Modern agricultural systems produce historically unprecedented quantities of food. But a flurry of research in the last decade has begun to point to the destructive side effects of such practices. Recent critiques of fossil fuel intensive agricultural practices point to such environmental impacts as water pollution, soil erosion, and soil loss. Research suggests that the annual world wide environmental impact of these practices causes up to 100 billion dollars of environmental damage (Pimentel, 1993) and approximately three million instances of human pesticide poisoning. Activists and entrepreneurs have challenged multiple dimensions of the broader food system and have successfully created a number of more environmentally friendly market niches. In this symposium, four studies examine different attempts by collective actors to create new institutional logics, network linkages and interdependencies and institutional infrastructure necessary to support more environmentally benign approaches to agriculture. These studies pay particular attention the various change tactics used and their relative effectiveness.

Agenda/Outline:

Field Work: The Construction of an Insurgent Institutional Logic in Alternative Agriculture
Presenter: Kathryn Heinze; Northwestern U.;
Presenter: Klaus Weber; Northwestern U.;

Routes to Roots: The Role of Tradition in the Production of Sustainable Practices
Presenter: Tina Dacin; Queen's U.;
Presenter: Rasha Nasra; Queen's U.;
Presenter: Melissa Leithwood; Queen's U.;

Crescive Standardization and Its Impact in the U.S. Organic Food Industry
Presenter: Brandon H. Lee; London Business School;
Presenter: Wesley Sine; Cornell U.;
Presenter: Pamela S. Tolbert; Cornell U.;

Paradise Sold: Resource Partitioning, Identity, and Strategy in the Organic Farming Industry
Presenter: Jo-Ellen Pozner; U. of California, Berkeley;
Presenter: Kate Sikavica; U. of Munich;