Lewis Holloway

Reading the Space of the Framers 'Market:A Case Study from the United Kingdom

The aim of this paper is to begin to examine the emergence of Farmers’ Markets (FM)in the UK. It is suggested that FM represent a new type of ‘consumption space’ within the contemporary British foodscape, one which may be read as a heterotopic convergence of localist, moral, ethical and environmental discourses,mediated by networks of producers, consumers and institutions. Based on a preliminary analysis of some of the discourses employed by these actors,it is argued that FM can be understood simultaneously as ‘conservative’ and ‘alternative’ spaces. ‘Conservative’ in that they encapsulate a reactionary valorization of the local,linking localness to the ideas of quality, health and rurality, and ‘alternative’ in that they represent a diversifying rural economy arising in response to the difficulties being experienced by some uk farmers and a more general perception of a countryside under threat. Initial evidence from a pilot case study in Stratford-upon-Avon is used to support these suggestions and propose suggestions for future research.

Pets and protein:: placing domestic livestock on hobby-farms in England and Wales

Abstract The place of animals in human geography is currently the subject of considerable discussion, focusing on the spatial variation of human–animal relations, and on the ways in which categories such as ‘human’, ‘animal’, ‘wild’ and ‘domestic’ are produced. In this paper I begin to consider some of the ethical dimensions of human–animal relations in livestock farming, using the notion of ‘situated morality’ (Lynn, Ethics Place Environ. 1 (1998b) 223–242) to examine hobby-farming as a particular set of social and agricultural practices in which farm animals are encountered as simultaneously ‘friends’ and sources of food. The paper considers how the socially constructed categories of ‘livestock’ and ‘pet’ become blurred in this marginal form of agricultural production. The paper draws on evidence from field research with hobby-farmers in England and Wales, and on textual material, to demonstrate the ethical ambiguity of human–animal relations on hobby-farms. The paper shows how such relations are associated with specific discourses, practices and places, and demonstrates the importance of spatiality and embodiment in understanding situated moralities.

Smallholding, hobby-farming, and commercial farming: ethical identities and the production of farming spaces

This paper explores the production of farming identities and spaces, focusing especially on the relational construction of situated ethical identities. Using three case studies drawn from research with very small-scale farmers, the author examines processes of identification, drawing on ideas which suggest the importance of encounter, farming discourse, physical relation and heterogeneous association in the emergence of ethical identity in specific farming situations and places. The case studies examine the ethical positioning of interviewees, and their mobility of ethical identification, in relation to ‘other’ types of farmer and the human and nonhuman components of their farming assemblages. The paper illustrates the importance of examining situated farming moralities and identities in current debates over alternative ways of thinking about and practising agriculture, and over different ways of using rural space.

The Geography of Organic Farming in England and Wales in the 1990s

Little research has been conducted on the changing geographical distribution of organic farming in England and Wales in the 1990s. Using officially published secondary data, this paper examines the changing patterns of organic farming between 1993 and 1997, based on the number of organic farms, the area devoted to organic farming, the number of exits from and conversions to organic farming, and specific organic enterprises. The analysis indicates a process of spatial rationalisation, in which organic farming is becoming increasingly concentrated in a core area in Central‐Southern England. Further, more detailed work is required, of both an empirical and conceptual nature, before a full explanation of such patterns can be given.

Virtual vegetables and adopted sheep: ethical relation, authenticity and Internet-mediated food production technologies

Associating ideas related to cultural geographies of ‘quality’ food production and consumption with recent discussion of Internet technologies, virtuality and simulation, this paper examines two newly constituted Internet enterprises offering customers ‘virtual’ experiences of food production, and ‘quality’ food products in which they have invested. The paper shows how these enterprises are associated with particular types of geographical and ethical relation, and a search for ‘authentic’, connected, relationships with food, farming, locality and ‘nature’. These relationships are constituted in an assemblage of things held together by flows of food, products, money and electronic communication. The paper ends by suggesting a number of theoretical ideas that might usefully be explored in empirical research into Internet-mediated food production.

Global warming and navy beans: Decision making by farmers and food companies in the U.K.

Abstract Farmers are continually adjusting their business enterprises in response to the shifting economic, political and social pressures which affect each aspect of their production. These adjustments may include structural changes, agronomic (production) changes or moves into ‘diversification’ enterprises, and are manifest at different scales, from the farm unit to changes in a countrys or regions agricultural structure. One factor influencing future changes in agriculture is likely to be climate change (‘global warming’) which will alter the physical environmental conditions of production. The consequences of this might include a change in the crop species cultivated in different areas. This paper examines the responses of farmers in part of southern Britain to the possibility of growing navy beans, a crop used for baked bean manufacture and obtained almost wholly from North America, as a response to a warmer climate. The paper seeks to explore the network of relations at the farm, national and international scales which will determine the likelihood of commercial adoption of the crop occurring in the U.K. Through discussion of the results of interviews with farmers, food processing companies and associated agencies it is concluded that there are significant structural barriers to the adoption of navy beans as a diversification option on U.K. farms as a result of international trade restraints and a measure of inertia and risk aversion within the processing companies.