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national or local conditions into consideration and which aim to simplify the management of the CAP.
Finally, organic farming is - both before and after the late 1990s -
institutionalised as a solution to consumer demands for the protection of the environment and as contributing to the objectives of the CAP to protect the environment and maintain the countryside. However, after the late 1990s, it was also acceptable within the CAP to refer to organic farming as a solution to problems related to food safety, the diversity of food products, food quality and animal welfare. In general, whereas the CAP, prior to the late 1990s, was exclusively made up of a number of commodity regimes or market organisations, after the late 1990s a policy field concern with organic farming had been institutionalised within the auspices of the CAP.
A Discursive Institutional Conceptualisation of
The Common Agricultural Policy and Organic Farming: An Institutional 191 Perspective on Continuity and Change
late 1990s, institutional changes related the institutionalisation of a policy field concerned with organic farming within the CAP was conditioned by alternative ideas made available - among others - by people involved in alternative agriculture and subsequently - after their translation within the CAP - among groupings within the EP.
Widespread conceptions of the existence of a crisis seem to have been conducive to certain institutional changes within the CAP. In the first half of the 1980s, institutional changes relating to the institutionalisation of environmental problems and solutions within the CAP appeared against the background of widespread concerns with the still present energy crisis and economic recession.
Such concerns could be found within the DG for Agriculture, the Commission, the EP Committee on Regional Policy, the EP at large, the Council, and among people involved in alternative agriculture. In the second half of the 1990s, institutional changes relating to institutionalisation of food safety, food quality and animal welfare concerns as well as the institutionalisation of a policy field concerned with organic farming within the CAP appeared against the background of widespread concerns regarding the BSE crisis. Such concerns could be found among individual MEPs, within the EP Committee on Agriculture, the EP Committee on the Environment, the EP at large, the Commission, the UK, Germany and within the Council.
At various points in time, processes of translation, conflicts over meaning and policy entrepreneurship appear to have given momentum to institutional changes within the CAP. Processes of translation appear to have given momentum to change both in the 1970s within the emerging EC environmental policy and in the early 1980s within the CAP. In the 1970s, the translation of the world problematique within the emerging EC environmental policy gave momentum to the articulation and institutionalisation of the conception that agricultural production is the source of certain environmental problems. The process of translation is selective in the sense that the solutions contained in the conception of a global equilibrium did not become adopted within emerging EC environmental policy. Likewise, the process of translation is selective in the sense that the conception that technological progress is not containing viable long-term solutions, did not, in fact, displace the conception that solutions to problems of environmental depletion should be pursued by means of technological innovations within the emerging EC environmental policy.
Moreover, in the early 1980s, a process of translation gave momentum to the articulation and institutionalisation of environmental problems and solutions within the CAP. The process of translation is selective in the sense that the articulation and institutionalisation of the conception that the modernisation of agriculture is a source of environmental depletion is selected from the emerging EC environmental policy. Likewise, the process of translation is selective in the sense that the conception that technological progress is the source rather than the solution to current environmental problems is selected from among people involved in alternative agriculture (whom, in turn, draw on the conception of the
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existence of a world problemtique and a global equilibrium). The translation of the conception that technological progress is the source rather than the solution to current environmental problems within the CAP may also seen as contributing to the displacement of the conception that technology is a 'fact of life' to which the CAE' must adapt. However, it should be noted that technological progress is, even in the late 1960s, being articulated as the source of certain problems within the CAP. It is, hence, perhaps more accurate to claim that the process of translation in the early 1980s contributed to the enforcement of an already existing conception within the CAE' holding that technological progress is a source of problems in agriculture. Finally, the process of translation within the CAP in the early 1980s does not dislocate the cognitively instituted problems related to surplus production and budget pressures but, rather, the normatively instituted problems relating to environmental depletion was institutionalised alongside existing concerns within the CAP.
Conflicts over meaning gave momentum to change in the second half of the 1980s and during the period from 1993 to 2005. The institutionalisation of normatively instituted problems alongside cognitively instituted problems within the CAP by 1985 in essence provided the basis for a number of subsequent conflicts over meaning. Such conflicts over meaning evolve around the sources of the normatively instituted problems, their solutions, and the priority to be given to cognitively and normatively instituted problems. In the second half of the 1980s, normatively instituted problems related to, for instance, environmental depletion and rural exodus are conceived by some as caused by intensive agriculture, which in turn is seen to be caused by technological progress, urbanisation, and industrial developmentst. Others regard the operational principles of the CAE' - including the pursuit of market unity, a preference for Community production and financial solidarity among Member States - as the basic sources of normatively instituted problems within the CAP.
Again others, question the link between modern agricultural production methods and environmental depletion as well as the scope of possible environmental depletion in this regard. Some question the availability of Community solutions to the possible problems that relate to environmental depletion and the beneficial effects of a restrictive price policy. However, to varying degrees, the solutions most often envisaged to resolve problems within the CAP - in the second half of the 1980s - are seen as a restrictive price policy, direct aid to farmers and a CAP in support of extensive farming and environmental protection.
In summary, in the second half of the 1980s there existed a high degree of fit as to the problems that it was considered the CAE' ought to deal with, although the priority to be given to normatively and cognitively instituted problems varied. Moreover, some degree of fit can also be seen to exist as to the solutions to apply, although the priority to be given to the support of an extensification of agricultural production and environmental concerns varied. On the other hand, however, conflicts appear over the sources of current problems in the second part of the 1980s. Such conflicts seemed to be tapering away in the early 1990s
The Common Agricultural Policy and Organic Farming: An Institutional 193 Perspective on Continuity and Change
as the cognitive and normative instituted problems mutated. The cognitively and normatively instituted problems mutate in the sense that intensive farming is articulated and institutionalised as the source of both problems relating to surplus production and environmental depletion in the early 1990s.
The conflicts over meaning, identified by the current study during the period from 1993 to 2005, also appear to have given momentum to the formation of a policy field concerned with organic farming within the CAP. First, conflicts appear over the boundaries as to what distinguishes organic farming from other concerns within the CAP, including: whether or not biotechnology is compatible with organic production, whether or not organic produce represents a superior food quality and, whether or not the regulation of the organic farming sector has health objectives. Conflicts also appear over the degree to which organic farming is distinguishable from integrated farming and conventional agricultural production, which is subject to increasingly strict environmental standards, as well as appearing over the potential scope of organic farming vis-a-vis the total agricultural sector. Second, conflicts appear over the boundaries for the type of processes that should guide a policy field concerned with organic farming.
Areas of potential disagreement that invoke conflict include whether or not formal decision-making should proceed according to the consultation or co- decision procedure, whether or not organised organic farming interests should be increasingly involved in decision-making, and over determining the type of relationship between EU, national and international regulation of organic farming. Third, conflicts appear over the boundaries as to which agents should be included and excluded from a policy field concern with organic farming and, in this regard, the prominence of the EP and organised organic farming interests within this field. Finally, although conflicts appear along the lines of the above, there also exists a high degree of fit on the conception that solutions to problems and conflicts in organic farming should be pursued within the new or changed CAP.
Policy entrepreneurship appears to have given momentum to change in concepts and conceptions linking organic farming to the CAP at various points in time since the late 1970s. First, in the late 1970slearly 1980s, those involved in alternative agriculture, individual MEPs and, in particular, the EP Committee on Regional Policy was translators of a number of concepts and conceptions, which are not institutionalised within the CAP, but which gives momentum to the formation of what resembles a linguistic field linking organic farming to the CAP. These conceptions include organic farming as a potential object for community regulation and the articulation of links between, on the one hand, organic farming and, on the other hand, problems within the CAP, food quality issues, and consumer demands. Second, an individual MEP, the EEB and, in particular, the EP Committee on Regional Policy enable the articulation of links between organic farming and the CAP through their contributions to the establishment of a number of forums for communication. Finally, although various carriers draw on the conceptions outlined above none of these
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conceptions are authorised and, hence, institutionalised. Most notably, the Commission is a non-carrier of the conception that organic farming should be an object for Community regulation and both the Commission and the Agriculture Council called for further research into the possible benefits of organic farming.
When looking at the late 1980slearly 1990s, the EP Committee on Agriculture and, particularly, individual MEPs, and the EP Committee on the Environment was translators of a number of concepts and conceptions, which gives momentum to the institutionalisation of organic farming within the CAP.
These conceptions include organic farming as a sector for Community regulation, as a solution to problems within the CAP, as in demand among consumers, and as contributing to the CAP objectives of protecting the environment and maintaining the countryside. Individual MEPs and, in particular, the EP Committee on the Environment, enable the production of meaning - and conflicts over meaning on links between organic farming and the CAE' - through their contributions to the establishment of a number of forums for communication. Finally, as carriers the EP, the EP Committee on Agriculture, the Commission, the DG for Agriculture, the DG for the Environment, the Council for Agriculture and a number of Member States have all contributed to the institutionalisation of the conceptions linking organic farming to the CAE' as outlined above.
From around the mid-1990s, the EP Committee on the Environment, and (much more particularly so) the DG for Agriculture, was translators of a number of concepts and conceptions, which gives momentum to the formation of a policy field concerned with organic farming within the CAE'. The EP Committee on the Environment contributed to the translation of the conception that organic farming is not compatible with biotechnology. More notably, however, the DG for Agriculture contributed to the translation of the conceptions that organic farming is faced by a number of problems, that the CAE' is the forum where such problems should be resolved, that organic farming contributes to the fulfilment of CAP objectives related to rural development, and that organic farming is a high quality food production method. Following on, Austria, Denmark, the DG for the Environment and, in particular, the DG for Agriculture enabled the production of meaning on, and conflicts over the boundaries of, a policy field concerned with organic farming within the CAP through their contributions to the establishment of a number of forums for communication. Finally, as carriers the EP, the EP Committee on Agriculture, the EP Committee on the Environment, MEPs, the Commission, the Agriculture Commissioner, the Environment Commissioner, a wide range of Member States, the Agriculture Council, IFOAM, COPA and other organised interests to varying degrees, all contributed to the formation of a policy field concerned with organic farming within the auspices of the CAP.
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