1989b, p. 5138).

The pro-organic camp

The pro-organic agriculture camp was led by NASAA and supported by a host of other

sustainable agriculture groups, as well as by consumer and environmental organisations

ACA and the Australian Conservation Federation (ACF). This camp argued that the

growth in credibility of chemical-free food amongst consumers and the agri-food policy

field signalled that government ought to support its mainstreaming. NASAA pushed one

main line of argument at the inquiry: that organic food production was viable, but needed

government assistance to overturn certain discriminatory structures that constrained it

from going mainstream.

Argument #1: Government ought to level the playing field

NASAA contended that it was no longer tenable for alternative farming critics to suggest

that no viable alternatives to chemical farming existed. There was mounting quantitative

and qualitative evidence suggesting that some alternative farm production had been just

as commercially successful as conventional farming, even when no price premiums were

paid for organic produce (NASAA 1989, p. 233).

NASAA identified six government structures that obstructed its wider diffusion. The first

was input subsidies. NASSA pointed out that until recently, conventional farmers

enjoyed a fertiliser subsidy where the inputs of sustainable agriculture did not. They

argued against any re-introduction of such policies, because they disadvantaged

sustainable farmers vis-à-vis conventional counterparts (NASAA 1989, p. 235).

The second area was the external costs of conventional farm inputs. NASAA argued that

chemicals created costs to society (via detrimental health and environmental factors) that

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were not borne by the farmer. They suggested following Sweden, which in 1985 imposed

a tax on chemical inputs (NASAA 1989, p. 235).

The third area identified was the significant disparity between research being conducted

on conventional and alternative methods (NASAA 1989, p. 235). There was an

abundance of knowledge being generated on the chemical approach, which was readily

available for conventional growers to apply to farming practices. By contrast, the lack of

research on non-chemical methods was sparse, and acted like a barrier for many farmers

in choosing the sustainable approach (1989, p. 265). The Government was vital in

redressing the imbalance because of the unique quality of non-chemical farming

knowledge:

[Many] of the in-puts used in sustainable agriculture are based on knowledge

about things which [are] different from the [physical] in-puts used in

conventional agriculture ... If a system is based on knowledge, it means that ... a

private company cannot easily get its profits back from [investing in research].

(NASAA 1989, p. 284)

The fourth area identified was discrimination towards organic food by the official

marketing arrangements for particular commodities (NASAA 1989, p. 265). For

example, the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) had explored marketing chemical-free

wheat in the past, but found buyers were reluctant to pay higher prices. Differentiating

between conventional and chemical-free became a matter of low priority. Organic

growers, who took the initiative to market their own wheat, were left in a position where

they had to sell their product to the AWB and then buy it back for a higher price. The

wheat never physically left their farm; only the finances were exchanged before

permission for export was granted. The costs incurred compared to conventional wheat

growers were therefore much higher, making chemical-free farmers more likely to face

lower demand due to increased prices (Quarterly Report 1988b, p. 8).

The fifth area identified was lack of assistance by government in helping the fledgling

industry differentiate organic produce at retail. The dilemma was that the costs of

establishing a professional nation-wide certification scheme were enormous, and

required some seed money at the initial stage of development and implementation

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(NASAA 1989, p. 265).

The final area was that organic farmers were not given financial support during their

transition from conventional farming. The reality of the conversion period meant a range

of financial strains on growers for several years, such as a general decrease in yield, not

drawing a price premium until they achieved full organic status, and incurring new costs

for machinery to cope with tillage. For these reasons NASAA saw a case for subsidies

during those particular years, as was the case in Denmark (NASAA 1989, p. 282).

The ACF submission highlighted that its main concern about conventional agriculture

was the association between farm chemicals and land degradation. They cited emerging

research showing that organic methods were applicable to broadacre commercial

farming, and that the Government ought to test the validity of the claim that organic

‘techniques improve soil structure and organic matter sufficiently to reduce soil erosion

hazard’ (ACF 1989, p. 3059). For the ACA, the Government’s role ought to be in

researching how systems of organic food supply could be better coordinated with

demand:

ACA perceives that Australian consumers’ interest in obtaining low chemical

produce is growing. Freedom of choice is a basic tenet of the consumer

movement’s platform. At present however, this choice is difficult to exercise

because of the limited amount of organically produced food available and the

poor distribution systems for such produce. Assistance funding is needed to

research improved marketing and promotion systems. [At the very least]

funding of an extensive education campaign would … assist in informing

consumers and traders of the various certification marks and the different

production methods involved. (ACA 1989, p. 3217)

The state plays umpire

According to Fligstein (2001, p. 41), the central location of states in the creation or

governance of market institutions draw the focus of economically-interested actors who

push states to implement or maintain rules which compliment their interests. The beef

residue event had drawn the state into the centre of a growing food and exports crisis,

and officials were pushed to state their positions on the future of chemical and non-

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chemical farming in Australia. The section below details the two main positions taken to

settle the conflict.

Agriculture chemicals are safe

The final report of the Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Veterinary

Chemicals had been initially scheduled to present its conclusions by the last

parliamentary sitting day in 1989. This was delayed, and the report was not submitted

until mid-1990 (Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals in

Australia & Colston 1990, p. xxxiii). By the close of 1989, a number of definitive

conclusions had been articulated by the Federal Government and key statutory bodies

about the status of conventional versus organic agriculture. The earlier-mentioned report

by ASTEC was one example. Another was DPIE Minister John Kerin, who explicitly

validated the position of conventional agriculture. Kerin argued that it was the misuse of

chemicals that had caused past hazards, and that when chemicals were ‘used carefully

and cautiously, in accordance with good agricultural practices and relevant protocols,

then there is adequate protection of the safety of both farmers and consumers’ (Kerin

1989b, p. 3). Kerin argued that hazards such as the beef residue incident were vital

catalysts in shifting Australian agriculture towards more sustainable practices. At the

political level, authorities had re-appraised their systems for approving, using and

monitoring agricultural chemicals. At the production level, farmers were now showing

encouraging signs of changing the ways they managed their entire operations. They were

improving the sustainability of their land through ‘reducing their stocking rates,

ploughing their stubble, widening their rotations and investing more in tree planting than

they ever have in the past’ (Kerin 1989b, p. 2). Senator Peter Cook, Federal Minister for

Resources, provided the clearest statement of confidence in conventional agriculture, that

‘other countries look to Australia as a source of high quality, healthy products produced

by sound techniques in a clean environment’ (Eco-Ag 1989b, p. 1). In this context,

‘much of our farm production is already “organic”, in the sense that it is freer of

synthetic inputs than many of our competitors’ (1989b, p. 1).

Organic will become a market niche

In the ASTEC report, it was noted that Australia’s entire agricultural system had been

built around the assumption that farm chemicals maximised production, enabling farmers

to meet market demand, which extended to keeping Australia competitive in both

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domestic and export markets (ASTEC 1989, p. 9). The recent emergence of concerns

about chemical hazards had elevated the issue of clean food production to a major

international trade issue. But continued access to billion-dollar markets for agricultural

exports from Australia (1989, p. 48) would now depend on developing ‘cost effective

alternatives to our present use of chemicals’ (1989, p. ix), rather than the complete

cessation of chemicals. This implied a combination of judiciously using chemicals and

developing alternatives like IPM and biotechnology (1989, p. 43). In regard to organic

methods, ASTEC acknowledged research from the US that showed it was viable in

large-scale farming operations, with some cases reporting returns within 15 per cent of

comparable conventional farms. These results were limited to particular geographies.

Soils in the US were rich in potassium and phosphorous, in contrast to Australian soils,

which were generally deplete in these substances, suggesting that these studies may not

be translatable to the local context (1989, p. 47). ASTEC forecasted the growth of

organic food, because like ‘the blemish on the otherwise perfect apple, consumers may

not want chemical residues’ (1989, p. 3). But such consumption would only account for

‘a very small proportion of Australia’s total agricultural production’ (1989, p. 39).

Minister Kerin accepted the ASTEC findings wholesale. Australia, he argued, had

always relied on its large-scale production units oriented around export, and this situation

would remain unchanged. Organic production, on the other hand, would meet the

appropriate market niches and ‘add another dimension to our export abilities’ (Kerin

1989a, p. 2). For organic food even to fill overseas markets, the industry had to face

significant challenges. Kerin saw that ‘quarantine requirements alone [would make]

access to many overseas markets very difficult’ (Kerin 1989b, p. 3). Minister Cook

validated the commitment to opening trade channels, outlining how the Government was

ready to work with state and territory authorities and all the relevant sustainable

agriculture organisations in further developing their national standards and accreditation

scheme. The first step would be to investigate ‘ways to achieve national accreditation of

organisations, formation of industry standards, product endorsement, labelling and other

relevant issues’ (Eco-Ag 1989b, p. 1).

To assist the process, NASAA was given an Austrade grant of over $82,000 under the

Innovative Agricultural Marketing Program. NASAA assigned the funds to two areas of

marketing. The first would assign $10,000 to have the International Federation for

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Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) evaluate and accredit NASAA’s certification

system, and as such allow locally-produced products to enter European markets. The rest

of the money would be used to employ two part-time marketing managers, one local and

one overseas, to survey impediments to supply lines and present solutions (Quarterly

Report 1989b, p. 5). Both managers would then cooperate on a publicity campaign and

develop a manual for exporting organic products. The manual would detail ‘steps to be

taken in readiness for export, the need for certification, statutory regulations and other

requirements’ (1989b, p. 5).

In the opening address at the largest sustainable agriculture conference to date, Eco Ag

89: The Future of Farming, Minister Kerin set out some basic rules of engagement for

sustainable agriculture groups to follow as new members of the agricultural policy field:

[It] is essential that all sectors of agriculture adopt good farming practices and

promote the positive aspects of their products and do not resort to the

denigration of the alternative forms of agriculture. I trust that you will keep this

in mind … when you discuss environmental health and the effects of pesticides

and herbicides on farmers, the community and food. (Kerin 1989b, p. 3)

EVENT 3: THE INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ORGANIC FOOD MARKET

New markets are fraught with uncertainty because they lack stable templates of

interaction between stakeholders, coupled with a general scarcity of resources or an

inability to consistently deliver products. This means that actors have less capacity to

control competition and survive from period to period (Fligstein 2001, p. 78). Actors will

therefore work to create organisational structures that facilitate repeated and expected

exchange of goods (2001, p. 30). Such projects may involve key actors who spearhead or

initiate action, but usually involve a distributed effort amongst multiple and disparate

actors united through a common interest (Lounsbury & Crumley 2007, p. 1006-1007).

In this next section, I focus on the main problem faced by the sustainable agriculture

field in the wake of the 1987 beef residue crisis. Excessive consumer demand coupled

with haphazard supply created a major obstacle for the development of the fledgling

market. I then describe the collective endeavour different actors took around three main

projects geared towards increasing supply: the market-coordinating attempts by a

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pioneering Victorian intermediary, the implementation of industry standards, and

building alternative stocks of industry knowledge.

Pent-up demand and bottleneck supply

The deepening of demand

By end of the 1980s, consumer demand for both organic and chemical-free foods had

grown. In 1988, the Victorian Department of Agriculture explored the growth of organic

food sales, finding that although it only accounted for a small portion of total agriculture

revenue, the market was expanding at a rapid pace. In the space of three years,

membership of the Organic Retailers and Growers Association of Victoria (ORGAV) by

dedicated organic greengrocers more than doubled, rising from 24 in 1987 to 53 in 1989

(RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 42). Those retailers interviewed by DARA attributed the growing

demand to consumer awareness of pesticides and their detrimental effects on human

health and the environment, coupled with press coverage, especially of food-related

incidents like the beef crisis (Clarke & DARA 1988, p. 7). Similarly, a study of around

100 female shoppers in metropolitan Perth found that over 80 per cent were aware of

organic food, over 60 per cent were prepared to pay more for it, and the same number

believed that it was healthier than conventional food (RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 53). Also in

1988, the ABC broadcast of television program ‘Clean Cuisine’ resulted in 6,000

enquiries to the station about where to source organic produce (Quarterly Report 1988c,

p. 5). Perhaps the clearest signal of consumer sentiment was in 1989, when The Sydney

Morning Herald conducted an Australia-wide consumer survey, asking a random sample

of 1,000 people to choose between two competing statements. The first asked whether

food grown and processed with chemicals was sensible and could be consumed with

confidence. The second asked whether they preferred food to be produced without

chemicals, even if it meant paying more for such products. The poll found that 83 per

cent of people preferred the latter statement, with only 16 per cent preferring the former

(Schauble 1989, p. 8). In aggregate, these snapshots of consumer sentiment show that

post beef crisis, there was a deepening of demand for organic or chemical-free food, and

a simultaneous fall in the esteem of conventional food.

The problem with supply

Between 1987 and 1989, the adoption of organic methods by farmers was gaining

momentum. The opportunities for farmers were enormous, because demand exceeded

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supply ‘for almost every item, including grain, meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts, berries and

herbs’ (Marshall 1989, p. 1). A RIRDC study found that in 1989, 50 per cent of organic

producers had been farming for three years or less (RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 32). That same

year, DARA randomly sampled 1,000 farmers to gauge their level of engagement with

organic farming, and found that awareness and interest in alternatives to chemicals had

significantly filtered throughout the farming community. Over half had a full

understanding of organic farming, and about one-third had some understanding. The

most significant finding was that around 40 per cent had an interest in farming

organically in the future (1990, p. 10). During this period, NASAA also received almost

200 applications from farmers wanting to join their standards and certification scheme

(Pollard 1989a, p. 32). An article in the mainstream national farming newspaper, The

Land, offers insight into this groundswell for organics:

A BACKLASH against widely accepted farming practices involving the heavy

use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilisers, was the most notable

feature of the 1988 Mudgee Small Farm Field Days. Displays with an ‘organic

farming’ theme proved to be the most popular draw-cards of the two-day event,

indicating an upsurge of interest in this type of farming among small

landholders … Topics such as organic farming, seed saving, earthworms and

‘no dig’ gardens attracted particular interest, with … audiences curious to learn

about agriculture without artificial fertilisers and modern chemicals (Petrikas

1988, p. 30)

Interestingly, the growth of certified and uncertified organic farmers had not improved

the constancy of supply of organic produce. There were three main reasons for this. The

first was that the cohort of new adopters had forfeited the short-term benefits of synthetic

chemicals, but had not yet amassed ‘organic’ qualities in the soil, which would

eventually act as a natural shield against pests and disease. Consequently, the period of

conversion meant yields were lower and quality was poorer than if they were producing

to full organic potential – a situation that might take several years to improve (RIRDC et

al. 1990, p. 32).

The second issue of supply was that the influx of inexperienced growers into the market

created a mass need for advice. The newly-launched NASAA standards were clear on

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which practices and substances were ruled in or out, but there was still great uncertainty

over how to farm organically (Fritz 1987b, p. 1). Existing advisory services were focused

almost entirely on conventional methods (RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 32). According to

NASAA, this was largely because most individuals working in agricultural institutions

such as Departments of Agriculture, research institutions and universities were ‘trained

during the last 30 to 40 years when conventional chemical resolutions to agricultural

problems were almost exclusively the approach taken’ (Quarterly Report 1988d, p. 6-7).

By 1988, NASAA was being overwhelmed by ‘how to’-type technical inquiries by new

and prospective organic farmers. The most frequently-requested questions were about

definitions of sustainable agriculture, how to farm without synthetic chemicals, and how

specific pests could be controlled (Quarterly Report 1988d, p. 6-7). The constraint

NASAA faced was twofold. Firstly, because the commercial market was still in its

infancy, there were very specific farming problems being experienced in localised areas,

which in many cases not been previously encountered (RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 32).

Secondly, the NASSAA volunteer labour force was stretched to capacity:

In most cases a minimum answer to such enquiries needs to include specific

agricultural information about the topic, how the principles of sustainable

agriculture relate to that topic and references to where further information can

be found. This requires work time and the development of supporting

educational resources such as a variety of pamphlets and fact-sheets to answer

various specific questions. (Quarterly Report 1988d, p. 6-7)

The third issue constraining supply related to the effects of NASAA’s resource strain on

the operation of their standards and certification scheme. NASSAA was run entirely by

volunteers. Its farm inspectors and the committee overseeing the scheme were

completely overburdened, and a processing bottleneck had formed. The organisation’s

national standards coordinator, Lionel Pollard, argued that an extraordinary amount of

free time ‘had helped the scheme get off the ground, but these people also had other life

commitments to employers, to family and friends, and others’ (1989b, p. 37). What this

meant was that:

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Applications may be in our system for 2 or 3 weeks before they are

acknowledged. Another week or two can pass before the questionnaire and

outline of possible inspection dates is sent out, and the date cannot be set until

the questionnaire is returned. The State Implementation Committee here in

Victoria meets approximately every 6 weeks to consider the results of

inspections, and the NSC [National Standards Committee] deals with its matters

mainly through the mail, taking another 2/3 weeks. Soil test results take about 4

weeks to come back, and there may be questions the NSC need answers to

before giving a final decision. Over the past 18 months it has taken 9 to 12

months to arrive at a decision. We have tightened the system up to the stage

where we are confident we can keep within a 6 month upper limit. Perhaps in a

year or two we can bring this down to 3 months maximum, but as long as we

rely on volunteers, with the constraints mentioned above, we cannot hope to

bring the procedures down to much less than that. (Pollard 1989b, p. 36)

The final supply issue was a complete lack of continuity. The market was characterised

by its quick change ‘from a position of shortage, to glut and back to shortage again’

(RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 59). Although market intermediaries had recently emerged in

several cities, they were not yet prominent players. In Queensland and South Australia,

retailers were sourcing 80 per cent of their product lines direct from the farm, and only

20 per cent from wholesalers (1990, p. 37). In Western Australia, health food retailers

sold a small amount of organic produce, with the main supply lines being direct sales

from the farm gate, or through informal networks (1990, p. 48).

The erratic nature of supply also hindered the full involvement of the supermarket

incumbents. Peter Kewley, National Buyer of Fresh Produce for Coles, expanded on the

situation:

[We] do purchase direct from growers who can supply a consistent quantity and

quality of product. We also purchase directly from the wholesale markets, and

have been drawing whatever organic produce we can from these sources –

sources unfortunately that from time to time are scarce and irregular. In fact I

would go as far as saying that the organic industry does not have a worthwhile

product of any quantity, and I emphasise quantity, to sell in all states as yet. So

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you certainly have a long way to go before you can contemplate the potential

market that’s out there waiting for you … If organics are to become a viable

entry into the established produce market in Australia, then they will need to

develop quickly and professionally. (Kewley 1990, min. 52.20)

Intermediary innovation on supply

By the end of the 1980s, Victoria had developed the single-largest market in Australia

for organic food. Displaying the most mature supply chain structure of all the states, 70

per cent of organic retail sales were being channelled from farmer to wholesaler to

retailer to consumer (RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 44). By the mid-1990s, other states had

adopted similar supply chain structures, making the Victorian case the harbinger of

market development (Hudson & RIRDC 1996, p. 49).

Although there were several intermediaries in Victoria at the time, one in particular, The

Organic Wholesaler, was particularly instrumental in addressing problems of supply.

Specifically, the coupling of increased demand for chemical-free food and the growing

awareness of organic methods amongst the farming community created a window of

opportunity for The Organic Wholesaler to find conventional growers willing to apply

their commercial expertise to organic growing.

Increasing the stock of farmers

Around the mid-1980s, Victorian organic growers Jim and Hillary Thomas organised a

meeting at their farm in Silvan. They invited retailers and growers who shared a common

interest in improving the supply of organic food into Melbourne. The Thomases were

members of the UK Soil Association and the Henry Doubleday Research Association in

NSW, and also subscribed to a range of local and overseas organic farming journals,

making them keenly aware of the latest happenings in sustainable agriculture (Williams

2009, 7 September). At the first meeting of what was to become the Organic Growers

and Retailers Association of Victoria (ORGAV), two relatively new retailers, Ian

Diamond (Upwey Health Foods) and John Williams (Montrose Organics), struck up a

conversation about bananas:

I remember this guy walking around, and he comes to me and says ‘where are

you getting your bananas?’ It was John Williams ... Very quickly we had this

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open dialogue: ‘Hey where do we get more source of this, where do we get

more source of that and so forth’ … I think there wasn’t a heck of open

communication [with the established retailers] cause they were guarding

sources so closely … [but] we struck up a very strong relationship [and] I

started to buy my produce from [John, because] he was going into the

[Footscray Wholesale] market, and it helped his buying power. (Diamond 2010,

3 January)

In 1986, after several months of purchasing produce together, the pair took a road trip

around the Victorian Sunraysia region, hoping to improve supply, but concluded that ‘it

was all a struggle trying to get bits and pieces, [because] there weren’t really any large

[organic] growers’ (Diamond 2010, 3 January). Although existing organic farmers had

the right philosophical intent, they did not bring enough commercial expertise to manage

efficient production. They were convinced that creating sustainable, long-term supply

depended on someone starting a wholesale business that worked closely with commercial

farmers, assisting them in a transition into organic growing (Diamond 2010, 3 January).

Shortly after the road trip, they gave up retailing and officially joined forces to establish

The Organic Wholesaler. Produce from existing grower contacts was channelled into a

new warehouse in Bayswater, and from there, they started prospecting for commercial-

grade growers (Diamond 2010, 3 January). In the beginning, they were spending $1,000

each week on phone calls just to do fact finding – an enormous commitment given that

turnover was only $10,000 a week. Once they built up enough leads, they began a series

of trips across Australia, just to interview people about growing organically. Their line of

questioning included: ‘What grows best in your location? What are you experienced at

growing? What do other growers grow a lot of in that area? And what works for you?’

(Williams 2009, 7 September). Very slowly, they built a rich database of all the

information around ‘what was growing where, who was growing it, and what seasonality

they were growing it’ (Williams 2009, 7 September). The database enabled them to slot

growers into a supply schedule:

[We] wanted to make sure that not everyone was growing a zucchini in the

middle of summer. So part of that is talking with the growers ... and [saying],

‘look, here are your best windows to supply this and supply that’. It was part of

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the long-term planning [where] you just take all the fruits and all the vegetables,

and you say, okay, broccoli: who are we going to get for broccoli? Early on [in

the season] we were getting from ... Bacchus Marsh, but there was another

grower ... who was up near Daylesford. Now we knew that Daylesford was

higher up; it’s colder in summer, and so he could grow broccoli in summer

better than Bacchus Marsh can ... You got zucchini in the Sunraysia at a certain

time, and then [when] you can’t, where do you go? ... Where are we going to get

asparagus? Who can we encourage to grow asparagus or brussel sprouts, or

different varieties of potatoes? And how can we get them to hold it longer? Who

are the best growers to hold them longer? Queensland can come in early season.

The further south they are, they can store and hold the potatoes better ... So it

was all part of understanding … the seasonal aspects, and understanding how

long they can grow whatever it is. (Diamond 2010, 3 January)

By the late 1980s, the availability of organic food in Victoria started to expand, and The

Organic Wholesaler found they could leverage their existing growers. They distributed

produce-growing spreadsheets, which precisely identified market gaps ready to be filled.

Growers started to expand on what they were producing (Diamond 2010, 3 January),

because for the first time, there was ongoing communication about particular market

needs (Williams 2009, 7 September).

Stabilising supply and prices

Williams and Diamond set up the business as sales agents (despite the name suggesting it

was a wholesaler), taking 15 per cent commission, and returning the other 85 per cent to

the growers. The biggest concern for The Organic Wholesaler was making sure they

returned enough money to keep growers viable for the long-term (Williams 2009, 7

September). They believed that commercial farmers were not going to hang around if

they experienced economic uncertainty when they were just starting out with organics.

Therefore the success of their supply schedule, and by extension their entire business,

relied on creating a model that managed uncertainty. They aimed to set prices for organic

produce at a relatively stable level (Diamond 2010, 3 January). Then, when establishing

a relationship with a grower, they would discuss economic needs:

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The first thing that our price [at wholesale] was based on was [asking growers]:

‘what do you think you need? What do you think the price needs to be?’

Because we realised that if we were going to encourage them to grow, for all

their hard work, it’s gotta be viable for them … We’re not treating them as

somebody where the less we pay, the more money we can make. No, it’s got to

be a relationship that grows from them doing well, and us benefiting from that

… We weren’t negotiating, we were discussing it with them. It was based on

what do they think they need. (Diamond 2010, 3 January, emphasis added)

After agreeing on a general price point, The Organic Wholesaler worked to create buffers

from periods of over- and under-supply. They would be in constant contact with the

growers, and always knew what crops were coming into the market. As Diamond noted:

sometimes they would estimate well, and other times not. If they observed a glut

forming, they would ask growers to hold back on the quantities they sent, and keep the

market from flooding. At those times, growers could either clear the excess by sending

produce to organic markets in other states, or by channelling it into the conventional

market (Diamond 2010, 3 January). On the latter, The Organic Wholesaler would at

times also negotiate with non-organic retailers to take on the excess, and run specials

where organic products were sold at conventional prices (Williams 2009, 7 September).

The percentage of organic produce sold to the conventional market at the time is

unknown, but some recent studies have suggested that it could be routinely cleared in the

order of 35 per cent (Lockie et al. 2006, p. 108).

A detailed example of The Organic Wholesalers’ sensitivity in keeping prices stable is

reflected in the case of balancing the seasonal fluctuation of grapes. Diamond recalled

how, at the beginning of a conventional grape season, the market experiences high prices

due to scarcity, and then a glut would drive prices down. Following the conventional

market dynamics would have meant that at the start of the organic season, people would

be taking on grapes that might pass the ripeness test, but were expensive due to scarcity,

and certainly not sweet enough to be of satisfactory quality (Diamond 2010, 3 January).

This creates a problem:

Boom – the retailers buy them ‘cause they haven’t got any organic grapes.

Boom – they go to the store and consumers see them, and boom – they buy

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them. Now if those grapes aren’t sweet enough, the consumer doesn’t come

back quickly for them, and then the retailer doesn’t re-buy quickly, [but] we’ve

already got the second lot in. (Diamond 2010, 3 January)

By contrast, The Organic Wholesaler would instruct growers to hold off until the grapes

were completely ripe, so that when they opened that particular line for the season, the

retailers would easily clear them to consumers and come straight back for more, thereby

making the repeated exchange of grapes more fluid. The success of this tactic depended

on growers not being greedy, but instead realistic about prices, and understanding that it

was more sustainable in the long-term to ‘hold until they are good, rather than chase the

early dollar’ (Diamond 2010, 3 January). Reflecting on their overall business model,

Diamond stated:

I would argue about it not being entirely commercially driven. I would

absolutely argue that it’s just a different business model, in that you provide

viability for producers and they can be producing for a long term. You provide a

stable market and everybody benefits from that. (Diamond 2010, 3 January)

Standards and supply

From 1987, NASAA began trialling their standards scheme on a number of small

volunteer growers. Standards Committee head Lionel Pollard explained that this group

provided the vital training ground for NASAA, patiently participating in a lengthy

process of trial and error. The farmers gave NASAA the space to set up procedures for

assessing inspection results, how to get assessments around the country from one

committee member to another, and finally how to come to a final decision about a

property. The process was slow, and required spontaneous creation of questionnaires,

forms, documents, procedures, and the recruitment of volunteers to be inspectors,

administrators and advisers (Pollard 1989a, p. 31).

Within 18 months, the scheme had grown in popularity. Close to 200 farmers had

applied to join (Pollard 1989a, p. 31). NASAA was also running regular farmer

conversion seminars (Fritz 1987b, p. 1) and trying to accommodate the escalating farmer

demand by holding inspector-training workshops throughout the country. Moreover,

NASAA added increasing sophistication to the scheme. It established soil testing for

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organochlorines where the maximum level of pesticide residue in the soil ought not

exceed 10 per cent of the NHMRC maximum residue limit (Quarterly Report 1988e, p.

6-7). They also launched a specific farm input standard, that ruled in particular

‘fertilisers, microbial cultures, soil amendments, botanical insecticides, machinery and

any other materials or equipment used by sustainable farmers’ (Quarterly Report 1989a,

p. 4).

A particularly important tactic to improve supply was the way NASAA structured the

relationship between the three separate grades of certification. Then NASAA President

Tim Marshall described them in the following way:

Level A is produce which is totally un-compromised by the use of synthetic

fertilisers or pesticides, and where positive management practices are used to

replace those products, and to obviate the need for using the products which we

consider undesirable. It’s a holistic system where we’re not just replacing one

type of product with another, but looking at the whole operation, design and

management of that system. The level B is basically the same standards, but

where people have just moved into the operation of an organic system. They

may have some residues perhaps in their soil, or they may not have built their

soil up to a level which we would agree [is] a good, sound, healthy organic

system … Level C has been to some extent controversial. We would never

associate the word ‘organic’ with our level C. We operate two levels of organic

standards, Level A and B … [Level C] does allow some synthetic inputs to be

used, so we call that ‘Produce of Sustainable Agriculture’. It does not represent

organic produce. (Marshall 1990, min. 20:27)

When the standards were first launched, the idea behind Level C was a legal one. Certain

farming enterprises might be governed by statutory requisites to control specific pests

with specific chemicals, as was the case with fruit fly in stone fruits. But in 1988,

NASAA extended the rationale of Level C, on the basis that it would provide

conventional farmers with the flexibility to reduce the volume of chemical usage

incrementally, rather than suddenly withdrawing from all input substances ruled out by

the higher ‘organic’ grade. More than that, it would work to combat the knowledge

deficit for certain problems where non-chemical control methods were not in existence.

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In these cases, a limited usage of chemicals would be accepted, until such time as a more

long-term sustainable solution was developed. In other words, Level C avoided placing

farmers interested in converting to organic in the ‘difficult position of not using

chemicals without a satisfactory alternative available’ (Quarterly Report 1988f, p. 1).

Tim Marshall explained that Level C acknowledged and rewarded the produce that came

from a system where producers were using much less in the way of synthetic inputs than

their peers. But it also allowed NASAA to control the rules around low-chemical input

farming in the market. The idea was to fill and control the gap in the market for low-

input food, rather than allowing someone else to move in and operate it in a way that

contradicted the values of the sustainable agriculture movement (Marshall 1990, min.

22:30). These changes to the organic standard opened the opportunity to channel a

significant number of conventional farmers into the sustainable system. The federal

Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) estimated that around

40 per cent of Australian agriculture would be able to meet the requirements of

NASAA’s Level C ‘sustainable’ grade (RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 62).

Improving stocks of industry knowledge

According to Aldrich and Fiol (1994, p. 648-649), for new markets and market

categories to become established, the support of key constituencies must be acquired and

maintained through the perception that a new venture represents a viable model. Since

the mid-1980s, NASAA had proposed establishing an information clearinghouse as a

counterbalance to the lack of technical knowledge available to farmers. The idea was that

by centralising the collection and distribution of instructional information, the stock and

abilities of organic farmers would rise (Quarterly Report 1988d, p. 6-7). In February

1988, NASAA discussed its intended funding proposal for the clearinghouse with the

Australian Special Rural Research Fund (ASRRF), which raised concerns about the

potential drop in overall agricultural output should a shift to organic happen en masse.

NASAA explained that the Level C standard would prevent any trade-off between

pesticide reduction and productivity (Quarterly Report 1988f, p. 1). By mid-1988, the

ASRRF had officially rejected NASAA’s proposal (Quarterly Report 1988a, p. 8),

pushing a number of sustainable agriculture actors to create alternative ways of

producing knowledge resources for the organic food market. The three main areas where

this happened were events, discussion papers and the media, which will be discussed

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next.

Face-to-face events

Prior to the late 1980s, the face-to-face meetings of the Australian sustainable agriculture

movement were opportunities to discuss and learn about organic farming mainly for

lifestyle purposes. For example, the Tasmanian ‘Organic 84’ festival – where the idea of

commercialising organic food and forming NASAA was first raised – had adopted the

theme of ‘Self Reliance’, with speakers addressing topics from gardening techniques to

keeping poultry (Organic Growing 1984a, p. 18). From 1987, there was a noticeable

shift in focus towards discussing and coordinating pressing topics pertinent to the

fledgling organic food market.

Table 2 below demonstrates the ramping up between 1987 and 1989 of conferences and

seminars geared around commercial organic food production. There were 11 events

overall, with the frequency effectively doubling each year to the high-watermark of six

events in 1989. These events were organised by a wide range of social movement actors

around the country, with NASAA being the most frequent organiser (8 events). Groups

were also cooperating with state actors, as was the case for two conferences organised in

1988 and 1989 by the Organic Retailers and Growers Association of Victoria and the

Victorian Department of Regional Affairs.

Of particular importance to the generation of alternative farming knowledge was that

most events (7 of 11) were predominantly oriented towards technical scientific know-

how. The 1989 conference Organic Agriculture and the Soil exemplifies the point.

Speakers from NASAA, ORGAV, and both Victorian and New South Wales state

agriculture departments explored a range of issues important to farmers transitioning to

organic agriculture, such as what to look for in soils when developing an organic system;

the benefits of earthworms in improving soil; management techniques for non-chemical

weed control; composts, fertilisers and other nutrient sources; the use of local

knowledge; and clear definitions on what organic and sustainable meant. The other

events (4 of 11) saw a mix of both technical knowledge and other information, such as

the political state of play of the organic movement, or the economic aspects of producing

organic food (Eco-Ag 1989c, p. 21).

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Table 2: Events organised around the commercialisation of organic food production Year Title Main

Organiser Type

1987 Sustainable Agriculture: A New Direction

NASAA Mixed

Conversion From Conventional to Sustainable Agriculture

NASAA Technical

1988 The Growing Alternative: Organic Farming ORGAV & DARA

Mixed

Regenerative Seminar NASAA & TAFE SA

Technical

Toward Better Agriculture

NASAA Technical

1989 First Australia-NZ Ecological Agricultural Conference and Trade Exhibition

Dove Media Mixed

Organic Agriculture and the Soil

DARA Technical

Organic Food Production ORGAV & DARA

Mixed

Grow Organic 89

EGOAA Technical

Standards Implementation Workshop

NASAA Technical

Sustaining Wimmera Farming: Exploring an Organic Alternative

NASAA Technical

Discussion papers oriented towards market coordination

From 1987, NASAA produced a series of three discussion papers aiming to ‘stimulate

the exchange of ideas and information regarding issues of importance in the field of

sustainable agriculture’ (Quarterly Report 1989c, p. 4). The first paper, Sustainable

Agriculture: A Viable Alternative (Wynen & Fritz 1987), built on the assumption that

although awareness of alternative agriculture had grown, there was simultaneously a

widespread belief these methods were not commercially viable. The paper was extensive,

offering in-depth information on:

… what sustainable agriculture is; how it compares with conventional

agriculture; what work (such as education and research) was being done in

relation to sustainable agriculture in other countries; policy implications for

State and Federal governments in Australia; and NASAA’s role in promoting

sustainable agriculture. (Fritz 1987a, p. 19)

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The second paper, Wheat Marketing and Sustainable Farmers in Australia, diagnosed

the problems and discrimination faced by sustainable wheat growers. The third paper,

The NASAA Production Standards Implementation Scheme: Inspection, Licensing and

Levies, described the many issues that had emerged during the establishment of the

standards system, especially in relation to its financing (Quarterly Report 1989c, p. 4).

The paper presented a model for a professional accreditation system, replete with

mathematical breakdowns on how a full-cost recovery scheme would replace the current

volunteer-based model (Wynen 1989). In aggregate, the three NASAA papers offered a

wide range of information to orient the fledgling industry around common issues and

proposals for action.

Market-oriented media

Between 1987 and 1989, four industry publications were created with the goal of

supplying the industry with regular information on developments. Table 3 offers

information about these publications. NASAA launched its own dedicated quarterly

publication reporting on its actions, as well as other market-based issues pertinent to its

membership. ORGAV upgraded their newsletter into a tri-yearly magazine. The

publication aimed to keep all industry members in the loop on events and occurrences of

interest, and to have farmers write articles that imparted technical information to fellow

growers (The Organic Farmer 1989, p. 3).

Table 3: Market-oriented sustainable agriculture media

Year Title Publisher Type Status

1987 NASAA Quarterly

NASAA Newsletter New

1988 ACRES Australia

ACRES Australia Magazine New

1989 Eco-Ag: The Future For

Farming

Dove Media Newspaper New

1989 The Organic Farmer

ORGAV Journal Upgraded

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The two other publications, ACRES Australia and Eco-Ag: the future for farming, were

both private initiatives. Eco-Ag became the first dedicated sustainable agriculture

newspaper, distributed monthly in both Australia and New Zealand. It was established by

three former reporters from mainstream rural publications, who believed the time was

‘ripe’ for a publication that promoted a ‘healthier, more viable method of agriculture

which will ensure a future for Australia’s primary industries’ (Eco-Ag 1989a, p. 6). As

well as featuring successful organic farmers, it had the broader aim of encouraging the

wider development of organic food markets, and to further entice governments, the food

industry and private companies to spend more money researching ecologically-oriented

production systems (Eco-Ag 1989a, p. 6). ACRES Australia was co-edited by NASAA

chair Tim Marshall, and was described as a magazine forged from ‘the culmination of

several years of observation, and concern at the apparent void in technical and practical

reporting to the rural community on sustainable agriculture’ (ACRES Australia 1988, p.

5). The fundamental aim was to show that sustainable agriculture was as viable as its

conventional counterpart:

The Editors … steadfastly refuse to accept the old retort, “it can’t be done”.

This is an insult to the farmers who have been doing it for 20 years or more.

None of the farmers profiled [are] stereotyped ‘left-inclined greenies’ or

‘alternative lifestylers’. They are genuine, mainstream, feet-on-the-ground

broadacre farmers, with a lifetime of knowledge and experience … Another

reason we refuse to accept that organic farming, in its truest sense, is an

impossible dream is based on our understanding of science. In what other field

of science do we throw our hands in the air and admit defeat? We spend

enormous sums of money, we dedicate lifetimes of labor, and we learn to send

men to the moon, or exchange an ailing heart for a healthy one. Surprisingly, in

the field of agriculture, upon which the health and productivity of our nation

depends, we have not yet taken up the challenge. But the tide is turning.

(ACRES Australia 1988, p. 5)

Conclusion

This chapter has tracked three events that were consequential for the initial development

of the organic food market. The first was the beef residue crisis in 1987, which created a

general sense of uncertainty throughout state structures, because it posed a real threat to

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the legitimacy of Australian food-producing industries and their exports. This event was

the departure point for two further events. The second event was the heightening episode

of contention within the agri-food policy field. The field’s increasing orientation towards

‘clean agriculture’ and the establishment of a senate inquiry into production methods saw

a wide spectrum of actors framing alternative conceptions for the future of agriculture.

Sustainable agriculture actors were incorporated into the policy field, but their goal of

mainstreaming organic food was not supported by key state actors. The state signaled a

preferred field settlement that understood all food produced in Australia as being clean

and safe, with organic food slotting in as a market niche.

The third event tracked a set of institution-building projects within the sustainable

agriculture field that aimed to structure exchange. The beef crisis was crucial in driving

high levels of consumer demand for organic food, which created a major supply problem

for the fledgling market. I illustrated some key projects undertaken by a set of skilled

actors. NASAA implemented their standards and certification scheme, which was

constantly improved, and offered growers better clarity over the rules of organic

growing. NASAA and other organisations like ORGAV improved the stock of organic

farming knowledge by organising face-to-face events (workshops and conference),

producing discussion papers, and publishing industry-oriented media. Finally,

intermediaries entered the market and took on a crucial coordinating role, especially in

providing better stability for growers. All projects aimed to minimise the uncertainty for

commercial-grade growers, and steer them away from conventional production and into

their alternative system.

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–CHAPTER SIX–

From outside fringe to inside niche: constraining the organic food market, 1990-1995

TIME TO END THE ‘FREE RIDE’ … The organic market has

grown 22% in the last decade. They have every intention of

improving their market share in the future. This is no longer an

ideological movement. It is a significant commercial venture.

(Farm Chemicals Today 1992c, p. 2)

Overview

The previous chapter covered the period of 1987 to 1989, and identified how the organic

food market graduated from a stage of discussion and planning among stakeholders from

the organic social movement to being an identifiable national market that showed strong

potential to go mainstream. A vital driver of its rapid development was the escalation of

consumer demand in response to the uncertainty over the safety of conventional food,

especially in the wake of the 1987 beef residue crisis. This chapter is set in the period

between 1990 and 1995, and describes how the organic food market was cemented into a

market niche, subordinate to the broader conventional food market. To capture the

phenomenon, I track three key interrelated events. Event 1 describes how the rapid

growth of the organic food market was stalled by two significant crises: a sharp drop in

consumer demand due to an economy-wide recession, and the surfacing of fraudulent

incidents that threatened consumer trust in the authenticity of organic food. Event 2

describes the Federal Government’s unprecedented transformation of the agri-food

policy field, which on one hand gave the organic food market increasing legitimacy and

access to vital governmental resources, but on the other hand constrained its potential to

pose a threat to the credibility of conventional food. Finally, event 3 describes how key

actors from sustainable agriculture engaged in institution-building projects to mitigate

the effects of both the economic and trust crises described in event 1. My argument is

that the momentum of the organic food market to go mainstream was stalled mostly

because of a complex set of phenomena external to and out of its control. Most

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significantly, this involved the central role of the State in shaping the parameters of the

organic market’s legitimacy vis-à-vis conventional food.

EVENT 1: THE ORGANIC FOOD MARKET ENTERS INTO CRISIS

As argued by Fligstein and McAdam (2012, p. 99), fields are normally destabilised by

external shocks to the system. These shocks come in a variety of forms, two of which are

described below as affecting the organic food market. The first was the impact of a

macro-event, being Australia’s economy-wide recession in the early 1990s, which

transformed the organic market from a state of stability and optimism about mainstream

acceptance into a situation where consumer demand stalled. The second shock was the

invasion of ‘outside actors’, with the entrance of some new organic market participants

who were engaging in behaviour that posed a general threat to consumer trust in organic

food.

From optimism to crisis

Setting course for the mainstream

Between 1990 and 1991, the trajectory for the Australian organic food industry appeared

to be heading towards mainstream acceptance. There were several critical incidents,

external and internal to the organic market, that contributed to its advantageous position.

In terms of external incidents, there were three. Firstly, agricultural market experts began

to predict an imminent worldwide explosion of consumer demand for natural, healthy

and environmentally-sensitive foods, and urged Australia to take advantage of these

opportunities (Oxley 1990, p. 1-3). Addressing the 1990 National Agricultural and

Resources Conference, former Australian Trade Ambassador Alan Oxley argued that the

next decade would be characterised by healthy eating values:

Enormous energy [is being] devoted to discovering what is in what we eat and

how we got there, and banning it. The organic hamburger is coming. We are

going to have to wean the turkeys off steroids. And that will only be the

beginning of it. (Oxley 1990, p. 2)

Secondly, negative media reports on chemicals and the practices of the chemical industry

continued. Perhaps the most damning example happened with a 1990 lead report in The

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Bulletin, under the headline: ‘THE KILLING FIELDS: How much poison did you eat

today?’ The story summarised the last several years of debate about agricultural

chemicals, and put forward the case for organic food. The report also made claims of a

cover-up between senior bureaucrats and the chemical industry. In particular, that

‘pesticide officers employed by State and Federal agriculture departments had [been]

bullied by the pro-pesticide lobby, and a number eventually joined chemical

manufacturers or industry lobby groups’ (Austin 1989, p. 45).

The final external critical incident was that both State and Federal Departments of

Agriculture ramped up their involvement in developing the organic industry. At the state

level, both New South Wales and Victoria took the lead. In 1990, New South Wales

appointed Michael Burlace as its first full-time specialist organic farming officer. His

main task was to pull together the many different sources of information on organic

growing, and put them into a practical form for the farming community (Eco-Ag 1990, p.

13). Burlace would also use this information to advise the Department of Primary

Industries on current issues within the organic farming community. This involved

consulting hundreds of advisory and frontline staff, and raising their level of skill on

sustainable methods. Burlace argued that a major goal of his appointment was that

eventually farming queries would not have to be dealt with by organic specialists, but

rather ‘our specialists in say bananas [who] also have taken a particular interest in

farming organically’ (Burlace 1990, min. 32.24). Burlace reflected on the general

reaction from the Department:

[The] response I get from staff, particularly frontline staff, is very positive. I

frequently ring someone and ask them about a particular problem that we’re

trying to solve, and their response is: “Gee, I’m glad [the Department has] got

that position”. There’s quite a groundswell within the Department which runs

from the bottom to the top. The Minister and the Director General are very

keen, and throughout the organisation there is a lot of positive support. (Burlace

1990, min. 31.19)

In Victoria, the organic farming trials already underway at the Frankston research station

were extended. One particular project involved studying the effects of converting a farm

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from conventional to organic. The Head of Research, Dr Wendy Morgan, described the

results as positive:

We were getting yields immediately equivalent to what we’d been getting under

a conventional system. We were getting no disease or insect pest problems over

there, but we were getting a lot of weed control problems, and for organic

growers weed control is their biggest problem. We’ve come up with a few

alternatives for them in terms of things they can do. (Organics: Food for

Thought 1990, min. 17:26)

It was at the federal level where the biggest show of support for the organic industry

happened. In 1990 the Senate Select Committee (described in the previous chapter)

released their final report about agricultural chemicals and their alternatives. The

Committee acknowledged that, although practised by only a small fraction of Australian

farmers, organic growing had a legitimate role to play in Australian agriculture (Senate

Select Committee on Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals in Australia & Colston

1990, p. 138). The Committee recommended the Federal Government should give its

support in the following way:

[That] the Commonwealth Government, through its various research and

funding agencies, extend research and development of organic farming methods

and sustainable agricultural systems ... [That] the Minister for Primary

Industries and Energy, in consultation with State and Territory Governments

and organic farming associations, develop a uniform system of standards and

guidelines for the production and marketing of organic produce … [That] that

the Department of Primary Industries and Energy assess the overseas market

prospects for organic produce and, in consultation with organic farming

associations, investigate mechanisms to provide export assistance for organic

produce. (Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals in

Australia & Colston 1990, p. 139)

Around that time, the Minister of Primary Industries and Energy (DPIE), John Kerin,

initiated a series of landmark meetings with organic organisations to gauge their needs

and capabilities (Marshall 2013, 3 December). Then president of NASAA, Tim Marshall

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saw the involvement of Kerin as a vital turning point for the industry:

He gave us a fair grilling – I’d have to say – on our first visit … His family had

been apple growers, so he asked us some very penetrating questions ... He [was]

happy with the response that he got from some pretty tough questions. [He then]

said quite clearly: I can’t do anything on the domestic issue, but I’m in charge

of export standards. I want to help the growth of export standards in Australia

… If I can help exports from Australia, I will do [so] by whatever means. Go

and get yourself an export standard. (Marshall 2013, 3 December)

In February 1990, Kerin organised another landmark meeting between the organic

certifiers (NASAA, BFA, BDAA) and a diverse set of agri-food policy field players,

including the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), the Australian Federation of

Consumer Organisations (AFCO), the Federal Bureau of Consumer Affairs and the

Standing Committee on Agriculture (Lovisolo 1992, p. 85). All groups agreed to

formalise their representatives into the Organic Produce Advisory Committee (OPAC)

within the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS). The objectives of

OPAC aligned largely with the recommendations made by the Senate Committee,

including ‘to draft minimum national standards and inspection guidelines, and advise the

Minister of Agriculture on matters of organic farming’ (Wynen & Fritz 2007, p. 234).

There were two critical occurrences that set the organic food market on an increasingly

commercial trajectory. The first was the increasing professionalisation of production that

was largely boosted by a spike in conventional producers defecting to organic methods.

This shift created for the first time consistent commercial quantities of product that were

being channelled through the established organic wholesalers (Organics: Food for

Thought 1990, min. 4:22). The effect was a widening of the range of producers from

‘cereal and horticultural producers to bakeries and juice manufacturers’ (The Organic

Farmer 1990a, p. 18). The most concrete example of this change was the entry of the

incumbent food manufacturer, Uncle Tobys. In 1991 the company became the first major

local food brand to produce a mass-marketed certified organic product – being Organic

Vita Brits – which carried the NASAA LEVEL A logo (Quarterly Report 1991, p. 3).

The company’s market research had shown a wide demand for food produced without

chemical residues, and they wanted to meet the ‘consumer call for more nutritious

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products that are environmentally friendly and good to eat’ (Wahlquist 1991, p. 10).

Despite costing more to produce, Uncle Tobys’ tactic was to keep the price point as

before, and trust that the forecasted 300 per cent increase in sales would make up for the

additional costs of production. To facilitate sales, it deployed a major national marketing

blitz geared towards selling Organic Vita Brits specifically, but also the concept of

organically-grown food in general (Quarterly Report 1991, p. 3). Within the first several

months of release, Organic Vita Brits sales jumped more than 64 per cent Australia-wide,

and within South Australia and Western Australia, sales doubled (Australian Organic

News 1992i, p. 2). NASAA credited the Organic Vita Brits campaign with the spike in

applications from large conventional farmers wanting to become certified organic

growers (Quarterly Report 1991, p. 3).

The second critical occurrence was the entry of an enormous number of intermediaries

across the country who were capable of, and desperate to, take on more supply than was

currently available. As noted by Troedson (1991, p. 30), it was widely understood that a

fundamental dynamic of the organic food market in Australia was that consumer demand

exceeded the industry’s ability to supply the market. I observed that through 1990 and

1991, the intermediaries were aggressively signalling to farmers in several publications

to ramp up supply. Figure 1 below presents a collection of advertisements placed in

industry newspaper Eco-Age by competing intermediaries. This represents a small

sample of advertisements taken from this one publication throughout 1990.

In sum, in the period between 1990 and 1991, the growth of organic food in Australia

continued. Demand still exceeded supply, and the support of state and federal

governments was firming up.

Economic crisis

In 1990, Australia entered a significant economic recession. At the Annual Outlook

Conference organised by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics

(ABARE), the situation was labelled grim. The ABARE executive director informed

attendees that the coupling of the recession and the decline in export growth meant a

rapid and easy recovery for the agricultural sector was not likely. ABARE forecast that

for 1990, the average farm cash-operating surplus for the broadacre sector was likely to

fall by 57 percent (Biggs 1991, p. 6).

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In sharp contrast, the front page of the sustainable agriculture industry newspaper Eco-

Age reported that despite the rural slump, many within the organic industry were

confident that their alternative system offered a reduction in farm costs – particularly due

to not using chemical inputs – allowing them to cope with the cost-price squeeze. Eco-

Age cited two Washington University studies that backed such claims. The first

compared energy efficiency and crop production over a five-year period, finding that the

‘energy consumed to produce a dollar’s worth of crop on organic farms was only about

40 per cent that of the conventional farms’ (Riley 1990, p. 1). Despite organic farms

having lower crop yields, their lower operating costs brought net incomes virtually equal

to conventional farmers. The second study found that the net returns of sustainable

farmers were over 20 per cent higher than their conventional counterparts because of

lower input costs. NASAA argued that when the price premium for organic food was

coupled with a lower input operation, it meant organic farmers were spending less and

getting more. Moreover, given that the rural slump had not affected organic food, this

served as a signal to conventional growers that they should ‘quit borrowing from banks

and paying fertiliser bills, [because] the organic farmers are working cheaper – but

smarter’ (1990, p. 1).

By 1992, the reality of recession showed that this reasoning was widely optimistic

(Australian Organic News 1992b, p. 4). An Editorial in ORGAV’s The Organic Farmer

put the situation in the following way:

Currently the industry is stagnating. What has happened? There is no doubt that

the industry has suffered along with the rest of the economy in this recession. It

is no coincidence that an increased environmental awareness occurs at times of

economic stability when consumers’ main aim is not one of economic survival.

Organic produce marketed at higher prices therefore suffers from reduced

demand. (Alenson 1993, p. 5)

Consumers had significantly reordered their preferences. Whereas prior to the recession,

demand for organic food was driven primarily by philosophical concerns about

chemicals in food, now the public was looking at the day-to-day money value of food

products (Australian Organic News 1992b, p. 1-4). This meant that many customers who

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had recently begun buying organic produce could no longer afford the price premium

vis-à-vis conventionally-grown produce (Australian Organic News 1992d, p. 6).

Figure 1: Industry newspaper advertisements by intermediaries seeking supply

throughout 1990  

This  image  is  unable  to  be  reproduced  online.  Please  consult  print  copy    

held  in  the  Swinburne  Library.  

 

Note: this is a compilation of advertisements taken from several issues of Eco-Ag: The Future For Farming during 1990

On the supply side, the problem was seismic. Pioneering Victorian retailer, Ian Nixon,

argued that the dilemma was that over the last few years, retailers were chasing growers

to support them with the supply of produce. On the basis of strong consumer demand,

growers met the challenge and ramped up their supply. But now the retailers could not

move these larger volumes, and growers were becoming disillusioned with the organic

market. The situation was a stalemate, because most retail outlets carrying organic

produce did not have the capacity to hold large quantities at any one time, and tended to

mark up products well beyond the conventional equivalent (Australian Organic News

1992j, p. 9). The problem was further compounded when the previous enthusiasm to

carry organic food by the major supermarkets stalled because their consumer base had

stopped asking for it (Diamond 1992b, p. 9).

Reports began to surface in industry publications illustrating the harsh reality for some

organic farmers. One story in Australian Organic News described how a group of

growers on the New South Wales Central Coast had destroyed over 18,000 broccoli

plants, 8,000 cabbages and 2,000 tomato plants which were ready for harvest, because

there was no market for their produce, and leaving them untended would generate pest

and disease problems. Bill Denniss, a certified grower, explained that the growers

planted based on specific orders from wholesalers, who assured them they had the

capacity to clear these larger volumes. Post downturn, of the six wholesalers who had

agreed to take tomatoes from Denniss, only one would now take his goods. That

wholesaler had originally requested 250 boxes of tomatoes each week, but was now

taking just 50. Other lines of produce faced similar shifts (Australian Organic News

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1992e, p. 22). One of Queensland’s biggest organic growers, Andrew Geyle, was

considering leaving organic farming because worthwhile returns had evaporated. In his

words: ‘Two years ago I could sell 100 cartons of organic beans in Queensland; now I’m

flat out selling 30’ (Australian Organic News 1992f, p. 7). For his situation, Geyle

thought that organic growing was becoming less viable than conventional growing:

People say our cost of production is lower because we don’t have to pay for

chemicals, but we need a lot more labour; on this farm we need two extra wages

… I look at my neighbours, who use chemicals, and their yields are much

higher; they don’t have to suffer the crop losses which are part and parcel of

growing organically … Because of target spot, or anthracnose, I lose up to 50

per cent of my organic potatoes, for instance, with the yield over five crops

averaging six to eight tonne to the acre [as opposed to] my neighbours, [who

get] around 20 tonne to the acre with conventional farming … And it’s not only

the yield that is down in organic production. [Because] you don’t have the quick

remedy of a chemical spray when problems occur, the grading percentage also

falls … A conventional farmer might be able to market 90 per cent of a cabbage

crop; in organics that would be more like 70 percent … Then you have to take

into account my 1 in 12 proportion of companion plants - dill, nasturtiums, etc -

which I need for pest control in that paddock of cabbage … One in 12 is eight

per cent of the paddock, bringing the 70 percent of potential total yield back to

around 62 per cent. (Australian Organic News 1992f, p. 7)

Ian Diamond from The Organic Wholesaler in Victoria explained that the economic

uncertainty was spread throughout the supply chain:

It can be very disconcerting to have growers contact you wanting to convert to

organics and seeking marketing advice, when in many cases all you can say is

“Sorry, the market is already well supplied”. It can also be disconcerting talking

to existing organic producers who are not able to sell all their output through

organic channels and therefore questioning whether it is secure for the future.

Retailers also have seen their customer base weakened, with few new enquiries.

(Diamond 1992a, p. 6)

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Summing up the state of play, Bill Denniss argued that the recent rush of new properties

being certified organic had created an oversupply in a situation where demand had

significantly fallen away (Australian Organic News 1992e, p. 22).

A crisis of trust

In June 1990, a crisis hit the organic industry when Melbourne’s Sun newspaper ran a

front page report titled: ‘VEGE CON: Rip-off over “safer” food’. The report stated that

‘health-conscious shoppers are being conned into buying fruit and vegetables which they

believe are chemical-free for up to double the price of normal produce’ (Limb 1990, p.

1). The story described how seven Melbourne municipal councils had commissioned the

laboratory Mellab to test a wide variety of food samples to ‘ensure that people in their

areas were getting what they paid for when they bought food advertised as organic’

(Stewart 1990, p. 3). The councils had expected problems to surface, having observed the

explosion of organic retailers around Melbourne, at a time where there was no legally-

backed definition of organically-grown food (Limb 1990, p. 1). The Mellab study

sourced 40 products from 18 retailers, including supermarkets, shops and market stalls

marketing organic lines. Samples were purchased just as the ordinary consumer would

have, taking all store labels and signs at face value and not questioning the retailer about

authenticity (Mellab 1990, p. 1-2). Of the 40 items sampled, one-third was found to have

chemical insecticide and fungicide (Stewart 1990, p. 3) with levels comparable to those

in conventional produce (Limb 1990, p. 1).

The incident highlighted the general confusion by consumers about what ‘organic’ was,

and also uncertainty about whether the food being sold and labelled as organic was

genuinely organic (ACA 1992, p. 129). In terms of the former, Chris Alenson of

ORGAV noted that official government market surveys of organic food had consistently

found that the majority of consumers were predominantly interested in buying organic

food based on a belief that it carried negligible residues or none at all (Alenson 1992b,

min. 5:57). Alenson further observed that for some time, either deliberately or

unintentionally, the promotion and sale of organic produce was focused around organic

being the antithesis of chemically-produced food (Alenson 1992a, p. 3).

In the wake of the Mellab findings, the certification organisations united around the

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argument that they had never pushed the notion of chemical-free food. Sandy Fritz

argued:

It’s 1991 – even penguins in the Antarctic are contaminated by pollutants, and

so no one can claim to produce perfectly clean food …But the best chance of

getting the cleanest food possible is from an organic farm. What our label says

is that chemicals weren’t used on the produce and that there is no significant soil

residue problem where it was grown. (ACA 1991, p. 24-25, emphasis in the

original)

The Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA) concurred with this position, but further

argued that consumers needed education that the main aim of organic growing was not

the avoidance of chemicals, but the broader aim of building sustainable systems of

production (ACA 1992, p. 134). It was for this reason that consumers ought to

understand that the presence or absence of residues was not the right measure of whether

a product was organic or not. Conventionally-grown produce, for example, could also

have zero detectable residues, but that would not make them organic (ACA 1991, p. 24).

Figure 2 below offers a typical example of the grey area that producers and consumers

faced. Here a large Sydney-based health food chain had adopted the chemical-free

message as their main selling pitch.

Figure 2: A common marketing tactic was pushing the chemical-free message to consumers

 

This  image  is  unable  to  be  reproduced  online.  Please  consult  print  copy  

 held  in  the  Swinburne  Library.  

Source: Eco-Ag: The Future For Farming 1989, p. 8)

The second main trust-related problem was intentional and unintentional product fraud.

At the beginning of the 1990s, overall fraud in organic food was estimated to be between

15-40% of fresh produce sold in Australia. In terms of intentional deception, reports

surfaced about substitution (that is, conventional passed off as organic) in every

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wholesale market around the country (Organic Update 1991, p. 2). This particular issue

pushed the Western Australian Consumer Affairs Minster, Yvonne Henderson, to warn

consumers to beware of the claims made about organic food. The Minister had begun to

investigate claims that food certified as NASAA Level C Sustainable was being

marketed as top-grade ‘organic’ (The Fine Print 1991, p. 1-2).

In terms of unintentional fraud, there was a significant amount of mislabelling, which in

part came down to time constraints and carelessness of retailers, a pervasiveness of

inaccurate and incomplete invoices from intermediaries, and growers not adequately

labelling the produce boxes they sent to market (NASAA Bulletin 1994a, p. 2). The

situation was exacerbated by the fact that a large amount of organic food sold at retail

remained uncertified (RIRDC et al. 1990, p. 106). The Organic Wholesaler noted that

there were too many retailers still operating their businesses outside the certified organic

supply chain, choosing to handle quasi-organic produce. This situation was undermining

the ability for organic food to distinguish itself as a premium product in relation to

conventional (ACRES Australia 1993, p. 30).

It was widely recognised that cases of fraud and issues of consumer confusion about

what constituted organic produce were happening due to the lack of a legally-backed

domestic definition of the term ‘organic’. In essence, there was nothing to stop someone

from labelling food as organic, regardless of how it was grown (ACA 1992, p. 129).

Moreover, the Western Australian Consumer Affairs Commissioner argued that the

general sale of ‘bogus’ organic produce may be a breach of the Fair Trading Act, because

it falsely represented the product as being part of a particular standard, quality or grade,

but convicting fraudsters under the Act was almost impossible (The Fine Print 1991, p.

1-2). Investigators would:

… virtually have to trace an item of produce, such as an apple which had been

shown to contain contaminants, back from the place of sale to the wholesaler or

agent and then to the grower [but even then] it might have to be proved that the

contaminant had not reached the apple by accident or chance, say from spraying

by a neighbour producer. (The Fine Print 1991, p. 1-2)

EVENT 2: THE STRATIFICATION OF THE AGRI-FOOD POLICY FIELD

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In this section, I describe how the Federal Government acted as a skilled actor, using its

direct authority (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 50-51) to massively restructure the

institutional framework of the agri-food policy field. The Government skillfully reshaped

several agencies, which caused an uneven distribution of resources throughout the field.

On the one hand, the transformation benefited organic food in the way of legislative

support for the development of an export market. On the other hand, it created structures

that favoured and reaffirmed the legitimacy of the domestic conventional food market.

This was evident when one new and powerful agency refused to ratify organic

production standards at the domestic level, leaving the fledgling industry vulnerable to

fraudulent activity.

Sweeping transformation

From the early 1990s, the Federal Government initiated an unprecedented set of changes

to the agri-food policy field by linking it with the broader governmental project of

internationalising the Australian economy (Button & Crean 1992, p. 5). The long-term

expectation that rural commodity prices would continue to drop underpinned the notion

that ‘Australia can no longer afford to be out of step with the world trend towards higher

value exports which have a greater element of manufacturing, service and responsiveness

to customers’ demands’ (DPIE 1992, p. 1). It was recognised that the next decade would

be characterised by an increasing liberalisation of world economies, and close to home,

the Asia-Pacific Rim presented an opportunity to sell more food exports, because it was

set to see a sudden increase of consumer income, coupled with steady reductions of

agricultural trade barriers (Oxley 1990, p. 3). Below are three key examples of how these

changes happened, and how they shaped the trajectory of the organic food market.

Establishing the Agri-Food Council

The centerpiece of the Government’s export strategy was establishing a new organisation

called the Agri-Food Council. Co-chaired by Minister for Primary Industries and Energy

Simon Crean and Minister for Industry Technology and Commerce John Button,

membership included the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), the Australian Council of

Trade Unions (ACTU), and industry incumbents such Kellogg and Coles-Myer. The

Council’s main function was to resolve issues impeding international competitiveness, to

promote a culture of export within Australian industries (Button & Crean 1992, p. 20),

and to treble food exports to Asia by the year 2000 – taking the figure of $3 billion to

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beyond $7 billion (Crean 1993, p. 2508).

One of the Council’s main initiatives was the ‘Clean Food Export Program’, which

aimed to focus the Australian food industry on marketing an image of food purity to

Asian countries. In 1993, a pilot program began in Taiwan, adopting television and

point-of-sale supermarket advertising to establish a consumer preference for Australian

fresh and processed foods. Seventeen participating food companies could link their

products to the campaign by adopting the Clean Food Logo displayed on packaging and

promotional material (Agri-Food Council 1994, p. 1-4). Participating food companies

and other organisations included Kraft, Sara Lee, Kellogg and the Australian Meat and

Livestock Corporation (Crean & Griffiths 1993). In his main media release introducing

the program, Minister Crean explained:

The Government, through this strategy, will be establishing the necessary

linkages and will provide significant assistance to help Australian exporters take

better advantage of a relatively untapped asset, our reputation and ability to

produce clean and wholesome foods in a comparatively unpolluted

environment. (Crean 1992b)

The program was highly successful, resulting in one in three Taiwanese considering

Australia to be a supplier of high-quality foods, accounting for an increase in the order of

50 per cent (Collins 1994a, p. 3230). The Agri-food Council characterised the campaign

as more than just a marketing exercise, because the products were objectively validated

by the annual National Residue Survey (NRS) and the Australian Market Basket Survey

(MBS) (Collins 1994b, p. 1379). Since the beef crisis in 1987, the NRS results had

become a particularly important factor in the trade relationship, accepted overseas as a

scientifically-reliable way of signalling that minimal unwanted chemicals were present in

Australian food (Crean 1992c, p. 2424). For example, each year, the NRS sampled over

50,000 items of produce, testing for a wide range of chemicals. More than just offering

assurances of quality and safety, the NRS generated information vital to assessing ways

of reducing residues in all food products (Farm Chemicals Today 1993b, p. 6). Several

trading partners had even made market access for some products (such as meat)

conditional on the continued supply of NRS results to their government authorities. By

extension, testing schemes like the NRS became a vital signal of Australia’s status as a

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clean food producer (Crean 1992c, p. 2424), and underpinned the clean food export

strategy.

Setting a new focus for AQIS

The second major reform was to re-focus AQIS towards a more commercial orientation

in its day-to-day activities, and synchronise efforts with other organisations (like the

Agri-food Council) to work on the food export strategy (AQIS 1992a, p. 1-2). This new

commercial logic was executed in two main ways. The first was to roll out a Quality

Assurance Scheme that shifted ‘responsibility for ensuring that a product meets quality

requirements [from AQIS onto] the producer, who must design, implement and maintain

systems [that] demonstrate competency in their use’ (Griffiths 1991, p. 3262). The idea

was that giving primacy to private industry standards would reduce reliance on end-

product inspection, thereby allowing AQIS to become the auditor of industry certifiers

with the power to deploy sanctions when breaches occurred (1991, p. 3262).

The second manifestation of the commercial approach was for AQIS to become more

oriented towards export facilitation. Already in place was a service whereby AQIS would

provide potential exporters with comprehensive advice on overseas demand, and the

various conditions of entry. It also circulated information to trade associations on

potential changes to entry conditions as they came to hand. Building on this, AQIS

would deploy several new tactics. A team of officers would be trained as export

facilitation specialists, operating a toll-free hotline where callers could either receive an

instant response to queries or be transferred to an officer who had specialised knowledge

of particular area. AQIS would also conduct a survey of the needs and major obstacles of

exporters, and then prepare and disseminate advisory notes on regulatory matters that

regularly caused problems for exporters. They would also create stronger links with

agencies such as Austrade, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the various

statutory marketing authorities for agricultural commodities. Finally they would make

AQIS professional and technical staff available to industry on a consultancy basis, for

the purpose of tailoring export marketing plans (Griffiths 1991, p. 3262).

Establishing a new authority for food standards

The third major change to the food policy domain was the establishment of the National

Food Authority (NFA), the first single body in Australia with the sole purpose of

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overseeing food issues (Pincus 1991, p. 444-445). The previous system of setting food

standards had been operated by the NHMRC, and was characterised by critics as unable

to achieve uniformity, ‘cumbersome and painfully slow, [and exerting] a restrictive

influence on the ability of the food industry to be innovative and respond quickly to

consumer demands as they arise’ (Kniha 1991, p. 548). The new NFA had a system of

setting food standards that was clear and streamlined. Once applications from

government or industry to establish a new standard or amendment were assessed, the

NFA had a limit of 12 months to complete all scientific assessment, and present the draft

to the National Food Standards Council (NFSC). The NFSC was made up of the different

State, Territory and Commonwealth Ministers responsible for food regulation, and by

majority vote could accept or reject the draft standard or refer it back to the Authority for

additional consideration or supplementary information. If accepted, the draft standard

was gazetted, and the states and territories had to ratify the standard without further

amendment (Pincus 1991, p. 445). A major goal of the NFA and its standards was to then

stabilise the uncertainty over food safety in relation to local consumers and the country’s

trade agenda. In his main press release introducing the NFA, the Minister responsible,

Peter Staples, reflected on the organisation’s primary goals:

The Authority is well placed to undertake the task of balancing the interests of

consumers and industry to achieve an outcome which will improve the health of

Australians and contribute to a more competitive and vibrant food industry …

In Australia, both industry and consumers now have a common interest in a

food industry that on the one hand encourages innovation and on the other

promotes our reputation for clean, wholesome and safe food. (Staples 1992)

In short, the NFA had been designed to streamline the previous regulatory system, and

include all state and federal stakeholders in its decisions and operation. Given that it had

the authority to set domestic standards, the NFA was a central player in the food policy

domain.

The organic industry and the new environment

Opening the export channel

  159  

At the close of 1991, Minister Kerin endorsed the OPAC draft standard for organic food

production. In January 1992, the National Standard for Organic and Bio-Dynamic

Produce was given the force of law (Wynen & Fritz 2007, p. 234), effectively making it

illegal to export products from Australia claiming to be organic, biodynamic, biological,

ecological, or words of similar intent, unless certified by an OPAC-approved

organisation such as NASAA. The standard was comprehensive. It outlined ‘preferred

farming practices and lists fertilisers, plant and animal protection products and feedstuffs

which may be used by organic farmers, including composts, blood and bone, natural

gypsum, seaweed and certain types of pyrethrum’ (Bolt 1992, p. 4). The standard was

ultimately designed to ensure a myriad of current problems were ironed out, including:

consumers being protected from fraud; producers being protected against

misrepresentation by others claiming to produce organic food; provisions being made for

production; nationalisation of processing and marketing; generally ensuring that all

stages of supply meet minimal standards; and finally, providing a guide for farmers

looking to convert from conventional production. The end effect would be that

stakeholders could trust this framework to maintain the integrity of the organic food

market (Lovisolo 1992, p. 86).

The development of the standard exemplified the operation of the new policy domain,

because it gave primacy to private industry certification standards, with AQIS taking on

the role of auditor of private organic certifiers. This approach meant that AQIS set the

minimum baseline requirements for the production, labelling, certification and inspection

of organic food, while allowing the private certifiers to operate their own exclusive

systems. The certifiers then had the freedom to impose any additional demands on their

members above the baseline OPAC standard. AQIS also set a strict set of criteria for

organisations wanting to become certifiers. They first had to be an incorporated body, if

possible national, and operate a credible certification program that met the requirements

of the OPAC standard. Then OPAC would evaluate competencies, such as inspection

procedures, sanctions, resources and objectivity in relation to its members. Once OPAC

accredited an organisation, they then had to the power to pull that accreditation if they

believed a certifier had stopped meeting the minimum standard. In short, the standard

established a division of labour with a clear chain of command, with OPAC ‘at the top of

that structure, and approved certifying organisations on the next tier with their members,

whether producers or processors, forming the base of the triangle’ (Australian Organic

  160  

News 1992h, p. 20).

In January 1993, the European Economic Community (EEC) single market came into

being (AQIS 1993, p. 6), bringing into force Commission Regulation (EEC) 2092/91,

which set out the minimum standards by which member states could produce, prepare,

market or import products claiming to be ‘organic’ (Padel 2010, p. 30). Those products

certified by private bodies external to the EEC were no longer recognised. The

Community now required government to obtain government guarantees (Australian

Organic News 1992k, p. 20) from countries outside Europe, verifying that their systems

and rules of production and inspection were equivalent to those operated by Community

members (Barret et al. 2002, p. 305). The process was complicated, requiring a formal

application from a representative authority, and the inclusion of a detailed technical

dossier, which estimated quantities of the intended organic exports, basic principles of

production (such as allowable inputs), rules of inspection (such as processes and

sanctions), and examination reports by independent experts on the successful

implementation of the production and inspection rules (Council Regulation 94/92/EC).

The work of OPAC had placed Australia in a particularly advantageous position. OPAC

had designed the national standard in parallel with the drafting of the EEC requirements

(Lovisolo 1992, p. 86). The National Standard had aligned key terms and definitions to

both the FAO Codex draft Guidelines for the Production, Processing, and Marketing of

Organic Foodstuffs (Alinorm 93/22), and the EEC Regulation on Organic Production

(Council Regulation 2092/91). By March 1993, the EEC validated the technical aspects

of the Australian standard, recognising it as equivalent (Lovisolo 1993, p. 43) and

making Australia only one of a handful of external countries approved to supply organic

food to the Community (Barrett et al. 2002, p. 305).

Domestic standards are next

When releasing the export production standards, the new DPIE Minister, Simon Crean,

stated in a press release that he lacked the authority to develop domestic food standards,

but would be urging the NFA to follow suit and ensure that regulatory controls on the

domestic market are in lock step with those for organic food exports (Crean 1992a). In

August 1992, Crean wrote to Minister Staples, arguing that the ‘Australian consumer is

entitled to provisions which enable informed and assured choices through appropriate

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product labelling and to be protected from imported produce with possible questionable

claims about its origins in organic production systems’ (Lovisolo 1993, p. 40). In the

meantime, the export standards were accepted by the industry as the de facto domestic

standard, but still left the market vulnerable because ‘non-organic products could be sold

as organic in the domestic market, as could products certified to standards not fully

complying with the National Standard, or by organisations not accredited by the

Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service’ (Wynen 2007, p. 38).

At the request of OPAC, AQIS began preparing a formal submission to the NFA,

requesting either the development of a new domestic organic standard, or wholesale

adoption of the AQIS/OPAC standard in the new Food Standards Code (FSC). From the

outset, the NFA flagged a number of practical and philosophical concerns that became

points of contention within the NFA. Two issues were especially problematic. The first

was the problem of measuring compliance of organic food products against the Food

Standards Code. The Authority argued that conventional food could be verified with an

end product test at retail. That meant that there was no need for health authorities to step

onto a farm or processing plant to ascertain if a product sat within acceptable chemical

residue limits. Organic food, on the other hand, was verified through a production

standard, where a product was ‘organic’ because it met the requirements of an entire

production process. Head of Food Standards for the NFA Peter Tough argued that the

state-based health authorities were simply not equipped like agricultural authorities to

engage in fieldwork or property inspections. Tough bluntly stated: ‘I just don’t see food

authorities on farms’ (Australian Organic News 1992a, p. 9).

The second major problem, which caused a level of disquiet within some sectors of the

NFA, was that the inclusion of OPAC standards in the FSC would give certification

organisations like NASAA too much market power. The OPAC standards had stipulated

that approved organisations had the power to decide who could market produce as

organic and who could not. This had the potential to allow certifiers to operate like a

marketing cartel. From the perspective of the NFA, the situation marked ‘a significant

departure from the principles adopted in the Food Regulations [which] require that the

product comply with the regulations, but there is no provision for anyone to determine

who can supply the product’ (Australian Organic News 1992a, p. 9).

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The OPAC submission to the NFA

In December 1993, AQIS lodged an application (A214) to amend the FSC. AQIS argued

that the current state of play was detrimental to both consumers and the organic industry:

Because organic produce is distinguished by the production process (involving

soil, farm, and other inputs, etc) rather than its measurable physico-chemical

characteristics, and because it can command premium prices in the marketplace,

its market is subject to deceptive practices. Such practices may be perpetrated at

the expense of consumers and at a cost to the reputation and profitability of the

organic industry. The major kind of fraud is the passing off of non-organic

produce labelled as “organic”. (AQIS 1993, p. 6)

AQIS proposed a clear solution to the reservations raised by the NFA. Instead of having

to embed the OPAC standard in the FSC, the idea was to make a labelling provision

within the FSC that defined the term ‘organic’, and other related terms (such as

‘biological’ or ‘ecological’) to be all fresh and processed foods that indicated or implied

on the label that they have been derived from organic food production systems (AQIS

1993, p. 5). That is, the NSC could enforce a labelling provision that referenced the

OPAC Standard (NFA 1994, p. 8). Organic growers, processors or sellers would then

have to include on the label their name; and/or a unique registration number and

identification of an accredited certification organisation (AQIS 1993, p. 13). The strategy

would ultimately save authorities from deploying resources to verify a product’s organic

authenticity:

The proposed approach requires food enforcement authorities to act within their

own jurisdiction (ensuring compliance with a labelling requirement) but relieves

them from making judgments about the compliance of food with standards of

production in which they may have little or no expertise and over which they

currently have no statutory control … The limit of State and Territory food

authority enforcement responsibilities would be to ensure that a name and address

is shown and to deal with any complaints by consumers or others as appropriate

…. For example, the food inspector could determine if the food belongs to a bona

fide organic producer by reference to a listing of certified growers and processors

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provided and maintained by the certifying organisations or AQIS. Where a food

was not sourced from a registered organic grower then the producer’s name and

address could be referred to AQIS for AQIS to determine whether the food in

question is produced organically or not. (AQIS 1993, p. 4)

AQIS (and the certification organisations) were proposing to take on the heavy lifting of

verifying the organic production process, thereby extending their export responsibilities

to the domestic field. Then the State and Territory health authorities could work with

AQIS or the certification organisations to carry out a compliance test at the end of the

supply chain, as for conventional produce. Should they find fraudulent behavior, they

would have the power to enforce sanctions under their own food legislation and the

Federal Trades Practices Act which dealt with false, misleading or deceptive labelling, as

occurred for conventional produce (NFA 1994, p. 8).

Addressing the issue of cartels, AQIS suggested that it was prepared to set up a scheme

whereby it would directly certify individual farmers not wishing to be involved with the

certification organisations’ schemes. The AQIS scheme would still measure compliance

against the OPAC standard, and impose a charge on the producer in order to recover

costs to the organisation, but it would ultimately give the producers another choice of

how to get certified (NFA 1994, p. 13).

Supporters and the opponents

In March 1994, the NFA issued notices inviting public submissions on the AQIS request

to amend the FSC. A total of 25 submissions was received, of which 21 were in broad

support for the AQIS proposal. The majority came from within the organic industry, but

there was also support from a wide group of powerful stakeholders, including Uncle

Tobys and the Australian Consumers Association (NFA 1994, p. 7, 31-36). Government

support came from three states: the Victorian Department of Agriculture, the New South

Wales Department of Health and the Western Australian Department of Health. The

Western Australian submission also demonstrated wider institutional backing, because

their position was the outcome of a meeting with NASAA, the Western Australian

Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Fair Trading, Organic Council, the local branch

of the Australian Farmers Federation, and AFCO. These organisations had met with the

aim of producing a realistic and unified response on the question of organic food (NFA

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1994, p. 37-39). Although the Western Australian groups were still concerned about the

toll on departmental resources, they explained that the labelling amendments would

nevertheless provide an effective mechanism for the Department ‘to take action against

persons who sell food labelled as organic that is adulterated’ (NFA 1994, p. 14).

Two submissions by Queensland and South Australian health authorities revealed

contradictory positions. Both submissions hinged on organic food labelling not being the

legitimate jurisdiction of the NFA. South Australia offered a particularly non-negotiable

position, highlighting their belief that organic production systems did not match

consumers’ belief that organic food products were safer, more nutritious or of better

quality than conventionally-produced foods. They argued that the AQIS submission was

based on consumer protection and the need for informed choice, but ironically any

amendments could contradict its stated purpose. The South Australian agency believed

that validating organic standards would ultimately ‘reinforce consumers’ concerns about

chemical contamination of conventional agricultural products and undermine their

confidence in government protection against unsafe agriculture and food production’

(NFA 1994, p. 20).

The South Australia and Queensland arguments went further, stating that because

organic food provided no observable public health benefit to consumers, it gave certain

growers access to premiums, which meant that managing organic food was a market

protection issue, better dealt with under marketing legislation such as the Trade Practices

or Fair Trading Acts (NFA 1994, p. 40). Therefore ‘State and Territory health authorities

should not be further burdened with the responsibility of enforcing trade protection

provisions to the exclusion of health and safety issues’ (NFA 1994, p. 41).

The NFA responds

In November 1994, the NFA evaluated the evidence from the public submissions. They

arrived at two fundamental positions. Firstly, they acknowledged that there was an

unacceptable amount of fraud and deception in the labelling and presentation of organic

food in the market. This situation represented a significant threat to consumer confidence

in organic products and to the genuine participants within the organic industry. Secondly,

they acknowledged that the OPAC certification scheme had now been widely adopted by

the organic industry, and was making a real contribution towards protecting consumers

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and industry, because it clearly articulated the principles of organic farming, and those

principles were crystallised in a nationally-agreed standard backed by sanctions (NFA

1994, p. 28).

The NFA proposed to strengthen the OPAC system by introducing an amendment to the

FSC requiring all organic produce to be labelled either with: ‘the grower’s name or

registered number and/or the logo of the certifying organisation under the AQIS/OPAC

scheme (if the grower is certified in that system); [or] the grower’s name and address (if

the grower is not certified)’ (NFA 1994, p. 29). On one hand the amendment agreed to

adopt the AQIS proposal. On the other hand, the NFA was proposing to allow any non-

certified grower the right to self-assess and claim organic status as long as they included

their name and address on the label. The NFA argued that it was ‘considered neither

appropriate nor fair that a labelling requirement be developed which would obligate

organic operators to become certified with the AQIS/OPAC scheme in order to use the

term “organic”, or similar terms in labelling their products’ (NFA 1994, p. 13).

Immediate past-president of NASAA, Tim Marshall, dismissed the NFA proposal as

unworkable:

Who will control mislabelling of this type? The NFA suggest that the

certification organisations and AQIS will do this but this is absurd. NASAA and

the other certifiers do not have the jurisdiction to assess products which have

not applied to join the scheme. AQIS does not have a charter to do this either

other than for export products … Asking producers/manufacturers to put their

name on the product will only remove the most undefendable products and the

onus of proof will be the responsibility of no organisation or institution with any

power to act or resources. Whereas forcing these producers to be certified

ensures that some party has conducted a rigorous evaluation of the product and

the NFA need only address the labelling system. (Marshall 1994, p. 1)

To further pressure the NFA, NASAA appealed to the organic industry, arguing that now

was the time to directly lobby their respective Departments of Health because the State

Ministers had majority votes on the National Food Council, which would ultimately

decide on the fate of domestic standards (NASAA Bulletin 1994b, p. 3). Following

intense debate within several federal bureaucratic agencies over the treatment of organic

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food (ACRES Australia 1995, p. 19) the NFA dropped an unexpected bombshell. It had

sought the advice of the Attorney General regarding a new concern – that the NFA might

not even have the legal jurisdiction to progress with the AQIS proposal. The Federal

Attorney General had advised that the NFA involvement ‘may amount to an

impermissible sub-delegation, [meaning that] the authority cannot delegate to another

body (over which it has no control) the function of setting a standard which the Authority

administers’ (Marshall 1995, p. 15).

Tim Marshall questioned the validity of advice from the Attorney General, because its

statement was ‘not a strong one and leaves some doubt open to the reader about whether

the delegation is illegal, and what actually constitutes an “impermissible sub-

delegation”’ (Marshall 1995, p. 17). Marshall posed three questions to the NFA that

suggesting their position was fraught with contradiction:

[If the NFA was] taking action in a matter related to food additives, would they

rely on the advice of an accredited laboratory? … How can any workable

standard or enforcement system not refer to another authority at some point? …

[Furthermore] can an act or standard only be consistent while exclusively

making reference to itself? (Marshall 1995, p. 17).

Shifting tactics, OPAC (on behalf of the organic industry) advised AQIS to withdraw the

proposal to the NFA for two main reasons: firstly the NFA had determined that the AQIS

proposal in its current form would most likely be rejected if it remained on the table.

This would have placed a great measure of doubt over OPAC’s ability to further peruse

the matter. Secondly, OPAC wanted to avoid the prospect of the NFA implementing the

proposal that ‘anyone who put their name and address on a box of produce would be

deemed an organic producer’ (ACRES Australia 1995, p. 19).

In the meantime, the state of play for organic market actors was one of ongoing

uncertainty about constraining the fraudulent behavior. According to Marshall, the Food

Act administered by the State Health Departments had a provision to issue a $5,000 fine

when deceptive practices was identified, ‘but experience indicates that it is difficult to

interest a state department in taking action and almost impossible to establish the

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necessary evidence without access to the resources of the department’ (Marshall 1995, p.

17). Moreover, under the Trades Practices Act, such behaviour drew a fine of $20,000,

‘but only applies to companies and it generally takes significant resources to bring about

a successful prosecution’ (1995, p. 17). Reflecting on the drawn-out process to establish

domestic standards, Marshall claimed the NFA drew shallow arguments that covered

their real position vis-à-vis organic food:

They were on one hand prepared to say, “Yes we understand there’s a market

out there, we understand this is growing. We could do something about maybe

not getting in your way of allowing stuff to [be] called organic”. But they

weren’t prepared to support the organic certifiers, and they weren’t prepared to

give us a good standard, and that was really based on their fear they were going

to destabilise confidence in [conventional food] ... While they would not publish

this, they told us very very clearly that: “we would not give you an organic

standard because if we support organic, it will encourage people to think that

non-organic is bad”. They were very open with us about that. (Marshall 2013, 3

December)

In sum, the new regulatory environment impacted on the organic food field in an uneven

way. The state supported its expansion in order to satisfy export markets. Domestically

the situation was complicated. While AQIS supported domestic standards being backed

by law, the NFA blocked the path, thereby leaving organic food susceptible to fraud.

The validation of conventional food

Science says conventional food is safe

From the early 1990s, key actors within the food policy domain began to converge

around validating conventional food as being clean and safe by drawing heavily on

official scientific testing. This took two main forms. The first was citing results from

official government schemes. For example on the release of the NHMRC 1990 Market

Basket Survey (MBS), Dr Kerry Kirke, chair of the Council’s Market Basket Review

Panel, argued that the results showed ‘on a whole, the foods we buy in the supermarket

are more clear of contaminants than they ever have been’ (Farm Chemicals Today

1992a, p. 8). In 1991, the NFA took over management of the MBS, widening the number

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of foods tested (62 as opposed to 53 in 1990) and deploying state-of-the-art diagnostic

procedures. The 1992, results were trumpeted by the Authority as ‘great news for

consumers [because] the Australian food supply is safe and continues to be even safer,

with pesticides and contaminant residues well within the internationally accepted

standards of the World Health Organization’ (The Food Standard 1994a: 1), meaning a

further enhancement of Australia’s clean food export image (The Food Standard 1994b,

p. 9). A clear illustration of the tactic to settle uncertainty about the conventional food

supply is demonstrated by Figure 3, which shows the cover of NFA Journal The Food

Standard. The picture is of Federal Parliamentarian Dr Theophanous launching the 1992

MBS. This journal cover and related feature story illustrated the degree of emphatic

support by government of both the food supply and the NFA.

Figure 3: The cover of the NFA journal signals the states validation of

conventional food  

This  image  is  unable  to  be  reproduced  online.  Please  consult    print  copy  held  in  the  Swinburne  Library.  

Source: The Food Standard 1994, p. 1)

Chemical industry peak body the AVCA also celebrated the results from official food

testing. They held the 1990 MBS as proof that the food industry was using chemicals

responsibly and minimising the risks to consumers. More than that, AVCA highlighted

how the results showed conventional farmers moving towards the production of residue-

free foods. For example, residues of chemicals like DDT were being detected at much

lower levels than in previous surveys. Whereas in 1986 DDT was detected in fruits like

apples and strawberries, in 1990 there were negligible levels found in fruit and

vegetables. AVCA concluded that ‘these findings indicate the gradual disappearance of

the residues of particular chlorinated organic compounds from the Australian

environment’ (Farm Chemicals Today 1992a, p. 8). More than this, of 108,000 samples

tested in the NRS from 1989 to 1990, only 1,053 (one per cent) showed residue levels

above the MRL, with 78 per cent of samples showing no detected residues (Farm

Chemicals Today 1993a, p. 8). By the release of the 1992 results, AVCA saw the state of

play being that every department of agriculture in Australia now had residue survey

proof that Australian chemical-based farming practices were safe (Farm Chemicals

Today 1992b, p. 2). Michael Jackson, Principal Food Scientist for the Western Australian

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Department of Health, also took this position. Jackson argued that his state-monitoring

program revealed that 70 per cent of produce samples had no detectable residues, 95 per

cent of all samples had pesticide residues below half the MRL, and around 98 per cent of

all samples fell below the MRL (Jackson 1992, p. 15).

The second example of elite convergence around validating conventional food was the

promotion of the idea that there were minimal nutritional or health qualities between

conventional and organic food. The most salient example was the 1992 Annual scientific

conference of the Nutrition Society of Australia, which was themed around the

implications of chemical contamination in Australia’s food supply. The conference drew

a wide range of speakers from the NFA, the USFDA, and the National Research Centre

for Environmental Toxicology. The NFA nutritionist, Janine Lewis, presented a paper

entitled ‘Are organically-grown vegetables nutritionally better?’ Lewis explained that a

survey of available literature comparing the nutritional content of organic food vis-à-vis

conventional yielded little information. The Federal Department of Health, Housing and

Community Services decided under their nutrient analysis program to ascertain the effect

of organic farming methods on the nutrient levels of four vegetables – potato, broccoli,

cauliflower and tomato. Three farms using different growing methods were selected: one

organic NASAA Level A farm, one in-conversion NASAA Level B farm, and finally one

using conventional farming methods. Lewis reported that ‘although statistical differences

across the methods were apparent for some nutrients, the results indicated that, for the

vegetables and nutrients analysed, organically-grown produce was not nutritionally

superior to conventionally-grown produce’ (Lewis 1992, p. 60).

EVENT 3: STABILISING THE ORGANIC FOOD MARKET NICHE

Fligstein and McAdam argued that field crises open the process of emergent mobilisation

(2012, p. 107) which ‘refers to the process by which collective actors fashion new lines

of interaction with other actors based on altered understandings of the opportunities or

threats to group interests they perceive’ (2012, p. 91). At the beginning of this chapter, I

described how the organic food market transitioned from optimism about its future

growth at the turn of the decade in 1990 to a crisis on two fronts: economic instability

and consumer trust. I then described two main attempts by the industry to address these

issues. The first highlighted how relationships within the Victorian supply chain worked

to protect price premiums and kept the industry viable in the face of economic crisis. The

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second action highlights the project by the Organic Retailers and Growers of Victoria

(ORGAV) in developing an accreditation scheme for retailers and wholesalers to

maximise the authenticity of organic food. These two examples are by no means the

entire story of the industry’s recovery, but present representative examples of prominent

industry stakeholders oriented towards stabilising the organic food market.

Addressing economic instability

The Grower-wholesaler relationship

As established earlier, the economic downturn had created a situation where demand for

organic food had sharply declined, effectively stalling the momentum of new consumers

defecting from the conventional food market, and creating an oversupply of organic

product. It was recognised that the demand side of the market was now characterised

largely by a hardcore group of dedicated consumers (Australian Organic News 1992d, p.

6) that were static in numbers and for whom prices were not the main consideration

when buying organic food. The dynamics stakeholders faced were essentially inelastic:

that is, where the reduction or increase of organic food prices had little effect on the

quantity of sales for both retailers and wholesalers (Diamond 2010, 3 January). By

contrast, the retailers in the conventional food market had a floating clientele that

responded to price reductions, thereby allowing them to use price setting as a tactic to

shift overabundant product (by basically dropping the price, consumers buy more, and

produce clears) (Nixon 2009, 29 October). Retailers in the organic market had no such

lever to pull. As one retailer explained:

You might find that you halve the price of something, and you don’t sell one

piece extra because the people can’t eat anymore. They’re buying it anyway. So

you cut half your price … and you can’t increase your turnover. A lot of retailers

[couldn’t] take advantage of having a surplus from the grower side, buying it and

moving it out cheaply. You can’t do it because your customers can’t buy [more].

(Nixon 2009, 29 October)

The dilemma the industry faced was that dropping prices to challenge conventional food

prices went against the overriding philosophy of paying farmers fair wages for their

work. Despite the potential for organic food prices to plummet due to conditions of

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oversupply, the observation in the Victorian market was that pre-downturn premiums

remained. Several retailers attributed the price premium being locked in to the power of

the dominant intermediary, The Organic Wholesaler, in structuring a particular type of

relationship with their supply chain partners. On the supply side, The Organic

Wholesaler’s primary concern was to keep their growers viable so that supply was

guaranteed for future growing seasons. The wholesaler explained that it always felt an

‘obligation to get the best return for the grower [because their] future actually depended

upon the growers not upon the retailers’ (Williams 2009, 7 September). Ian Diamond

argued that even a small drop in the wholesale price was something they tried to avoid:

Broccoli was say $12 a case [and] there might be a glut situation coming on, [but]

reducing the price by $2 didn’t mean we could double our sales. It didn’t mean

that we could even increase our sales by 25% because the organic market was

relatively inelastic … Let’s say we’re selling it for $12, and … getting two dollars

commission. That means for $12 the grower’s getting back $10, and they’ve got

freight, which could be 50 cents [per box], 75 cents or whatever. If we dropped

the price [by] $2, it’s hurting the grower significantly. It’s like their margin’s

gone. So we were very aware of that. (Diamond 2010, 3 January)

The Organic Wholesaler’s tactic was to create a balance where each line of produce

supply coming onto the market generally matched the retailer’s demand, but only to the

point where it did not threaten the price premium. This largely rested on not taking

supply from new growers in those lines calculated to be filled (Nixon 2009, 29 October).

Retailer Ian Nixon explains further:

When you get a grower who comes along and says, “Right, I’m going to convert

to organic”, and says, “Right, I’m going to grow zucchinis” … [he] grows the

zucchinis and then he couldn’t sell [them]. The wholesalers wouldn’t touch him,

because [they have] got too may zucchinis, and you flood the market so the price

of every zucchini would go right down. Then the wholesalers would start losing

[established] growers. So it was really hard for a new grower to actually break

into the market [at that time]… because [wholesalers] were giving [established

growers] the money back. If the wholesaler promises $20 a box, but he only gets

$7 a box, and [production] costs $10 a box, the grower’s not going to stay

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producing for very long. [Established growers] were being looked after very

nicely. They could sell everything they could produce, and at top prices. But for a

new grower to come in, it upsets the apple cart, because your retail base wasn’t

big enough to be able to absorb the next two tonnes of zucchinis in a week, so as

a result, a lot of the organic stuff, when there’s a surplus, was being flogged onto

the conventional market at conventional prices – to maintain the organic prices.

(Nixon 2009, 29 October)

Despite the premium-protecting tactic by the wholesaler, they still faced uncontrollable

variables capable of disrupting their equilibrium. Growing food crops took roughly a

year, meaning that the wholesaler made a best estimate of demand based on their

experience and sales history, and then prior to planting instructed growers to deliver a

certain quantity for the next season. Disruption would come from unforeseen fluctuations

of under and oversupply. In terms of the former, natural events like bush fires or insect

attacks were capable of wiping out some or all of a crop, thereby creating product

scarcity. In terms of the former, a crop might have reached its peak season without

having faced a major insect attack, and growers may be producing quantities exceeding

the stated needs of the wholesaler, threatening an oversupply (Nixon 2009, 29 October).

These were the instances where the conventional market was used as a pressure relief

valve, or the wholesaler had to drop the price and wear the difference in order to protect

their growers’ returns:

There would be plenty of times where we would sell product under cost and

return the right cost to the grower. A good example would be broccoli or

zucchini. If there’s a full moon, you’re going to get more broccoli coming out of

a lot of 10,000 plants. Rather than over a space of so many weeks, it will be

squashed up into a more consolidated period. Therefore we only could ever sell

… at that stage 200 boxes of broccoli a week [to the organic retailers], but if we

got delivered 300 boxes … and we knew that the return had to be around about

$14 [a box] back to the grower, what were we going to do with the other 100 that

was left over? We would drop the price. Some of it would be sold non-

organically at a lower price, but we would wear the difference … [We] would

wear the difference for oversupply. (Williams 2009, 7 September)

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The wholesaler-retailer interface

Another major tactic deployed by the intermediary for clearing oversupply was imposing

a norm where retailers were expected to take on more quantities of surplus lines, and

doing so would give them access to the scarcer lines at the time:

It was expected [that] if you don’t buy 10 of this, you won’t get that broccoli …

Shortage of something? If you didn’t buy this, you didn’t get that product …

Oversupply means: right, broccoli’s short [and] we’ve got an oversupply of

apricots. You take five boxes of apricots; we’ll sell you one box of broccoli. You

take 20 boxes of apricots; we’ll sell you four box of broccoli. That’s how you get

rid of your oversupply. (Nixon 2009, 29 October)

The Organic Wholesaler explained further:

What was our policy? Generally just people who showed us loyalty, we would

show them loyalty. As simple as that … We did even write a policy about how

that would translate, and I think we worded it: “Periodically, there will always be

over and undersupply of product [lines]; however, when product is in short

supply, Organic Wholesalers will try and supply … those preferred customers”.

[We] would operate under a preferential allocation system. People who showed

consistency in always wanting a certain line of product, they would be given

preferential treatment. If they were a big customer, and they didn’t show

consistency buying those products, we wouldn’t necessarily supply them,

[meaning] we would supply them with the bare minimum. We had to do that,

because it’s always a matter of you scratch my back [like] any business.

(Williams 2009, 7 September)

Despite this system of distribution causing periodic frustration with some retailers, there

was a general acceptance that the intermediary’s model kept the organic market viable.

As Ian Nixon explained:

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[If growers] don’t get the money from the wholesalers for their crop, and a good

return, they’re going to go down the chutes, [and for the wholesalers] the only

way you can make money out of [organic food] is to control it and organise it

(Nixon 2009, 29 October).

Another retailer offered a further economic justification for the wholesaler’s model:

What’s the point of them doubling the number of boxes going through their

warehouse in a particular day, at half the price and making the same money?

Whereas if they can control it, not make things scarce, but close to scarcity,

they’re going to keep the price up, and then [comfortably] handle that amount of

boxes going through. (Kinnear 2009, 2 November)

The sentiment from retailers was that they generally accepted the system because it kept

the organic market from adopting the supply and demand dynamics of the conventional

market:

The big thing we all began to realise was that conventional produce is too cheap.

For a lettuce grower, say in Werribee to … water it and grow it on his land, pick

it and put it in a box … take it to market, [then sell at] four dollars for 12 … is too

cheap … We [organic retailers] were paying 10 bucks for a box of lettuce, and

[conventional retailers] were paying four bucks … [Conventional growers] were

getting screwed by the supermarkets and a supply and demand situation where

everyone has got [an overabundance of] lettuce … The organic industry didn’t

want that, we wanted fair trade where the organic [grower] should get what they

need to survive. Sometimes that could have been a bit excessive, but where do

you draw the line? (Alexander 2009, 18 August)

The retailer-consumer interface

One major implication of the price premium system was that stable prices were

distributed across the supply chain. As several retailers explained, the stability of higher

wholesale prices then allowed them to add margins between 50 to 100 per cent (Staley

2009, 20 August; Nixon 2009, 29 October; Kinnear 2009, 2 November). As one retailer

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explained, unlike his conventional counterparts, he did not then have to spend time each

day checking prices and making adjustments to account for minor market fluctuations.

Essentially, consumers were offered a generally stable price at retail (Staley 2009, 20

August). The retailer explained the tactic further:

Conventional mandarins [for example] will be $12 one week and $15 the next

week, and $10 the next week and $20 the week after that, and $24 the week after

that and then they’ll go down to $18 again. [The Wholesalers said] nah, they’re

always $40 because if we sell it for $40 a box, we can make money on the box,

we can make money on the delivery, we can make money on growing the fruit,

looking after the tree, paying our packers and the whole deal … [That is] the

price that we want, but we won’t put it up at the start of the season, and we wont

put it up at the end of the season. It’ll just be that [price] the whole season, and

that often [did] apply. (Staley 2009, 20 August)

A further tactic used to stabilise this system was retailers supplying customers with

rationales for why they ought to accept the price premium system:

We didn’t really have a problem paying the farmer top dollar for his business …

but that means that [we] also had to pass that on, and it made things expensive. It

was our job to educate customers that they weren’t paying just because it was

organic, they were paying for better-quality products, that should taste better and

that should keep better. (Alexander 2009, 18 August)

Another retailer often drew on a popular argument within sustainable agriculture, being

that conventional produce avoided paying certain production costs:

We [didn't] want organic to be as cheap as conventional produce … I always said

to customers when they commented on the price [that] it’s the true cost of

growing the produce this way. [We make] sure that everyone gets a fair price for

what they do, and [that] conventional produce … doesn’t take into the whole

picture the pollution and the effects on people’s health, [the hazards] of

chemicals, and all that sort of stuff. (Staley 2009, 20 August)

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The Organic Wholesaler also actively encouraged its retailers to educate consumers

about the process that brought their food into the shop, because it built a connection

between consumer and farmer.

[Organic consumers] want to know where the product comes from … [and] a

little bit about the person behind the product, and identify with the farm gate …

It’s about the transference of information and knowledge (Williams 2009, 7

September).

Addressing the trust issue

I have described how a number of incidents of fraud and deception converged to create a

crisis in trust of organic food, and how the attempt by the organic industry to make the

NFA ratify the OPAC standards domestically failed. These two events propelled a

number of alternative tactics geared around strengthening the supply chain audit trail. In

1993, NASAA tightened its sanctions for growers transgressing certification rules, where

Level A ‘organic’ growers found to be using inputs not permitted under the standard

automatically lost certification. These growers would then be on probation for 12 months

before gaining the Level B ‘in conversion’ status, and a further three years at Level B

before regaining Level A status (NASAA Bulletin 1993, p. 1). Another major occurrence

was when the powerful Victorian intermediary, The Organic Wholesaler, made the

philosophical and business decision not to carry uncertified produce. Up until that time,

their suppliers – whether certified or uncertified – were expected to sign a statuary

declaration stating they had farmed according to organic principles. Around 1993, the

intermediary joined their mainstream counterparts by moving into the Footscray

wholesale market. They felt that this move, coupled with the emerging issue of trust in

organic food authenticity, meant they now had to be extra vigilant about the produce they

handled (Diamond 2010, 3 January). Letters were sent to their entire list of growers

explaining the change and urging uncertified growers to get certified. As The Organic

Wholesaler recalled, the move was a trade-off, where ‘yes we lost customers [but] it

gave us credibility’ (Williams 2009, 7 September).

The most comprehensive attempt to bolster trust in the organic supply chain was initiated

in 1990 following the fallout from the Mellab pesticide study. The incident forced

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ORGAV to reflect on a raft of inadequately-addressed problems in the retail and

wholesale sectors, identifying the need for a dedicated accreditation system for retailers,

wholesalers and other distributors. By 1990, ORGAV had gained a membership base of

60 produce outlets, including the supermarket chain Coles, which was trialling organic

food in 30 outlets (Gannon 1990, p. 7). ORGAV president Phil Rowe argued that it was

time for those downstream players to pull their weight:

[The] growers made this industry possible [by] providing the bona fides for all

sectors of the industry through the certification systems; now it’s time for the

wholesalers and retailers to help ensure the integrity of the produce being offered.

(Australian Organic News 1992g, p. 4).

ORGAV placed retailers at the centre of their system, viewing them as the ‘ambassador

for the industry [where] the public’s first impressions will be created’ (Gannon 1990, p.

7). In turn, a scheme was designed around four main principles. The first was the

labelling of produce. ORGAV expected that all product displays were coupled with signs

that featured information beyond simply prices, such as the level of certification, the

appropriate production system and the certifier’s trademark (The Organic Farmer 1990b,

p. 8). The signs would also be colour coded, where green corresponded to category A

(CERTIFIED ORGANIC), orange corresponded to category B (IN-CONVERSION

ORGANIC), and red corresponded to category C (SUSTAINABLE). All uncertified

produce was to be coded with a white label (CONVENTIONAL). Any other terminology

such as ‘clean’, ‘unsprayed’, or ‘naturally grown’ was prohibited from use (ORGAV

1990, p. 5). Moreover, display labels would be supported through a set of ORGAV-

produced explanatory point-of-sale materials, as well as posters and brochures detailing

their application (The Organic Farmer 1990b, p. 8). The idea was to harmonise retailer

labelling categories with the existing production standards of NASAA and those also

being developed by OPAC (Gannon 1990, p. 7), in order to establish a paddock-to-plate

assurance that products marketed as organic had originated from a certified producer.

This would essentially allow consumers to make a more informed decision (Gannon

1990, p. 7).

The second principle concerned product presentation. Retailers were expected to source

the best quality they could obtain, and present it in the most aesthetically-enticing way

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possible. If retailers were also selling conventional produce, it was to be displayed

separately from organic, either by physical distance, or a brightly-coloured divider

signalling a different class of product (ORGAV 1990, p. 7).

The third principle addressed shop staff. ORGAV expected all staff to have a

fundamental knowledge of organic growing methods, and the way the production

standards worked. The aim was that staff could adequately field questions from

consumers such as: What do the grades mean? Why do farmers grow produce

organically? Why is organic produce likely to be better for them? (ORGAV 1990, p. 8).

The final principle involved retailer’s record keeping. Retailers were expected to keep a

written record of all produce sold in terms of their source and quantity (ORGAV 1990, p.

8). If produce was bought from non-certified wholesalers, the rules were stricter. One

ORGAV certified retailer, Dennis Alexander, recalled:

I needed to make sure our dockets from [wholesalers] were legit, so if I get an

[ORGAV] inspector come in [asking]: “Where did you buy that broccoli from?”

I’d go and show them the docket and [it] says I bought 10 boxes of broccoli from

[a particular wholesaler]. [They could see] the grower – I’d go to the cool room,

[matching] the box [and] the invoice. But if I weren’t, they’d say: “You bought it

from Joe Whatever. We don’t know where he got that from, so we have to go to

him and find out where he got it”. If it wasn’t [sourced] from a certified

wholesaler, the inspectors had to make sure the product was legit, and [retailers

weren’t] just using some old boxes from somebody and putting their name on it

or something like that. (Alexander 2009, 18 August)

Although the accreditation demanded retailers to adhere to a set of rules that spanned

their businesses, participants such as Alexander understood the high stakes involved in

securing retailer cooperation:

[ORGAV] were always frightened that somebody would say: “This [isn’t]

organic … and Current Affair would go in and expose [organic fraud] … We

didn’t want the industry damaged so we had to take care of ourselves and make

sure that we were covering ourselves and [making] claims we could back up …

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Once certification came in, those of us that were certified no longer said this was

organic when it wasn’t certified … you could only call something organic once it

was certified. (Alexander 2009, 18 August)

In 1992, after successfully piloting the accreditation scheme in Victoria, ORGAV

proposed a rolling out across Australia of both their organisation and the accreditation

system. Their aim was to generally reduce consumer confusion and gain the public’s

trust, because they realised that what consumers ‘really want is to be sure the produce is

organic and that the retailer is not fooling them’ (Australian Organic News 1992g, p. 4).

In 1995, ORGAV renamed itself the Organic Retails and Growers Association of

Australia (ORGAA), and the accreditation system was extended into New South Wales,

Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland (Staley 2009, 20 August).

Although the organic industry had suffered from highly turbulent conditions, The

Organic Wholesaler saw the situation as an opportunity for the industry to have some

breathing space and consolidation period to prepare for the upsurge in demand they

anticipated in the near future. Ian Diamond explained that one major consequence of the

crisis was that weaker operators in all sectors of the organic industry had been weeded

out, making the industry ‘stronger and producing more consistent, better quality lines of

produce’ (Australian Organic News 1992c, p. 8).

Conclusion

This chapter has tracked the action within two interrelated fields. One was the agri-food

policy field, where from the beginning of the 1990s, key state actors used their direct

authority to impose a new conception over the field. Key actors, including the

Government, skillfully oriented field members around the main goal of maximising

‘clean food’ exports. Conventional food was validated as offering ‘clean food’, and

organic food defined as a niche offering. Although occupying a less powerful position in

the field, actors from the sustainable agriculture field experienced official support to

develop their market. For example, production standards were developed and legislated,

and certifiers such as NASAA were given state-sanctioned power to police organic food

exports. This support had limits. The newly-established National Food Authority refused

to ratify organic standards at the domestic level. This exposed organic food to criticism

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about product credibility, and curbed the ability of actors like NASAA to effectively

settle such issues.

The second focus of this chapter was the way the sustainable agriculture field dealt with

their field destabilisation, refocusing efforts from challenging the status quo to finding a

market foothold in order to survive. From the beginning of the 1990s, the organic food

market continued to expand on a trajectory towards mainstream acceptance. Then two

crises stalled its development. Firstly, the economy-wide recession latently rippled out to

the organic market, inverting the supply and demand dynamics. Secondly, fraudulent

activities within the field had initiated a crisis of trust that organic food was free from

chemicals. A wide range of skilled actors worked to collectively quell the disruption. To

solve the economic crisis, I observed a key intermediary establishing a price premium

system, which offered the supply chain stability from the broader economic turbulence.

To solve the trust crisis, a set of actors, including NASAA and ORGAV, extended the

system of standards to ensure wholesalers and retailers were only trading in certified

food.

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–CHAPTER SEVEN–

Conclusion

The opportunity to make money has motivated people to produce

an enormous array of products and services. Sociology enters the

equation in the problem of how actors produce a social world stable

enough that they can sell those goods and services at a price at

which their organization will survive. Managing people and

uncertain environments to produce stability is a sizable task. Those

that do it every day often demonstrate great skill and creativity as

they lurch from crisis to crisis. (Fligstein 2001, p. 18)

Overview

This chapter ties together and synthesises the major findings of the current study. First it

positions the findings within the theoretical literature on the sociology of markets. My

main theoretical argument is that judgment devices (Karpik 2010) are vital to the

establishment of field settlements (Fligstein & McAdam 2012). Put another way, skilled

actors construct, promote or constrain different devices in order to legitimise their

competing conceptions of field organisation. Secondly, the chapter discusses the

empirical contribution to the literature on the Australian organic food market. The

research fills a gap in empirical knowledge by offering novel detail on the origins of the

organic food market, and the specific contributions made by a number of actors not

currently represented in the literature. Finally, I outline some limitations of the current

study and offer suggestions for future lines of research.

Mainstream economics focuses almost entirely on the act of exchange, taking the

interaction between supply, demand and price as the glue that holds market order

together (Beckert 2007, p. 5). The current study has presented an alternative theoretical

tradition that views markets through a sociological lens. Economic sociology

understands that social relations, meanings and institutional frameworks provide a

central backdrop to the operation of stable economic exchange (Fligstein & Dauter 2007,

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p. 113). But economic sociology has been criticised for focusing too heavily on studying

stability-inducing mechanisms, such as the way networks and actors’ roles contribute to

a market’s order. This has left the discipline with less theoretical development in the area

of market change and emergence. The recent conversation between social movement

theory and organisational studies has sought to address this deficiency by studying the

role of contention and disruptive politics in markets. The broad view is that stable

markets are general agreements about how to organise a social space, forged from

conflict between competing interests. These interests vie for advantage, but ultimately

find compromises that maximise their period to period survival. But because markets

produce unequal outcomes and access for different groups, existing orders are the target

of rolling conflict from challengers looking to improve their foothold and establish

alternative fairer forms of field organisation (King & Pearce 2010, p. 250).

Adding to this theoretical line of inquiry, the current study explored how the market for

organic food emerged in Australia from the early 1980s. Key concepts from Fligstein

and McAdam’s (2012) A Theory of Fields were used to understand how key actors in

two associated fields – sustainable agriculture and the agri-food policy field – wielded

alternative conceptions over the future of food production and consumption in Australia.

The departure point for this study was when the sustainable agriculture social movement

organised to establish a federation of groups that worked towards commercialising

organic food. Therefore my starting assumption was that sustainable agriculture was a

challenger to the entrenched incumbent interests within the conventional food market.

Taking a field approach enabled a clear view of the tactical actions from challengers, and

simultaneously the response by other powerful actors, particularly those whose interests

were disrupted by sustainable agriculture and its allies. By viewing the interplay between

these interests, we can gain a more rounded understanding of how a market for organic

food was first established in Australia.

This thesis focused on four research questions:

(1) What were the main strategic actions deployed by the sustainable

agriculture movement and its allies in trying to commercialise organic

food and similar forms of sustainable agriculture in Australia from the

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early 1980s?

(2) What was the response of entrenched interests within conventional

agriculture?

(3) What does this case study tell us about the interplay between disruptive

politics and the establishment of new markets?

(4) What does this case study tell us about the role of judgment devices in the

creation of new markets?

Field settlements and judgment devices Within the conversation between social movement theory and organisational studies, a

fledgling line has emerged to explore how social movements can intentionally or

unintentionally affect the establishment of new economic ventures such as markets,

industries or product categories (Weber et al. 2008, p. 529). Early studies have

demonstrated how social movements can bring change by affecting the normative

structures in society, lobbying authorities for more favourable regulations, or educating

stakeholders like consumers to join an alternative agenda (Hiatt et al. 2009). The current

study complements this literature, but suggests that by embedding the concept of

judgment devices (Karpik 2010) from the valuation literature into A Theory of Fields

(Fligstein and McAdam 2012), we gain a more fine-grained understanding of the

mechanics by which field settlements in existing and emerging markets are constructed,

contested and legitimised.

Judgment devices are knowledge operators constructed to dissipate the opacity

surrounding economic objects. By reducing the uncertainty over the relative qualities of

goods in the same market, these devices render the value of an object clear, and guide

economic exchange (Karpik 2010, p. 44-45). But devices are also fundamentally about

gaining competitive advantage. By highlighting the differential in quality between

economic goods, actors attempt to detach consumers from competitors’ offerings, and

attach them to their offerings (Callon et al. 2002, p. 207). This thesis adopts a broader

view of judgment devices. Actors use devices to skilfully legitimise their models of field

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organisation. Fligstein (1996, 2001, 2008) suggested that conceptions of control are

templates for organising fields, which actors contest or defend in order to provide stable

rules of interaction and further their interests. They are constituted by collective

understandings around what is at stake in a particular field or market, what the

distribution of power is between actors, interpretive frameworks for understanding field

action, and finally, toolkits of legitimate tactics used to realise one’s interests. This thesis

identifies judgment devices as part of the toolkit actors use to shape, stabilise, and

legitimise their version of field organisation. The discussion below is summarised in

tables 4 and 5.

The mechanics of settlement construction

By the end of the 1980s, the taken-for-granted assumption about food safety in Australia

had been disrupted. A succession of food and health scares, coupled with action by the

consumer movement against the perceived hazards of chemicals, had impacted heavily

on the sentiments of domestic consumers, key state actors (including the Government),

and Australia’s main international food trading partners. A clear example of the level of

disruption and concern was the establishment of a 1989 senate inquiry, which gave

serious consideration to the social, economic and environmental impacts of different

food production systems, including organic production.

The contest over the future of food production was largely played out within the agri-

food policy field during an episode of contention (Fligstein & McAdam 2012, p. 21-22),

which prominently involved the sustainable agriculture movement, the consumer

movement, state actors, and a coalition of entrenched incumbent interests led by the

chemical industry body AVCA. The escalating scrutiny over the quality of mainstream

food was vital in driving the initial demand for organic food, and marked the departure

point for the sustainable agriculture movement to mobilise around the project of

commercialising organic food. Sustainable agriculture proposed a model that defined the

mainstream food market as offering products that largely avoided chemicals in their

production, and maximised the health of humans and their environment. Because

demand for organic food exceeded supply, commercialising organic food largely turned

on redefining mainstream food producers’ understandings of field membership.

Specifically, the movement set out to influence producers’ judgments of organic farming

as being a viable alternative to conventional practices. Three main judgment devices

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were constructed to spearhead this goal. The first was the NASAA certification scheme.

This appellation was designed to promise farmer’s access to an alternative consumer

channel not available to producers farming conventionally. Crucially, the scheme was

designed to maximise membership by including a lower grade Level C SUSTAINABLE

that permitted the judicious use of chemicals. The idea was that producers would

eventually move towards fully-fledged organic production without destabilising their

viability in the meantime. The other two judgment devices set up to redefine membership

were face-to-face technical conferences and industry media. These cicerones were

constructed to supply mainstream producers with ongoing expert information on how to

practise sustainable farming, thereby supporting a conversion away from chemical-based

production.

Marshalling an extensive set of resources, the incumbent coalition countermobilised.

They proposed a new conception of the food market that accepted mainstream food as

‘clean food’ –produced through the safe and judicious use of chemicals. Two key

judgment devices underpinned this tactic. Firstly, AVCA constructed a national

accreditation scheme. This appellation directed all actors involved in the production,

distribution and sale of agricultural chemicals to take a health and safety course and

submit to ongoing auditing by AVCA. Secondly, AVCA positioned themselves as an

authoritative public voice in the debate over chemical hazards. To validate their role as a

cicerone, AVCA abandoned the past industry policy of not engaging in public debate to

positioning as an authoritative voice on food safety issues. One key example was when

news stories criticised chemicals or conventional food, key industry actors engaged with

journalists to provide counter arguments.

The States’ power to impose settlements

According to Fligstein and McAdam (2012, p. 71-75), the stability of non-state fields

depends to some degree on their relationship with state fields, because states wield great

power in shaping the opportunities for order and change in non-state fields. On the flip

side, states rely on the stability of non-state fields for their own survival, especially those

fields that are disproportionately important to the nation’s economy. In such cases, we

can expect states to tacitly or overtly support the reproduction of market incumbents.

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From 1992, the Australian Federal Government used its direct authority to skilfully

impose a settlement on the agri-food policy field, which had deep consequences for both

the organic and conventional food markets. It redefined the policy field as an arena that

facilitated the maximisation of Australian ‘clean food’ exports. Official bodies like the

National Food Authority and the Agri-Food Council were established to operate a cluster

of judgment devices geared around legitimising the ‘clean food’ status of conventional

food. Appellations were predominantly used: a ‘clean food’ quality seal was made

available to mass market food companies; official pesticide-testing surveys were

promoted as evidence that Australian food was safe; and the Food Standards Code

streamlined the way food production rules were set and policed.

Sustainable agriculture was given access to state resources, but only to develop its export

capacity. The organisations and devices constructed to bestow legitimacy on

conventional food were largely not accessible to sustainable agriculture. For example,

the National Food Authority was established to strengthen consumer confidence and

enhance the domestic and export marketability of Australian food. But when it came to

organic food, it refused to ratify organic standards in the Food Standards Code, and took

the position that organic food offered no extra beneficial qualities than its conventional

counterpart.

What the current case shows is the enormous power of the State to impose a wholesale

model of field organisation, especially in the shaping of relationship parameters between

challengers and incumbents in both state and proximate non-state fields. Table 4 below

offers the essential elements that characterised the settlement.

Niche settlements and value construction

The State had narrowed the political opportunities for sustainable agriculture’s project to

take organic food mainstream. Simultaneously, the fledgling organic food market was hit

with two major crises. Firstly, the broader economic downturn changed the market

dynamics, making supply significantly exceed demand. Secondly, cases of fraudulent

activity threatened the legitimacy of claims that organic food was less hazardous than its

conventional counterpart. The sustainable agriculture field was forced to shift its focus

from trying to transform agriculture towards a project of field stabilisation.

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Table 4: Installing the ‘clean food’ exports settlement 1982-1992 Elements of a conception of control

Sustainable agriculture challengers

Chemical industry and farmer groups incumbents

State actors

At stake/market definition/framing of market

Food produced that avoids chemicals and maximises the safety and health of humans and their environment.

‘Clean food’ produced safely via the judicious use of chemicals, which maximises yields and contributes to the health of the Australian economy.

‘Clean food’ produced safely through the judicious use of chemicals, focused on ramping up exports and contributing to the health of the Australian economy.

Field membership All actors involved in the commercial production of food, but they need to be certified by an organisation like NASAA.

All actors involved in the commercial production of food.

All actors involved in the commercial production of food.

Actors’ relative positions

Organic food production ought to be the mainstream because it is a viable and safer alternative. The State should assist in the transition of agriculture away from chemical dependence. The chemical industry ought to be made redundant.

Producers using chemicals are the mainstream, because only through chemicals can demand be met and stable markets maintained. Organic food is a niche, only capable of supplying fringe consumer demand.

Organic food is a growing niche that adds to the already clean and safe food produced by mainstream food producers.

Main tactics Channel producers away from mainstream production by deploying two tactics: (1) Increasing the information available to farmers on organic farming methods; (2) Offer a certification scheme that allows for the judicious usage of chemicals in its lowest grade.

Be more open about chemical usage in food production by framing chemicals in two ways: (1) Chemicals are the only viable way of producing food and maintaining the Australian economy; (2) Chemicals are safe and produce safe food when handled and used correctly.

Restructure the entire agri-food policy field to: (1) Centralise the monitoring of food production and the promotion of food safety to the newly-established National Food Authority. (2) Gear new and existing state bodies around the goal of ramping up of ‘clean food’ exports. (3) Support organic food to develop its export capacity.

Main judgment devices NASAA certification scheme; industry media; technical conferences.

AVCA accreditation scheme; the mass media; industry media; technical conferences.

Various state-sanctioned food residue tests for conventional food; NFA Food Standards Code (excluding organic food); Organic Produce Advisory Committee’s export production standards.

According to Fligstein, for challengers to survive, they must find a stable position within

the existing set of field relations (2001, p. 18). For markets this might imply the attempt

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to create a niche to buffer from the harsher forces of competition (Fligstein 1996, p.

659). One crucial institution-building project highlighted in the current study was the

positioning and fortification of organic food as a premium niche vis-à-vis conventional

food. A collective effort saw a reordering of rules and roles within the supply chain.

Market intermediaries were accepted as the dominant market coordinators, who then

imposed a number of operating rules on the rest of the supply chain. They narrowed the

quantity of their supply partners, thereby lessening the competition between farmers

accessing the marketing channel. They also only took quantities of product to the point

just before a glut formed, leaving farmers to channel excess into the conventional

market, thereby maintaining the situation of supply roughly meeting demand. Produce

was cleared to retailers by way of a pecking order, which generally rewarded retailers

who took on more supply than they needed in times of glut. These retailers were

subjected to higher prices at wholesale, but accepted that this kept farmers viable and

created a buffer for the entire market against instability.

Organic food can be categorised as an imaginative good, where value is created by

mentally connecting consumers to a ‘desired but intangible ideal’ (Beckert 2011, p. 110).

The sustainable agriculture field promised a product that physically looked like its

conventional counterpart, but promised to be healthier and more environmentally

friendly. The reorganisation of the organic food market as a premium niche was only

ever going to work if consumers at the end of the supply chain accepted the legitimacy of

a price premium vis-à-vis conventional food. Two main judgment devices were essential

in holding the model together. The first was that retailers became cicerones to their

customers – that is an authoritative point of contact, supplying information on how the

food production process worked, such as the operation of organic standards and

certification, or the more labour-intensive practices farmers took vis-à-vis their

conventional counterparts. The second device extended the field’s key appellation, being

the production certification scheme. ORGAV established a wholesaler and retailer

accreditation scheme, which meant that Victoria pioneered a model where the third party

monitoring of authenticity was extended across the entire supply chain. The scheme

bolstered the ability of the sustainable agriculture field to confidently promise consumers

that only genuine organic produce could enter the supply chain.

Taken together, these two devices, along with the role of the intermediaries, were vital in

facilitating a price differential between organic and conventional food, and by extension

  189  

in constructing organic food as a food market niche. Table 5 below offers the essential

elements that characterised this niche settlement.

Table 5: Installing the organic niche settlement 1992-1995 Elements of a conception of control

Organic food market stakeholders

At stake/market definition/framing of market

The production of a premium food product that avoided chemicals and maximised the safety and health of humans and the environment.

Field membership A strict definition of membership: producers, wholesalers and retailers accredited by a certification body. But for producers, membership might be limited to those that have established relationships with intermediaries.

Actors’ relative positions

Intermediaries are the dominant actors in coordinating the market; they set the terms of supply with farmers and retailers.

Main tactics A raft of actors involved in sustainable agriculture cooperate to create a niche through two main tactics: (a) The supply chain keeps price premiums stable by: reducing the amount of produce being piped through; dumping excessive supply into conventional market; wholesalers maintaining a retailer pecking order; retailers taking on a more ambassadorial role by educating consumers on the production process. (b) Encouraging the entire supply chain to deal only with certified organic food.

Main judgment devices Certification schemes (mainly NASAA) mirroring OPAC standards; ORGAV retailer accreditation scheme.

Australian organic food There is a growing collection of research on the development of the Australian organic

food market, covering an impressive range of topics. Surprisingly, the accumulated

research is focused almost entirely on the period after 1990 when the market for organic

food had already emerged. To my knowledge, Wynen and Fritz (2007) offer the only

research that details how organic food graduated from the practices of a social movement

to being a coordinated national market. They described the role of the National

Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia (NASAA) from the early 1980s. This

organisation was involved in pioneering actions such as: mobilising the sustainable

agriculture movement around a project to commercialise organic food; writing and

implementing the first national standards for organic food production; and forging

international trade channels for local producers. Unfortunately, this account is a chapter

within the larger edited volume. An impressive breadth of history is accounted for, but

there is limited discussion of deeper details. More than that, there is scant detail on the

  190  

role of actors from the supply chain in contributing to the commercialisation of organic

food.

The current study has filled this gap by offering a novel narrative of Australian organic

food market emergence. This story also presents the contributions made by actors not

previously credited in the study of organic food development in Australia. For example,

the health and safety agendas of the consumer movement, as well as political party the

Australian Democrats, were crucial in opening the opportunities for organic food in the

political space and in helping facilitate consumer awareness of sustainable agriculture.

The intermediaries’ coordination of supply was crucial in broadening the range and

consistency of market offerings. The chemical industries lobbying of the State and

spearheading projects to quell societal concern about chemical hazards worked to link

conventional food to the ‘clean food’ concept. Finally, the State and its power to impose

settlements also contributed significantly to limiting organic food going mainstream.

Limitations and future research Process methods are useful in drawing out the fine-grained chronological actions taken

by focal actors, and constructing them into strings of coherent events. There were two

particular limitations this method presented in the current study. The first was that

process methods generate an enormous amount of data. A great challenge was deciding

which lines of action and events should be given primacy in presenting a clear story of

market emergence. Inevitably decisions were made to analyse and present greater detail

of one set of market-building projects, while partially or completely ignoring others. For

example, the biodynamic agriculture movement actively supported the project to

commercialise organic food, and cooperated with groups like NASAA. Biodynamics

also set out to create a separate product category vis-à-vis organic food, one that was

supported by distinctively different producers, consumers and industry bodies.

Biodynamic food is now considered the ‘Rolls Royce’ category of organic food. It was

decided that exploring how this separate niche happened was not essential to providing a

cohesive story of organic food market emergence, but it is an important trajectory that

should be explored in future research.

The second limitation was that some actors’ contributions to market emergence were not

explored, because there was little capacity to gather adequate information. For example,

  191  

the Biological Farmers of Australia followed NASAA to become the second main

organic certification body in Australia. Unlike NASAA, the organisation left almost

nothing on the public record prior to the 1990s. Future research that engaged these

pioneers might yield important information that enriches the market emergence narrative

presented here.

In essence, the current study functions as a first-cut narrative, one that is sufficiently

broad for future researchers to fill in associated market-building projects or add detail to

the role of actors not adequately accounted for here.

Conclusion

In this thesis I have taken a sociological approach to understanding the emergence of the

Australian organic food market. My overarching argument is that the development of this

market was forged in an inherently political process that cannot be fully understood

without understanding the linkages and mutual influence between sustainable agriculture

and the agri-food policy fields over time. I observed three distinct temporal brackets

between 1982 and 1995, where competing actors wielded alternative conceptions over

what they believed constituted safe and clean food, and by extension, how the

organisation of relationships ought to be within fields responsible for the production of

food. Judgment devices were crucial in spearheading these conceptions or in neutralising

competing conceptions. Ultimately, organic food gained enough legitimacy with key

state actors and consumers to become established, but the broader agenda of

transforming the way food was produced was significantly constrained. The episode of

contention within the agri-food policy field had created conditions that were rife with

transformative change, but key incumbents with interests in continuing chemical-based

agriculture maintained enough state support to reaffirm the previous status quo, albeit

one that accommodated organic food as a marginal field member.

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– APPENDICES –

Appendix 1: Examples of coded incidents, events and arguments

Table 6: Three examples of coded incidents

Incident number: 022 Incident number: 201 Incident number: 058

Incident date: 02/03/1984 Incident date: 17/02/1988 Incident date: 15/02/1985

Qualitative description

A meeting was held at the annual Tasmanian sustainable agriculture festival, where Sandy Fritz (HDRA) proposed her vision for a national association of organic groups. A number of groups were in attendance, including: Soil Association of Tasmania, The Organic Gardening and Farming Society of Tasmania, Willing Workers On Organic Farms, Allergy Recognition and Management Association

It was agreed that a national association was required, but that it would not change the structure or activities of individual groups, or be an amalgamation of groups. The federation would be a network to handle broader issues outside the resource reach of the individual organisations. Three main aims of the federation were approved: (1) To collect and disseminate information about alternative farming systems and practices; (2) To educate consumers about the need for sustainable agriculture and uncontaminated food; (3) To lobby government about the need for research into organic farming, and to give fairer treatment to farmers using unconventional methods (for example, extending fertiliser subsidies, offering low-interest loans).

It was agreed that two delegates from each state should be appointed to a national steering committee to work towards federation.

Key executive members of the National Association of Sustainable Agriculture Australia (Tim Marshall, Chair; Sandy Fritz, Sec.; and David Dumaresq, Treasurer) met with Minister for Primary Industries and Energy Mr Kerin and his aide at Parliament House. The meeting involved discussion about NASAA's application for funding from the Australian Special Rural Research Council (ASRRC) and the Innovative Agricultural Marketing Program. There was also a broader discussion about the methods of sustainable agriculture and their application to commercial farming in Australia. This led to a discussion about the financial arrangements needed to establish and operate an Information Clearinghouse for sustainable agriculture. The meeting was very positive and the Minister indicated interest and support for the idea of the Clearinghouse.

The CSIRO release a nationwide consumer sentiment survey, which found great levels of community fear towards the usage of farm chemicals in food production. It also indicated the concurrent ascension of potential demand for organic food.

Key results included:

- 57% felt that chemical sprays made our food a danger to our health.

- 53% felt that food grown with chemical fertiliser was less healthy than food grown with natural fertilisers.

- One third felt that food could be satisfactorily grown without the use of pesticides.

- 56% felt it was important to eat organic food.

- 14% were actually trying to eat organic.

The results were published in both mainstream farming newspapers and sustainable agriculture movement journals. Both framed the results as there being a growth of demand in Australia for organic food.

Data Source Organic Growing (Vol 9. no. 2, p. 1) Quarterly Report (Vol 3. no. 1, p. 1)

Organic Growing (Vol 10. no. 2, p. 1)

Field Context

Sustainable agriculture field Agri-food policy field External environment

Open coding category

Proposing federation of sustainable agriculture

Lobbying for government support of organic food market

Public opinion on food quality

Note: In addition to descriptions of the action taken by particular actors, each incident was given additional information in order to allow for recall, editing and coding.

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Figure 4: Incidents representing the event: ‘Development of first organic standards (1982-1986)’

Note: This is an abbreviated representation of the event, which was constituted by

18 incidents.

Table 7: Examples of coding arguments Passage of raw data Coded Argument ‘Last August the Toxic and Hazardous Chemicals Committee (of which I am a member) of the Total Environment Centre, Sydney held a conference on "Hazardous Chemicals in the Australian Environment". I and other participants were surprised and disappointed at the low level of awareness about organic agriculture as an alterative to the use of hazardous chemicals. We decided a meeting of those involved in organic agriculture in Australia was needed to consider forming a federation so we could be more influential and more likely to be recognised by, and as a part of, mainstream agriculture.’

Position There ought to be a meeting between interested organic stakeholders to discuss a federation of organic agriculture. Justification Doing so would result in more legitimacy within mainstream agriculture. Open code Sustainable agriculture ought to federate

‘Quality in produce is the result of many factors and interactions between many factors. Hours of sunshine, soil nutrient status, climate, fertilisation, management techniques and varieties grown. However, several researchers have demonstrated that if produce is grown properly under organic methods, it is of a higher quality than conventionally-grown produce. The biological value of the proteins is higher, more vitamin C, higher dry matter yield. The produce was more resistant to pest and disease problems and it kept longer.’

Position The method used to produce organic food yields better-quality produce than conventional produce. Justification Studies show higher levels of vitamin C, higher biological value of proteins, a better resistance to pests and disease, longer life and higher dry matter yield. Open code Organic food is better quality than conventional

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Appendix 2: Ethics approval

To: Prof Michael Gilding/Mr Lee Glezos, FLSS Dear Michael and Lee SUHREC Project 2009/127 Building the certification system: the social structuring of the Australian organic food market 1985-1995 Prof Michael Gilding, FLSS; Mr Lee Glezos Approved Duration: 10/07/2009 to 10/07/2011[Adjusted] I refer to the ethical review of the above project protocol carried out on behalf of Swinburne's Human Research Ethics Committee (SUHREC) by a SUHREC Subcommittee (SHESC3). Your responses to the review, as emailed on 3 July 2009, were put to a delegate of the Subcommittee for consideration. I am pleased to advise that, as submitted to date, the project may proceed in line with standard on-going ethics clearance conditions here outlined. - All human research activity undertaken under Swinburne auspices must conform to Swinburne and external regulatory standards, including the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and with respect to secure data use, retention and disposal. - The named Swinburne Chief Investigator/Supervisor remains responsible for any personnel appointed to or associated with the project being made aware of ethics clearance conditions, including research and consent procedures or instruments approved. Any change in chief investigator/supervisor requires timely notification and SUHREC endorsement. - The above project has been approved as submitted for ethical review by or on behalf of SUHREC. Amendments to approved procedures or instruments ordinarily require prior ethical appraisal/ clearance. SUHREC must be notified immediately or as soon as possible thereafter of (a) any serious or unexpected adverse effects on participants and any redress measures; (b) proposed changes in protocols; and (c) unforeseen events which might affect continued ethical acceptability of the project. - At a minimum, an annual report on the progress of the project is required as well as at the conclusion (or abandonment) of the project. - A duly authorised external or internal audit of the project may be undertaken at any time. Please contact the Research Ethics Office if you have any queries about on-going ethics clearance, citing the SUHREC project number. A copy of this communication should be retained as part of project record-keeping. Best wishes for the project.

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Yours sincerely Keith Wilkins for Anne Cain Secretary, SHESC3 ******************************************* Keith Wilkins Research Ethics Officer Swinburne Research (H68) Swinburne University of Technology P O Box 218 HAWTHORN VIC 3122 Tel +61 3 9214 5218 Fax +61 3 9214 5267