Becoming Organic

Becoming Organic traces the social and bureaucratic life of organic quality, yielding fresh understandings of the meaning and practice of organic and sustainable agriculture. Decentering perspectives on organic farming that rely on the specific historical experiences of Europe and North America, the book examines how certified organic farming is introduced in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in northern India. Organic quality, the book argues, is best understood less as a material property of land or its produce than as something that is diffusely produced; it takes shape across discursive, regulatory, and affective registers, through practices that encompass producing compost as well as certification records; inspecting fields, grains, and documents; and reimagining relationships between the state, market, and agricultural producers on a rural frontier. This conceptually innovative and methodologically original ethnographic study shows how the development of organic agriculture in Uttarakhand is historically and regionally situated in broader and enduring relations between nature and agriculture that have been shaped by layered histories of colonialism, postcolonial development, and neoliberal reform. It reveals how, during a time of great political change and economic liberalization, development practice unfolds in rural India through complex relations forged among state authorities, private corporations, and new agrarian intermediaries.