First published in 1997. There was a time when pollution was equated with the urban and the industrial. But things have changed. What were previously mutually exclusive categories of "agriculture" and "pollution" have been brought together in a new, morally charged atmosphere. Moralizing the environment is a study of how this shift came about. It examines the emergence of the farm pollution problem in Britain in the 1980s. It draws upon a study of the regulation of farm wastes - cattle slurry, silage effluent and the dirty water from farmyards - conducted between 1989 and 1995. Detailed surveys and ethnographic fieldwork were carried out in the south-west of England among dairy farmers, pollution inspectors, agricultural advisers and environmentalists. In trying to get to grips with farm pollution they were pursuing different notions not only of sound agricultural practice but also of nature, morality and the law. What ultimately was at stake was who could be trusted to safeguard the countryside.
Author(s): Philip Lowe, Judy Clark, Susanne Seymour, Neil Ward
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 236
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Original Title Page
Original Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Moralizing the Environment: Understanding Farm Pollution
Introduction
Methodology: Following Actors, Following Pollution
Methods
Outline of the book
Chapter 2: Changing Dairy Farming and the Pollution Problem
Processes of Change on Dairy Farms
Effluents in the Environment
Conclusions
Chapter 3: Farm Pollution as a Non-issue
Tackling an Emergent Problem
Agricultural Exceptionalism
Farm Pollution Regulation in the 1970s and Early 1980s
Conclusions
Chapter 4: The Politicization of Farm Pollution
Introduction
The Politics of Water Privatization
Farm Pollution Incidents
Defining the Problem
Making Sense of the Data
Local Investigations: The Torridge Report
Challenging Agricultural Exceptionalism
Devising a Solution
A New Regulatory Framework
Conclusions
Chapter 5: The Pollution Inspectors' Accounts of Farm Pollution
Introduction
The Regional Organization of Farm Pollution Control
A Day in the Life of Bob: The Field Culture of a Rural Pollution Inspector
Perceptions of Pollution and Farming
The Regulation of Farm Pollution
The Threat of Prosecution
Conclusions
Chapter 6: The Dairy Farmers' Accounts of Farm Pollution
Introduction
Life on a Dairy Farm
The Environment and the Ethos of Production
Farmers and Farm Pollution
Pollution Control and the Logic of Farm Improvement
Farmers and the NRA
Conclusions
Chapter 7: Pollution Control and Social Networks
Introduction
ADAS, Farmers and Farm Pollution: The Technical Discourse
Local Environmentalists and Farm Pollution: The Moral Discourse
The NRA, Pollution Inspectors and Farm Pollution: Negotiating the Moral Discourse
The Farmers' Networks
Conclusions: Farm Pollution and Patterns of Enrolment
Chapter 8: Conclusions: Constructing Moral Orders
Introduction
Nature, Rurality and Morality
The Moralization of Risk and Regulatory Science
Networks, Enrolment and Identity Creation
Agriculture's Moral Economy
The Farmer and the Field-Level Bureaucrat
Afterword
Bibliography
Index
