The spaces and ethics of organic food

Abstract

Initial assessments of the potential for organic food systems have offered an optimistic interpretation of the progressive political andethical characteristics involved. This positive gloss has prompted a stream of critique emphasising the need to explore the ambiguities anddisconnections inherent therein. In this paper, we consider the case of Riverford Organic Vegetables,1 arguably the largest supplier oforganic vegetables in the UK, and suggest that existing debates assume too much about the ‘‘goods’’ and ‘‘rights’’ of organic food andleave important questions about the spaces and ethics of organic food. We argue that, in the case of Riverford, the space of organic foodproduction and distribution is neither the small, local, counter-cultural farm nor the large, transnational, corporate firm. Rather,simultaneously, the spaces of organic food production and distribution are the national network, the regional distribution system and thelocal farm. In addition, in the case of Riverford, the ethics of organic food exhibit few grand designs (of environmental sustainability, forexample). Rather, the ethics of organic food are best characterised as: ordinary, since they relate to concerns about taste, value formoney, care within the family and so on; diverse, since multiple practices steer the production and distribution of organic food; andgraspable, in that both vegetables and box have material and symbolic presence for consumers