An ethnographic perspective on organic farming in Malta

Abstract

The standardisation and commercialisation of organic farming has meant that there is now a spectrum of practices that can be described as such, and certification has implied the institutionalisation of the organic method. Nevertheless, small-scale enterprises have retained the holistic, substantive ethos that we normally associate with the organic movement. My observations of small organic farmers in Malta highlight this, but they also open up our understanding of the ways in which organic can be articulated locally. Firstly, the motivations of my farmers turned out to be primarily economic rather than idealistic; not surprising, considering the high market value of organic products. Secondly, they saw and expressed the change as a return to roots, re-establishing a link with their childhood and family histories as well as the history of rurality in general. It was also conceived as a revival of past farming practices and a return to a close relationship with nature, although aspects of the modern and the conventional were still found in their methods. These farmers rejected the dominant, exploitative marketing system in agriculture, known as the Pitkalija, in order to take marketing back into their own hands. This allowed them to work more comfortably, without having to direct all their energies to producing for profit. Indeed, they had limited attitudes to 'growth' and pursued what can be typified as substantive, rather than formal rationality.