'Business as Usual': Contextualising the GM/Organic Conflict within the History of New Zealand Agriculture

Abstract

The article presents a research that focuses on analysis of genetic manipulation as a sociologically challenging technology crisis. While the overt rationale for the agri-food approach is to illuminate the theoretical complexity of some contemporary agri-food concerns (such as genetic manipulation or the rise of organic agriculture), questions have always remained about the uniqueness of some of these "contemporary" phenomena. European settlement in New Zealand began at a critical point in the development of western agricultural systems. New Zealand's apparent agricultural potential was attractive, but tensions around settlement led to British annexation in 1840, with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. New Zealand and its farming future therefore began in the unstable space between two periods of agricultural change. From the start, circumstances in New Zealand forced agricultural development away from the concentrated agrarian settlements that immigration organizers had envisaged.