Seasonality as value(s) in organic farming: On the conflict on heating greenhouses in France

Abstract

This article deals with the notion of season, and illustrates an existing conflict, within organic agriculture, between symbolic and economic values. It takes the case of a polemic on the use of heating systems in greenhouse organic farming for tomato production. It asks and demonstrates how the organizations in and of market frame different seasonalities, either placing respect (symbolic value) for seasonality over economics, or vice versa. It identifies critical junctures that shaped the division in organic agriculture toward differing conception of seasonality, which oscillates between market logics in which its distinctiveness is (de)valued, symbolically and economically diminished or reasserted.

Keywords

Market organizations organic farming seasonality values

Introduction

We readily attribute qualities to the seasons, without necessarily discussing their socially constructed dimension. They are indeed linked to a cyclical phenomenon – the changing inclination of the Earth in relation to the sun – which constrains, in agriculture, the timing of practices, harvesting, and selling. Exceptional, (un)favorable seasonal climatic conditions can lead to abundance or shortage, therefore affecting the balance and prices in markets. Yet, against such constraints, and in order to allow for the continuity and stability of social activities, seasonality has over time been an object of human action to ‘do with, overcome or take advantage’ of its constraints (Bernard de Raymond et al., 2013) through numerous techniques, which have grown in tandem with international trade in the twentieth century (Bernard de Raymond, 2011, 2013; Caquel, 2020).

Seasonality seems now paradoxically (de)valued, symbolically and economically, diminished or reasserted. Together with the industrialization of conventional agriculture – that is, using synthetic chemicals – imposing practices oriented toward value-seeking logics (Prével, 2007, 2008), the evolution of food-preserving techniques, transportation and international distribution means, and seasonal constraints in mainstream food systems have greatly diminished (Bernard de Raymond, 2013). So-called ‘seasonal’ fruits and vegetables from entire, specialized agricultural areas, are now produced, exported – at a dramatic social and environmental cost (Gertel and Sippel, 2014) – and consumed where they are ‘out-of-season’, eventually forming the basis of our daily diets (Régnier et al., 2020: 30–32). The ‘deseasonalization’ of food consumption patterns is such in the so-called developed countries that the impact, distinctiveness, and value of seasonality now seems greatly diminished. However, in the context of climate change, against the effects attributed to the industrialization of agriculture, the evolution of transport and international distribution means, alternative production and consumption logics adorn and promote seasonality (Saisonnalité et contre-saisonnalité pour une alimentation durable, 2019). Local food movements are meant to reconnect producers and consumers with seasons, because producing places experience their own; community-supported agriculture bring them together to contract for the delivery of farm-to-fork, fresh, and seasonal fruits and vegetables (Chiffoleau et al., 2017; Nost, 2014). Together with localism and diversification, seasonality is put forward in the promotion of alternative food systems.

While mutually exclusive, both trends may be objects of content and concern. Although deseasonalization seems relevant for international trade, it can collide with local production and consumption patterns. Suppliers of ‘out-of-season’ products face a growing demand for local, seasonal ones (Lees, 2013). Conflicting parties encounter seasonality differently, and struggle to assert the legitimacy of one or the other trend for (de)seasonalised products. Here, organic farming offers a privileged observation post for these conflicting trends with the (dis)respect to seasonal cycles.

Seasonality as value(s) in the context of organic standardization

The literature on organic farming speaks volumes about the tensions between symbolic and economic values, at stake when it comes to (dis)regarding seasonal cycles (Deléage 2014; Régnier et al. 2019). Drawing from a holistic comprehension of agriculture, organic farming is perceived as originally a ‘value-based agriculture’ (Darnhofer et al., 2010: 73) placing key principles and symbolic values – among which the respect for seasonal cycles – over economics (Besson, 2009; Kristiansen and Merfield, 2006). However, its institutionalization in public labels, while reducing organic farming to minimal definitions facilitating certification measures and standardization (Padel et al., 2007), has globally left aside agroecological and social considerations (Lockie et al., 2006; Padel et al., 2008) – yet recovered through stricter, value-based private standards – loosing ground against new entrants, along profit-seeking logics. Numerous works underline deep, structural changes induced by the arrival of new entrants departing organic core values, most notably addressed under the concept of ‘conventionalization’ or ‘bifurcation’ (Buck et al., 1997; De Wit and Verhoog, 2007; Guthman, 2014) addressing the emergence of large, specialized organic farms gradually getting closer to conventional ones in their search for added value. The question of seasonality crystallizes the standardized evolution of organic agriculture, in which symbolic and economic dimensions clash.

It bears relevance for understanding the standardization(s) of organic farming products. Standards, while taking a diversity of forms, have become an important thread of inquiry in the social sciences, which underline their growing importance in organizing producing and exchanging food (Busch, 2011; Djelic and den Hond, 2013; Timmermans and Epstein, 2010). Encompassing a broad spectrum of dimensions, standards proceed from different logics, result in distinct markets, and embody various norms and forms of uniformity (Busch, 2000). Yet they also create diversity as they multiply. They embed different quality conceptions, which infuse in various value chains (Ponte and Gibbon, 2005). Actors involved actively engage in the process of standardization (Arnold and Loconto, 2021), in different ‘standard spaces’ (Loconto and Demortain, 2017). Organic farming might not be immune to the process of standardization, diversification, and diverging – values involved in – value chains, when it comes to (de)seasonalized products.

Organic farming, while increasingly integrated in global trade, is urged to satisfy contradictory demands for (de)seasonalized products. Growing demand and consumption in Europe and North America, as well as the establishment of frames for global trade with organic products and standardization has coincided with a rise in organic production in the South, long-distance trade, and debates on their impacts challenging organic core values (Rigby and Bown, 2003; Soil Association, 2007). As in conventional agriculture, entire areas in the South have become suppliers of organic product for northern consumers (Hermansen et al., 2013: 51). Imports of foreign-produced, cheaper organic foodstuffs, while granting new earning, can clash with the interests of national producers, facing tougher competition. Hence, while the symbolic importance given to seasons constitutes for some actors a necessary bulwark against the conventionalization of organic farming, it is for others a restriction to be loosened in order to benefit from new market shares. Depending on markets actors belong to, seasons represent a set of opportunities and constraints differently encountered, and faced through various market organizations (Adamiec et al., 2020; Bernard de Raymond, 2013; Bernard de Raymond et al., 2013: 5). Modifying the calendar of production represents one modality out of others.

One might thus find interesting to look at how organizations are structured by seasonal conditions, and structure opposite conceptions of seasonality. This paper proposes to shed light on how (de)seasonalization (dis)organizes agricultural markets. To grasp it more thoroughly, it is conceptually useful to elaborate on the distinction between organizations in and of markets. This conceptual distinction allows to highlight that markets are organized, and provides an analytical tool for understanding how and why standards-based organization of markets affects the meaning of seasonality. While long taken for opposite, organizations and markets share common features that allow for addressing markets as organizations (Ahrne et al., 2015). Seasonal constraints impose their rhythms on economic and social activities, sometimes strongly, during episodes of abundance or shortages. Market organizations in markets (unions, certification bodies, etc.) are formed in response to these constraints, and their members’ interests to regulate the volumes and qualities produced. In competition, they aim at influencing the organization of the market, for example, through standardization, eventually overlapping, and aiming at securing trade (Arnold and Hasse, 2015; Reinecke et al., 2012). While standards-based markets affect the production (volume and qualities) of products, how do standard-based (i.e. organic farming) organization of markets affects the meaning of seasonality is up to questioning. Private standards have developed and diffused worldwide in outstanding number for 70 years (Marx and Wouters, 2014). They emphasize symbolic (mostly environmental) values, of which organizations overlap as well as collaborate. Standards offer different ‘levels’ ‘baseline versus premium standards’ (Reinecke et al., 2012: 801), which can compete. While the literature raises awareness that the standardization of organic farming has imposed a trajectory of Europeanization and then globalization of the sector (Fouilleux and Loconto, 2017), the existence of private organic standards gives rise to conflicts.

The French organic sector, divided between the official organic label (Agriculture Biologique) and private standards (among which BioBreizh, which will be discussed in this article), allows for opposite, conflicting trends regarding the use of heating in greenhouses. It provides an interesting case of struggle between organizations in, and organizations of the market.

Case

Between 2018 and 2019, a polemic agitating farmers and organizations in France, on heated greenhouses in organic agriculture, made the headlines. While not well known, this practice widely used in conventional agriculture has also existed in organic agriculture for many years. In 2017, only 0.2% of organic farms used it (about 50 to 80 ha, producing over 9,500 tons). Subsequently, however, the number of heated greenhouses increased rapidly in a few key regions: Brittany counted 14 farms with greenhouses covering 13 ha, 5 in the planning stage; Pays de la Loire 4 farms on 11 ha, 19 under construction and 22 for which a permit had been delivered; the South of France 33 ha, potentially raising production to 15,000 tons by 2021–2022 (Laske, 2019). Nothing formally prohibited it in the European regulation on organic farming,¹ which was left open to Member States’ interpretation.² The French ‘reading guide’-of EU regulations modalities of application – of the National Committee for Organic Agriculture (CNAB) plainly established that ‘heating greenhouses [was] possible’ (INAO, 2014: 60). This interpretation, giving way to new facilities, was placed at the center of a conflict on the values of organic agriculture.

A set of regional and national organizations considered this interpretation (in)compatible with the values of organic agriculture, among which the respect of seasonality. In June 2018, Brittany’s Regional Federation of Agrobiologists (Fédération Régionale des Agrobiologistes de Bretagne, FRAB) alerted the National Federation of Organic Agriculture (Fédération Nationale de l’Agriculture Biologique, FNAB), the national bridgehead of specialized unionism in organic farming and ‘the first interlocutor of public authorities’ on the matter (Leroux, 2015: 63). It called the CNAB for banning heating in greenhouse used for extending the production and consumption schedule.³ Indeed, increasing the temperature allows higher yields, harvesting earlier and longer during the year (Dalrymple, 1973). For the FNAB, which had drafted in 2016 a ‘Charter of values of organic producers’ for members’ network, heating greenhouses would intensify, and depart organic farming from natural conditions, while making use of extra energy resources, which would contravene with European regulations, and organic farming values recognized internationally,⁴ imposing the ‘respect of natural cycles’ and a ‘responsible use of energy’. In reaction, actors against them gathered around the National Federation of Seed Growers and Farmers (Fédération Nationale des Semenciers et Exploitants Agricoles, FNSEA) – ‘a [generalist] employers’ union that has conquered the space of representation of agricultural interests in France’ (Chupin and Mayance, 2013: 78), heating greenhouses made an appropriate use of energy resources allowing responding to a growing demand for out-of-season products, and valorizing French products, rather than imported ones. Ultimately, the conflict focused on seasonality – which liminally refers to ‘the rhythm imposed by the climate on plant growth’ (Bernard de Raymond et al., 2013: 5) – which became the touchstone of the confrontation.

Both opposed on the issue of seasonality and its (un)changeability. The opponents to heating argued its use would modify seasonality – of which respect is central to organic farming – and would thus devaluate the label. Their adversaries, in favor of heating, defended the necessity to adapt seasonality to consumers’ demand for early products, which would add value to the French’s rather than foreign imports. Each party engaged in (de)legitimizing heating, and obtaining a revision of the ‘reading guide’ most (un)favorable to it. This confrontation between different organizations underlines the differing values and valuation logics that organic agriculture faces.

Field and data

The Brittany region constitutes a field of interest. While it ranks as the first region in France in terms of vegetable growing area under organic farming – about 10% of the French organic farmers with 21,500 ha and 851 farms in 1999, most of them in Finistère (IBB, 2016: 4) – the two main producer organizations in the organic market in France, Cérafel and APFLBB-BioBreizh, which belonged to the aforementioned Federations in conflict, were the biggest producers of organic vegetables produced in France. The specificities of vegetables are usually left out of rural and food sociology, structured around productions subject to major regulatory arrangements (cereals, wine, meat, milk, etc.) (Bernard de Raymond et al., 2013: 3–4).

Another point of interest in Brittany concerns the product around which the conflict took place: tomato. It makes an interesting case to better understand the construction of the value of seasonality in the context of (organic) standardization efforts. While Brittany is the French leading region in conventional agriculture for conventional greenhouse tomato production – which is facing difficulties – it ranks second in organic greenhouse production – which is reversely booming. As of the 1960s, decolonization deprived French consumers of out-of-season products from North Africa. In France, greenhouses allowed extending the production period, and offered buyers products ahead of the season. Yet, as the competition with the former colonies and others became tougher, so did the need for more rewarding investments. The introduction of fossil fuels, and the control of environmental factors⁵ provided with unprecedented yields, and toll the knell of cold shelters (DRAAF 2014, 4). The high investments they required encouraged year-round production of high-value crops, notably tomato, now a globalized raw material (Malet 2018). Low energy prices in the 1980s galvanized their development, and returns on investments. However, since the 2000s, the spread of year-round production techniques, crowding the market, and the rising cost of energy, have led to a decrease in profits despite significant cutting-cost innovations – which led to suppress fungicides and pesticides, replaced by biological pest control. While profitable niches became increasingly rare, conversion to organic farming offered, for some, promising prospects for new outlets. Indeed, organic tomato production satisfies only 8% of the French demand (FranceAgriMer, 2010: 2–3), and higher prices. As in conventional greenhouses – but to a lesser extent – organic farming allows for a maximum increase in yield and productivity, ‘secure harvests, ensure better control of sanitary risks, extend production calendars’.⁶ However heating was authorized for this, it was mostly regarded ‘as a sign of a denial of the founding principles of organic farming’, which some equated with conventional agriculture (Samak, 2013: 102–107).

So as to understand how organizations are structured by seasonal conditions, and structure opposite conceptions of seasonality, we first have had recourse to professional documents, press articles, and then 25 semi-direct interviews. In terms of primary printed resources, apart from scholar literature, professional magazines included: Trajectoire Serriste (from April 2007 to 2019), specialized in greenhouse agriculture; Biofil (from January 2000 to 2019), which targets professionals, producers and organic farmers; Aujourd’hui & Demain (from 1983 to 2019), dedicated to the agricultural technical trials of the Cérafel. Press articles include the paper press (large daily newspapers) as well as the press on the Internet. They document chronologically the debates – toward seasonality, value-based and profit-seeking logics defended by differing, conflicting organizations in and of markets – which have arised along organic agriculture unprecedented growth and standardization over recent years. They thus help giving substance to the knowledge of sectoral, contentious regulations – as they allow, yet also limit actors’ activities. This empirical material helped establishing an initial overview of institutions, and organizations involved, while narrowing the focus of questions on them. It was hence completed with in-depth targeted interviews, which constituted heuristic sources, shedding light on blind spots, that neither regulatory texts nor printed material enlightened. In Paris, Brittany and Finistère, where the majority of the production of tomatoes under heated greenhouses (conventional and organic) existed, 25 semi-direct interviews were conducted with institutions’ and organizations’ members implied in the conflict: the Ministry of Agriculture; proponents to heating (the FNSEA, and the Assemblée Permanente des Chambres d’Agriculture, made up of the Presidents of the departmental and regional chambers of agriculture; Interfel, a national association gathering the professional organizations of the production and distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables; and locally the Cérafel); their opponents (the FNAB in Paris, the Fédération des agriculteurs biologiques de Bretagne, gathering and representing Brittany’s organic farmers; and the Groupement d’agriculture biologique du Finistère, regrouping those from the department of Finistère), along greenhouse growers. Mobilizing and crossing these data sources allowed accounting for seasonality as value(s) in organic farming.

The article is organized in two sections. The power relations observed during the conflict over greenhouse heating are inseparable from an historical background, which will appear in a first section. In the face of seasonal hazards, the construction of fruit and vegetable markets (where values and valuation methods differ) and sectors has historically bifurcated in two ways. The second section will be dedicated to display how these market organizations and valuations logics gave rise to different perceptions of seasonality in greenhouse organic farming, taking the case of two farmers using, or refusing the use of heating systems, placing either economic over symbolic value, or vice versa.

Against the effects of seasonal hazards, different market organizations

In Finistère, organic farming historically divided into two sets of market organization aiming at mitigating seasonal hazards negative effects. They gave rise to two market valuation logics: the auction market, and planning. Around them were structured distinct trade channels, one 100% organic and mostly national, the other mixed (conventional and organic), mostly internationalized.

The auction market: An organization of the market partially adopted by organic farmers

After the Second World war, climatic hazards precipitated the reorganization of Brittany’s vegetable production market, in which Finistère specialized. Seasonal, speculative, they used to cover a narrow coastal strip, served by the Gulf stream and the marine silty amendments, producing early vegetables at high prices. After the Liberation, mechanization and synthetic chemistry brought the expansion and yields inland. But then, ‘the vagaries of the weather c[a]me [. . .] to transform into crisis what, usually, [was] only a tension’ (Mallet, 1962: 130). Faced with an obsolete market organization (Élégoët, 1984: 51–88), conflicts and demands for price control, by concentrating supply and assuming the financial burden of surpluses, led a new generation of cooperative unionists to implement them (Lynch, 2019: 231–261). The Société d’Intérêt Collectif Agricole (SICA) of Saint-Pol-de-Léon was created in 1961, established criteria (sorting, grading, weighing) and centralized supply and demand via a technology that was supposed to ensure a fair price at any time during the seasonal cycle, and in case of unforeseen climate events (Brisse et al., 2011: 9): the auction market (marché au cadran). It allowed ‘transactions to be carried out thanks to the immediate information of buyers on the value of the bids by display on an electronic panel’ (Garcia, 1986: 2). Three producers’ organizations from the surrounding departments adopted it, and together with the SICA, formed the Comité économique régional fruits et légumes (Cérafel) in 1964, which coordinated and regulated – through a loss-sharing system – the regional market of fresh fruits and vegetables. Its products were marketed in 1970 under the brand Prince de Bretagne, through a network of shippers in long circuit or export. But in the 1980s and 1990s, Cérafel’s market organization led to dissension among organic farmers.

A conflict emerged between organic farmers in favor of autonomy, and others willing to cohabit with conventional farmers, through their auction market. The organic-conventional mix, seen as an obstacle or a springboard for the development of organic farming, divided it.⁷ Critics targeted the loss-sharing system at Cérafel for encouraging large conventional producers to be overproductive, which was paid for by organic farmers, suffering more from seasonal hazardous because they were prevented from using chemical pesticides and fungicides. Lacking a structured supply chain, their little diversified production – often cruciferous crops, artichokes, agronomically adapted to the region – was sold outside the auction market, often not at their advantage (Esnoul, 2017: 20–21). As they felt that the Cérafel neglected their specificities and unduly deducted contributions from them, they stopped paying them as of 1986⁸ (Dondeyne, 2013: 73), while establishing relationships with organic wholesalers (such as Maraichers bretons, or Poder). Others in Cérafel, benefiting subsequently from its shipping facilities for their productions, hoping for economies of scales through its logistics, stayed in it.

Protesters decided to ‘distance themselves from conventional agriculture’ (Hecquet, 2019: 170), and build their own, autonomous markets organizations. They finally left in 1997 and joined the Association des producteurs de fruits et légumes biologiques de Bretagne (APFLBB), which structured itself around another market organization, uniting around a ‘non-productive production model’ (BioBreizh, 2020: 3), dedicated to ensuring stable prices for both farmers and customers alike throughout the seasonal cycles: planning. Producers and shippers decide together, one year before delivery, the planting schedule with the previous year’s demand as a reference. The control of volumes made it possible to anticipate, smooth out prices, dispense of unsold products, and of a loss-sharing system (Esnoul, 2017: 44–45).

In reaction to this defection, and opposing market organization, the Cérafel created an ‘organic commission’ in 1998 in order organize its remaining organic farmers, and converted part of its experimental stations to organic farming. It thus added organic farming to its economic strategy, without opposing it to conventional agriculture. Agrobiology was then divided into two fringes, one (mixed) cohabiting with conventional agriculture, the other independent from it through the APFLBB, giving way to the development of distinct vegetable sectors. What started out as a disagreement over membership fees, turned into a division on the relationship toward conventional agriculture.

Divergent paths: long-distance deseasonalised VS short distance seasonalised trade channels in organic farming

Though agrobiologists pursued the same objective of improving organic agriculture credibility, productivity and profitability, they took different, incompatible ways. Cérafel’s mixing caused a new dispute. In order to overcome the vagaries of weather, improve productivity, profitability, ranges, and production schedules, the Cérafel transferred to its organic farmers a biotechnology used in conventional agriculture,⁹ under the conditions of the European specifications. The APFLBB denounced it as a discredit with organic agriculture values, however, officially authorized (Dondeyne, 2013: 68–73), and set apart through its own, restrictive specifications¹⁰ in 2000, and a private standard, BioBreizh, in 2002. In particular, it stated its attachment to the seasonality of productions; and prohibited the use of heating and fertigation to its members. APFLBB-BioBreizh worked ‘on structuring a totally organic sector with partners sharing the same values’.¹¹ It was in tune with Biocoop’s, and organic specialized wholesalers’ demand for superior guarantees – in particular in Germany (Bioland, Naturland) – for which doors closed to the Cérafel-Prince de Bretagne. This differentiation contributed to the segmentation of the market through its outlets.

Both cases bore advantages to attract new members and grow. On the one hand, belonging to the Cérafel-Prince de Bretagne allowed negotiation with processors and influencing marketing channels. On the other, the APFLBB-BioBreizh, recognized as an independent producer organization in 1998, complied with the requirements of some demanding distributors. There was specialized distribution of APFLBB-BioBreizh products mainly in France through specialized local retail stores, which were dominant in the early 2000s – contrarily to large-scale distribution stores – while Cérafel-Prince de Bretagne sold its products through large-scale distribution stores, and exported most. Each group aimed at attracting conventional farmers to organic agriculture differently. The Cérafel stimulated consumers’ demand by lowering costs, ‘through better market organization: to massify, group the offer and take advantage of the logistics of conventional farming structures’.¹² Through its auction market transited fruits and vegetables, then packaged and sent to shippers, whose ‘buyers [were] mostly wholesalers [. . .], and many [. . .] [went] to export, ‘the most buoyant market’’,¹³ where Prince de Bretagne had been established with conventional farming products. Organic producers were heavily dependent on the logistics of Cérafel and its conventional shippers, who gradually diversified their offer with organic agriculture, as Prince de Bretagne asserted the strategy of ‘complementarity’ between the product ranges.¹⁴

This division of organic farming in terms of economic market organization led to another one in terms of collective advocacy organizations. While BioBreizh members turned away from mixed (economic and collective) organizations, Prince de Bretagne’s relied on them. The creation of organic sections within mixed cooperative members of Cérafel, and intervention tools for them, exempted them from affiliation to the traditional organic network (the FRAB at the regional level, the FNAB nationally), of which doors were closed to Prince de Bretagne producers, and oppositely opened to Biobreizh producers. This rift between organizations, networks, and outlets in Britanny’s organic agriculture, lead to two different forms of greenhouses, by their outlets and articulation between values and value toward seasonality.

(Ref)using heating systems: Varying values and value according to different market organizations

While different market organizations were being set up to stabilize them against climatic hazards, different greenhouse trends developed, against economic hazards. The earlier division within organic agriculture between different valuation logics led to conventional and organic producers to come together, and gave credit to heating in greenhouses, while also giving way to two different types of organic greenhouse agriculture, differing in their perception of seasonality.

Using heating systems in organic greenhouses, a position structured by market auction

Market organizations condition valuations and perceptions of seasonality. In a (de)seasonalized and (inter)national sector, the ‘season’ receives its (symbolic and economic) value in a relationship to a market organization whose prices, differently established, refer to different economic logics. In the case of Prince de Bretagne, the establishment of prices at the auction market best compensates producers for the first and last products to come to the market. Their inclusion in long international export chains confronts them with competition from countries in the South that are more capable of producing over a long period of time during the year. In this context, heating equipment, to extend the production season and remain competitive, has since the 1980s been considered the best option. More recently, the growing demand for organic tomatoes has attracted greenhouse growers. Organic greenhouse farming borrows the market organization and logistics that Cérafel has for conventional greenhouse farming. Greenhouses are more frequently made of glass than plastic, which improves earliness and final productivity. Among organic greenhouse growers – some of whom come from the converted conventional heated greenhouse – increasingly exposed to foreign competition at the beginning and end of the season, heating may appear to be a logical recourse for their business to remain competitive.

This is how Thomas Quillévéré, a member of Cérafel-Prince de Bretagne, and former conventional farmer, converted to organic farming in 2015, runs his farm. He owns 24 ha of open field vegetables, two heated greenhouses (1 ha of glasshouse, 1.5 ha of plastic multi-hood greenhouse), in which he alternates tomato and cucumber. The infrastructure initially housed conventional soil-less tomatoes. Glass greenhouses, drier in the morning and less prone to condensation than plastic tunnels, are more frequent and larger – yet more expensive – among Prince de Bretagne greenhouse producers:

I sell all my production through the Sica Saint-Pol-de-Léon’. Prices are defined on the clock and in real time on the basis of sliding scale auctions. ‘That’s why earliness, late season production and volumes are the main remunerative factors, ensuring our profitability’.¹⁵

Everything is done to increase and spread out the production as much as possible during the year – the produce is sold at the auction market – in order to make the most of the structure and the investments. Thomas Quillévéré chose a single variety (Codino), recommended by Terre d’Essais, with a high density of 2.5 plants per m². His harvest starts on 20 April, and lasts until the end of October or the beginning of November. For this, he uses propane heating – for a few hours for dehumidification, to prevent condensation, a vector of mildew – with hot water pipes. Auxiliaries against pests are introduced earlier than in plastic tunnels. Such greenhouse management contrasts with that of BioBreizh.

Refusing heating systems in organic greenhouses, a position structured by planning

Reversely, BioBreizh’s inclusion in regional, and national value-chains has confronted its members with different greenhouse management, and perception of seasonality. Bio Breizh’s constitutive refusal of heating greenhouse, and commitment to ‘respect of seasonality’ that appears in its specifications together with contractual sales (planification) has prevented a frontal, cut-throat price competition vicious circle with others regions. As winter ends and spring begins, the different cold-shelter greenhouse producing regions of France come onto the markets progressively, preventing a production peak at the beginning and end of the seasonal cycle – what is feared from heating greenhouses:

The law of the market, yes it is something that producers worry about. [. . .] Because the sector is organized, there is a price, not guaranteed, but normally we know more or less where we are going from one year to another. [. . .] In the spring, while the South has produced their first tomatoes, they bring them up to us, this is very good. And then in August, when we have other peaks in tomato production, because we produce much later than them, it’s normal, between Finistère and Provence, there is a six to eight week gap in tomato production under cold shelters [. . .] it’s no big deal anyway, because they always deal with the same problems, generally in August [. . . They have production lows because it hasn’t been so hot, they have had flower losses and therefore production losses. So we come to take over, it suits everyone: producers in the South live from their production, we live well from ours, the two productions take over from each other, it’s a chain that is rather well built, let’s try to keep it like that.¹⁶

Luc Calvez, member and president of BioBreizh, offers an example of how a cold-shelter greenhouse is run. He has equipped his 0.93 ha farm with plastic simple tunnel greenhouses, which spread over 4400 m². His crops under cold, unheated shelters, have about 15 species and many varieties, including about 30 tomatoes, with a lesser density to Quillévéré’s, of 1.5 to 1.8 plants per m². Population seeds are selected at the farm, and planted between 15 March and the end of April. Harvests take place from the end of May or the beginning of June, until the end of October or the beginning of November:

I sell my production through the BioBreizh producers’ organization [. . .]. Our specifications are demanding’ They explicitly refuses vegetables from heated greenhouses [. . .] The organization makes it a criterion of added value or at least of differentiation “beyond organic”. A communication work on the producers’ trays is carried out to emphasize the value of the taste and the diversity of varieties. We have a surplus value of 0.20 € per kilo for the farmers’ varieties to compensate for the lower yields. 60 to 70% of the structure’s sales are contracted in advance, with Biocoop and supermarkets, the rest depends on the market. The cooperative manages to maintain remunerative prices for its members.¹⁷

These two examples of greenhouse agriculture capture the link between different technological materials and market organizations. As Legun (2015) demonstrates, agricultural landscapes are ‘customised’ according to their outlets. Here, production conditions in greenhouses – among which, (ref)using heating systems – are intertwined with different organizations in and of the market. On the one hand is a member of the Cérafel-Prince de Bretagne specialized in a single strain of tomato. He cultivates it in (one costly glass) heated greenhouse for increasing density, yields, and profitability of its production, valorized earlier through the organization’s auction market. On the other is a member of the APFLBB-BioBreizh growing a higher variety of tomatoes, accordingly to his organization’s requirements. He cultivates them in cheaper plastic greenhouses, with lesser density, yields, yet commercially valorized through diversification and planning. Each greenhouse ‘landscape’ is fit to its market organizations, which structure opposite concepts of seasonality: extending it with heating systems is relevant on a demand-driven auction market, which rewards first movers; restraining it, and the use of heating systems, makes sense on a planned market, which rewards controlled, restrained production growth. In both cases, the technologies greenhouse growers use and the market to which they belong condition their (extensive or restrictive) perception of seasonality.

Conclusion

Taking into consideration the conflict on the use of heating systems in organic greenhouses has allowed to tackle the paradoxical symbolic and economic (de)valuation attached to seasonality. While production and consumption of out-of-season products aligns with current market-driven logic, both greenhouse producers and consumers find new meaning in seasonality, which is associated with symbolic values.

This article has provided an example of how organizations in and of markets encounter seasonality differently, in a quickly developing organic agriculture subsector, where different forms of standardization take place. Its attractiveness fuels both profit-seeking logics and value-based private standards, triggering differentiation between organizations in and of the markets. The former are not defined by their nature, but by their role: they compete to ensure stable transactions for their members, confronted with seasonal variations. Seasonal hazards come into play in the way farmers come together in collective organizations, which delineate ways to cope with uncertainty, and stabilize their transactions. The organizations of markets might differ in their modes of coordination – such as confronting sellers and buyers at the time of the transaction to award it a price (auction market); or sealing a contract around a prior agreement on the price of the transaction (planning).

In Finistère, organic vegetable production has historically been divided into two sets of organization in and of the market aiming at mitigating climatic, seasonal negative effects, and ensure the stability of transactions. While a part of organic farmers organized and endorsed selling through the auction market (marché au cadran) – an organization initially set for attenuating the effects of the climate on conventional farming – another contested it for leading to overproduction to their detriment. They regrouped and promoted another, ‘non-productive’ market organization, planning (planification), dedicated to ensuring stable prices throughout the seasonal cycles. Around both trends, distinct channels structured: one mixed in cooperatives (in conventional and organic agriculture), and another 100% organic. This led to a complex situation, in which organic farmers structured whether dependently from conventional agriculture long-chain, ‘out-of-season’ trading channels, whether independently, with different, mostly national ‘seasonal’ outlets.

While differently influenced by seasonal hazards, market organizations reversely shape different conceptions of seasonality, and come into play in the (de)legitimization of a technology – heating – in greenhouse agriculture. In the case of Finistère, the initial bifurcation of organic agriculture has given rise to distinct developments in greenhouses. On the one hand, organic farming members of the Cérafel-Prince de Bretagne, selling at auction prices and included in long international export chains, have been confronted with competition from southern countries capable of producing over a longer period of time. This has encouraged extending the period of production with heating systems, in order to be more competitive. On the other, organic farmers belonging to APFLBB-BioBreizh, selling through planning, have been facing regional and national value-chains and competitors gradually supplying from the shelves. This has prevented them from a frontal, cut-throat economic competition, deterring any idea of extending periods of production.

This evolution makes it possible to address the implication of standards in the (de)seasonalization of greenhouse agriculture, taking the example of two growers. Each of them respects a production framework – the national organic label for the member of Cérafel-Prince de Bretagne; a private standard for the one belonging to APLFLBB-BioBreizhg. Both give rise to different forms of standardization in their cultivation practices and greenhouse management, both adapted to the (de)seasonalization). Their standardization reflects different conceptions of seasonality, as a notion to extend or not.

The organization of markets proceed along (de)seasonalized patterns with important implications. Historically based on colonization, then on the survival of post-colonial links between the South and the North, deseasonalization has implied multiple processes of disembedding: the lifting out of social, economic, and political relationships from local context of interaction to global value-chains, together with a huge carbon print (Gertel and Sippel, 2014). The institutionalization of organic agriculture has also led to a standardization allowing for the aforementionned evolution. Entire southern regions have specialized in out-of-season tropical products to satisfy northern consumers (Hermansen et al., 2013: 51), reproducing in new forms relationships of subjection. While private organic standards sometime lay down specifications aiming at re-embedding social, economic, and political relationships in local contexts, whether or not the relocalization, and reseasonalization of food might initiate the decolonization of agriculture is up to questioning.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been funded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS), Belgium. I thank the reviewers of the journal International Sociology for their comments and advice.

ORCID iD

Romain Blancaneaux

Notes

Author biography

Romain Blancaneaux, PhD in Political Science, works on the governance of economic and collective action in agriculture. In Japan, he seeks to understand how the ‘seasonality’ of food is concretely shaped by human activities along ‘natural’ cyclical phenomenons, orchestrating the pace of production, consumption, and market exchanges. His fields consist in two areas producing Geographical indication tomatoes and green peppers, under greenhouses.

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