Neoliberalism and natural resource management: Agri-environmental standards and the governing of farming practices

Abstract

Private standards and certification schemes are widely acknowledged as playing an increasingly important role in agri-environmental governance. While much of the existing research concludes that these mechanisms consolidate the global extension of neoliberalism – enhancing the power of corporate actors to the detriment of smaller producers – we argue that this overlooks the complex ways in which standards are used by governments and farmers in the governing of farming practices. Focusing specifically on a process standard – Environmental Management Systems (EMS) – promoted by the Australian government as a way of verifying the ‘clean and green’ status of agricultural exports, we examine how one regional group of producers has sought to use EMS standards in practice. Our analysis of a case study in the state of Victoria appears to confirm that EMS was a successful instrument for the extension of neoliberal governance, reinforcing the production of neoliberal subjectivities and practices amongst farmer participants and enabling the government to compensate for gaps in environmental provision. However, it would be a mistake to interpret the development of this EMS scheme as an example of naïve farmers manipulated by the state. In practice, farmers used the opportunities provided by government funding to undertake actions which expressed their own agri-environmental values and practices. Establishment of an EMS and associated eco-label enabled producers to demonstrate and extend their capacity to act as good environmental stewards. Our research highlights how the local application of environmental standards negotiates and shapes, rather than simply contributes to, neoliberal rule.

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Neoliberalism and natural resource management: Agri-environmental standards
and the governing of farming practices
Vaughan Higgins
a,*
, Jacqui Dibden
b
, Chris Cocklin
c
a
School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences, Monash University, Churchill, Victoria 3842, Australia
b
School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia
c
Faculty of Science, Engineering and Information Technology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia
article info
Article history:
Received 6 June 2007
Received in revised form 28 April 2008
Keywords:
Standards
Neoliberalism
Natural resource management
Environmental Management Systems
Australia
abstract
Private standards and certification schemes are widely acknowledged as playing an increasingly impor-
tant role in agri-environmental governance. While much of the existing research concludes that these
mechanisms consolidate the global extension of neoliberalism – enhancing the power of corporate actors
to the detriment of smaller producers – we argue that this overlooks the complex ways in which stan-
dards are used by governments and farmers in the governing of farming practices. Focusing specifically
on a process standard – Environmental Management Systems (EMS) – promoted by the Australian gov-
ernment as a way of verifying the ‘clean and green’ status of agricultural exports, we examine how one
regional group of producers has sought to use EMS standards in practice. Our analysis of a case study in
the state of Victoria appears to confirm that EMS was a successful instrument for the extension of neo-
liberal governance, reinforcing the production of neoliberal subjectivities and practices amongst farmer
participants and enabling the government to compensate for gaps in environmental provision. However,
it would be a mistake to interpret the development of this EMS scheme as an example of naïve farmers
manipulated by the state. In practice, farmers used the opportunities provided by government funding to
undertake actions which expressed their own agri-environmental values and practices. Establishment of
an EMS and associated eco-label enabled producers to demonstrate and extend their capacity to act as
good environmental stewards. Our research highlights how the local application of environmental stan-
dards negotiates and shapes, rather than simply contributes to, neoliberal rule.
Ó2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Private standards schemes are assuming increased prominence
worldwide in the management of natural resources, as well as in
agri-food governance more broadly. As Busch and Bain (2004, p.
322) argue, ‘private rules, practices and institutions ...are now at
the center of transforming social, political, and economic relations
throughout the global agrifood system’. A growing body of litera-
ture explores the emergence of these standards, the actors in-
volved and the mostly adverse consequences for farmers. Much
of the existing research on the relationship between private stan-
dards and natural resources has tended to focus on organic certifi-
cation (e.g., González and Nigh, 2005; Guthman, 2004; Lockie et al.,
2006), although this has expanded recently to include examination
of Forest Stewardship Council certification (Klooster, 2005), the use
of environmental standards and eco-labels within alternative
agrifood networks (Guthman, 2007), and the environmental
implications of retailer-led initiatives such as EurepGAP,
1
a
European standard for ‘Good Agricultural Practices’ now re-named
‘GlobalGAP’. This research has opened a productive debate on the
environmental and social implications of standards and certification
schemes.
The literature in this area has focused overwhelmingly on pri-
vate standards as indicative of the further extension of market
forms – and neoliberal forms of governing more broadly – into
the regulation of food and natural resources. Most analysis of this
kind is concerned primarily with identifying who controls stan-
dards schemes, and therefore which actors within agrifood chains
benefit and lose, rather than how these schemes are enacted and
have ‘neoliberal’ effects. The underlying assumption is that stan-
dards schemes remove agency from farmers and governments,
0016-7185/$ - see front matter Ó2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.05.004
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: vaughan.higgins@arts.monash.edu.au (V. Higgins).
1
EurepGAP refers to a series of protocols for good agricultural practice devised by
the Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group – a consortium representing the largest
European supermarket chains. The EurepGAP protocols on food safety, quality and
environmental management are argued to be transforming supply chain require-
ments, and imposing more stringent regulatory requirements, for fruit and vegetable
growers from Australia and New Zealand (Campbell et al., 2006), as well as other
parts of the world (Hatanaka et al., 2006).
Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785
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diminishing their capacities to exercise any real control over the
setting, implementation and verification of standards. Yet this
ignores the important question of how specific standards schemes
come to be constituted as knowable, manageable and workable
mechanisms for the governing of farming practices (Larner and
Le Heron, 2002) and also how they are used by farmers in strategic
ways (Hatanaka et al., 2006). As Castree (2007, p. 53) points out,
‘we have to take seriously those situations in which nature’s neo-
liberalisation seems to ‘work’, without always supposing that those
for whom it works are the victims of ideology, ‘sell-outs’ or other-
wise naïve’.
Drawing upon recent theorising on neoliberalism, we examine
in this paper the role played by governments and farmers in mak-
ing an ostensibly neoliberal agri-environmental standards scheme
‘work’. We first outline recent theoretical approaches to the study
of neoliberal governance, particularly in relation to standards and
certification as governance mechanisms within the agrifood sector.
We then provide a brief overview of agri-environmental gover-
nance in Australia, and the emerging significance of environmental
standards – and Environmental Management Systems (EMS) spe-
cifically – in this process. This establishes the context for our
Australian case study of a producer-based standards scheme,
which has drawn upon federal government funding to develop
an EMS and associated eco-label for marketing premium environ-
mentally-certified beef. Finally, we consider, in relation to the case
study, to what extent environmental standards adopted by farmers
can be considered mechanisms which (re)inscribe neoliberal ratio-
nalities of governing in farming practices and, if so, whether this
necessarily matters in light of the personal and/or wider societal
benefits that are achieved.
2. Certification, standards and neoliberal governing
Neoliberalism, as McCarthy and Prudham (2004, p. 275) argue,
‘is the most powerful ideological and political project in global gov-
ernance to arise in the wake of Keynesianism’. Its promotion of
marketisation, privatisation, competition and deregulation has
provoked considerable critical scrutiny across a range of disciplines
concerned with identifying the causes, consequences and charac-
teristics of neoliberalism. Many of these analyses have concluded
that neoliberalism is best characterised as a ‘hegemonic project’
which is pursued by distinct class-based interests aiming to ‘subor-
dinate public values to those of the market’ (Barnett, 2005, p. 8; see
also Harvey, 2005). Given that neoliberalism now seems to be
everywhere (Peck and Tickell, 2002), this may seem a reasonable
conclusion to draw.
Nevertheless, while it is widely agreed that, as a project, neolib-
eralism seeks to achieve hegemony via market means, there is con-
siderable complexity and diversity in how this is enacted in
practice. For instance, a growing body of literature examines resis-
tance to neoliberalism, ranging from political action and (some-
times violent) protests to a search for alternatives. Much of this
literature draws on Polanyi’s notion of a ‘double movement’ in
which growing resistance to the commodification of everything –
especially land (or the natural environment) and labour – leads
to reform and a renewal of social and environmental protections
(Castree, 2007, 2008; Guthman, 2007; Mansfield, 2004; McCarthy,
2006). An example is the success of environmental movements
from the mid-1960s in making the environment ‘an accepted ob-
ject of public policy and concern’ (McCarthy, 2006, p. 338). Indeed,
environmental concerns have been seen as the ‘most passionately
articulated and effective political sources of response and resis-
tance to neoliberal projects’ (McCarthy and Prudham, 2004, p.
278; see also Bridge and Jonas, 2002). At the same time, as
McCarthy and Prudham (2004, p. 279) concede: ‘Many environ-
mentalists have adopted elements of neoliberal ideology and dis-
course, reflecting and reinforcing neoliberal hegemony’. The use
of market mechanisms to protect the environment is mirrored in
initiatives constructed ‘in opposition to neoliberalizations of the
food and agricultural sectors [which] appear to have uncritically
taken up ideas ... standard to neoliberalism’ (Guthman, 2008; see
also Allen et al., 2003; Guthman, 2007). These include use of stan-
dards and labels, as we discuss more fully below. Rather than resis-
tance leading to abandonment of the neoliberal project, it appears
to have resulted in the emergence of gentler ‘third way’ versions of
neoliberalism – what Peck and Tickell (2002) have called ‘roll-out
neoliberalization’ (see also Lockie and Higgins, 2007).
Applied to the standards literature, neoliberalism is conceptua-
lised predominantly as a hegemonic project driven by the interests
of corporate actors; within the agrifood sector these are mostly
large retailers (Campbell and Le Heron, 2007; Freidberg, 2004). Pri-
vate standards are increasingly pervasive and have replaced public
standards as ‘the most influential form of regulation in the global
agrifood system’ (Hatanaka and Busch, 2008, p. 77). Re-regulation
at a national and global level has strengthened the market power
of the private sector and enabled corporate actors to make many
‘existing voluntary standards de facto mandatory’ (Busch and Bain,
2004, p. 327). This consolidation of private regulation has occurred
typically through third-party certification (TPC) which provides a
mechanism for verifying producer compliance with particular
standards (Hatanaka et al., 2005). The rise of TPC and associated
systems of auditing has been interpreted as signifying a shift to-
wards global ‘harmonisation’ or ‘standardisation’ in agri-food gov-
erning (Busch and Bain, 2004; Tanaka and Busch, 2003), or the
emergence of ‘audit cultures’ which consolidate the extension
worldwide of market-based neoliberal agri-governance (Campbell
et al., 2006).
Complicating this picture is the fact that standards have been
developed not only within conventional, retailer-dominated food
supply chains but also by activist non-government organisations
(NGOs) ‘working to construct alternative spheres of production,
trade and consumption’ (Hatanaka and Busch, 2008, p. 77). This
has occurred both within developing countries, where NGOs have
supported the marketing of organic, fair trade and other ‘ethical’
products, and in Western developed countries, which have seen a
proliferation of alternative production and marketing initiatives.
These initiatives may be seen as a form of ‘roll-out’ neoliberalism
which utilises market mechanisms to achieve sustainability objec-
tives. From this perspective, standards both facilitate the extension
of neoliberal governance and are an expression of resistance to
neoliberal projects. These seemingly contradictory outcomes are
evident in recent literature which shows that while standards
schemes have the potential to ‘yield substantial benefits for pro-
ducers’ (Giovannucci and Ponte, 2005, p. 298) and ‘deliver impor-
tant gains to rural livelihood’ (Mutersbaugh et al., 2005, p. 387),
they often fail in practice to provide benefits, particularly to smal-
ler producers. Thus, as Mutersbaugh et al. (2005) argue, despite
‘quality labels and their certification schemes offer[ing] a means
for economic, and, sometimes, cultural survival’ (p. 384), they also
can limit ‘the access of smallholders to certification benefits’ (p.
382). Barriers include onerous bureaucratic requirements, which
exclude small producers from certification schemes (e.g., Gómez
Tovar et al., 2005); the high costs of compliance without compen-
sation through higher prices (e.g., Klooster, 2005); and the lack of
farmer participation in the development of certification systems
(e.g., González and Nigh, 2005).
The mixed outcomes from standards draw attention to a key di-
lemma which Mutersbaugh (2005) refers to as the ‘Polanyian dou-
ble bind’, where the efforts of NGOs to build open, public standards
– based on environmental and social values – depend on the
co-operation of corporate interests which prefer privatised
V. Higgins et al. / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785 1777

contract-based standards ‘that protect retailer power’ (p. 2048). As
a consequence, despite the promise of standards and certification
schemes – particularly organic and fair trade schemes – to promote
environmental protection and social justice, they reinforce the
profit-making logic of capital and (re)inscribe neoliberal regulatory
practices by working with the market (rather than against it). This
is clearly the case where alternative, small farmer marketing
schemes have been subsumed by retailer dominated supply chains.
However, Guthman (2007) argues that activist agrifood initiatives
in North America also tend to use standards in decidedly neoliberal
ways. Among other features, the labels which distinguish these
commodities are achieved through audits – a form of ‘action at a
distance’ – and ‘extend property rights to practices where none
previously existed’ (Guthman, 2007, p. 457); ‘standards and verifi-
cation establish barriers to entry’ for most producers (p. 461) and
‘put regulatory control at the site of the cash register’ rather than
in public hands (p. 472). Watts et al. (2005), in categorising alter-
native agrifood networks (AAFNs) as posing ‘weaker’ or ‘stronger’
challenges to the tenets of the neoliberal food system, do not
explicitly discuss the role of standards but it is clear that these
are more likely to be used in the ‘weaker’ AAFNs, with their
emphasis on ‘quality’ foods, rather than in ‘stronger’ AAFNs which
involve short supply chains outside the conventional system (such
as farmers’ markets) and cultivation of personal relationships and
trust. Guthman (2007, p. 460) has also drawn attention to the lim-
itations of standards and labels as a means of ameliorating the
environmental costs of agriculture when it is not ‘clear how it is
that a premium that goes to an individual producer pays for what
are clearly socialized costs of, say, pollution abatement or land-
scape restoration’.
In focusing on harmonisation, standardisation, and its limita-
tions for some farmers (and the wider society), scholars have
tended to overlook or downplay two key issues. The first is the
ongoing role of state agencies in creating the conditions for neolib-
eral forms of governing to be possible (see Lockie and Higgins,
2007; Peck and Tickell, 2002). Indeed, as Mansfield (2004, p. 570)
points out, state regulation is necessary to ‘provide protection for
the market itself’ (see also Robertson, 2004). As Rose (1999, p.
144) argues, neoliberalism is not therefore ‘a politics of economic
abstentionism: on the contrary ... politics must actively intervene
in order to create the organisational and subjective conditions for
[individual] entrepreneurialism’. This follows the pattern identified
by Buller and Morris (2004, p. 1079), who point to ‘the critical
interplay and inter-relationship of public policy and market forces
in the setting of sustainability objectives’, and the role played by
the public sector ‘in structuring, guiding, and facilitating the oper-
ation of market-oriented sustainable food initiatives’. The inter-
mingling of private and public forms of governing is perhaps
inevitable in dealing with environmental externalities generated
by competitive agriculture, where meeting the contradictory de-
mands of the market and public pressures to tackle environmental
problems poses intractable dilemmas. From this perspective, it is
important to examine the role of the state in facilitating schemes
or ‘monitor[ing] stakeholders’ self-regulating of their own activi-
ties’ (Hatanaka and Busch, 2008, p. 76).
The second, and related, issue is the predominant focus of the
critical literature about standards on third-party certification
(TPC) as a means by which private actors consolidate their control
over the agrifood sector. TPC is clearly a significant area of analysis,
yet there exists little research on the ways in which farmers make
standards and auditing procedures workable so that they accord
with existing farm management practices and values. A recent arti-
cle by Hatanaka et al. (2006) provides a useful starting point in this
direction, arguing that while farmers – particularly in developing
nations – are largely ‘standards takers’, they may seek to use stan-
dards and TPC strategically. Adoption by these developing country
producers of the standards practised in developed nations enables
them to counter claims that their produce is of poor quality, and
thus strengthens their standing within the supply chain. The adop-
tion of quality standards may also provide access to international
niche markets where there is the prospect of higher returns than
in mass-commodity markets. Hatanaka et al.’s analysis is useful
in showing that small farmers are not simply passive recipients
of standards. They may in fact use standards in strategic ways to
help improve their competitiveness and bargaining position in
international markets.
Extending Hatanaka et al.’s (2006) research, we examine the
strategic use by farmers of environmental standards, and specifi-
cally EMS, in Australia, a developed nation where neoliberal poli-
cies and practices have been pursued with considerable vigour in
agriculture since the early 1980s (Gray and Lawrence, 2001;
Dibden and Cocklin, 2005). Our case study of a specific regional
standards-based scheme within Australia explores the role of gov-
ernment in encouraging farmer adoption of environmental stan-
dards, and uncovers the varied strategies used by participants,
which suggest that farmers may use standards in more complex
ways than those illustrated by Hatanaka and colleagues.
3. The emergence of environmental management systems in
Australia
In 2002, Ministers for Agriculture and Natural Resource Man-
agement from across Australia developed a National Framework
for Environmental Management Systems in Agriculture which
was compatible with the International Standard ISO14001, thus
enabling external auditing and verification of farmer compliance.
This major new agri-environmental policy marked a shift from reli-
ance on community-based voluntary programmes. The impetus for
the policy change came from two directions – awareness of the
failure of existing programmes to deal adequately with the increas-
ingly intractable environmental problems associated with agricul-
ture, and anxiety that sound environmental management would
prospectively become a requirement for sales of Australian pro-
duce into world markets. A rash of food scares, particularly the
BSE outbreak in the United Kingdom, had led to a ratcheting up
in standards required by large food retailers in Europe and else-
where. As Freidberg (2004, p. 4) argues: ‘The last years of the
20th century were tough times for selling food to Europeans. The
competition was fierce, the rules uncertain, and the retail markets
picky’. Increasingly, higher standards were also demanded by the
Asian markets for Australian produce, especially Japan, where fear
of BSE underlay increasing demands for traceability and high qual-
ity standards (see DPI, 2007) Given Australia’s limited domestic
market and the importance of agricultural exports for both the bal-
ance of trade and the rural sector, it is not surprising that govern-
ments and farming organisations were united in recognising the
need to pre-empt any future threats to farm trade posed by chang-
ing standards.
At the same time, there were growing concerns about the effec-
tiveness of existing programmes for dealing with the negative
environmental and social externalities associated with conven-
tional agriculture (e.g., Gray and Lawrence, 2001). In all Western
nations, these problems have prompted the state to step in and
correct this market failure through various forms of support, not
only to farmers but to the farming sector more broadly. Within
Europe and North America, this has typically taken the form of
agri-environmental schemes aimed at promoting improved re-
source management practices (Buller et al., 2000; Clark et al.,
1997; Potter, 1998). However, countries such as Australia and
New Zealand have taken a somewhat different approach. Consis-
tent with a neoliberal policy-making environment, state agencies
1778 V. Higgins et al. / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785

in these nations have preferred to support supposedly ‘bottom-up’
initiatives aimed at equipping farmers with the managerial capac-
ities – but not always the funding – to address environmental is-
sues at a property and regional level (Higgins and Lockie, 2002).
Since the early 1990s, the National Landcare Program (NLP) has
been the centrepiece of agri-environmental governance in
Australia, providing funding to Landcare groups around Australia
and attracting increasing farmer participation (Hodges and Goesch,
2006). Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the NLP has increasingly
come into question. For example, farmers are expected, on the
one hand, to put community interests before their own by internal-
ising the costs of providing off-site and long-term social and envi-
ronmental benefits, while on the other they are asked to become
more ‘entrepreneurial’ and productive in order to compete in ex-
port markets (Lockie and Higgins, 2007).
Reconciliation of competing economic and environmental de-
mands, such as those noted above, has recently been sought
through market-based instruments. As Dibden and Cocklin (in
press) note, this mechanism conforms to a pattern of agri-environ-
mental governing in Australia in recent years, which involves sup-
porting the public good without deviating too far from the averred
commitment to the market. Environmental standards, based on the
international standard ISO14001, have been proposed as a mecha-
nism for use on-farm, ensuring that the costs of managing natural
resources are reflected fully in the market price of those resources
(e.g., AFPRG, 2006; NAPSWQ, 2005; NRMMC, 2002). ISO14001 cer-
tification provides a set of environmental management principles
which enable firms to avert public criticism and otherwise costly
public regulation, as well as potentially contributing to increased
revenue from market premiums (Wall et al., 2001). In relation to
Australian agriculture, EMS based on ISO14001 is of interest to
governments since it has the flexibility to integrate environmental,
food quality, trade and farm management issues under the rubric
of a single scheme, while at the same time ensuring international
credibility through a global standards scheme (Higgins et al.,
2008; Mech et al., 2003; NRMMC, 2002; Victorian Government
and VFF, 2004).
2
No other environmental certification scheme meets
these diverse demands. EMS is argued to provide a means for ‘capi-
talising on [Australia’s] ‘clean and green’ [export] image – meeting
the requirements of national resource management policy, as well
as potentially conferring market benefits’ (NRMMC, 2002, p. 10),
although it is recognised that market signals for environmental
assurance are currently weak. In the meantime, EMS is viewed as a
way of demonstrating responsible land stewardship through the
management and documentation of activities that have an environ-
mental impact. In other words, while EMS is supposedly market-
based, and promoted as having benefits for individual producers,
the immediate goal of the scheme is achievement of environmental
improvements for the public good.
EMS is a process-based standard, which details ‘the processes
that a firm, or other organisation, may choose to follow for the pur-
poses of managing environmental impacts’ (Mech and Young,
2001, p. 8). Thus, EMS is based on a ‘plan-do-act-review’ process
of continuous environmental improvement – there are no baseline
requirements for ‘best practice’ apart from adherence to relevant
environmental legislation. Consequently, the actual content is
dependent on the goals of individual land managers. This differs
from product standards or production protocols which ‘define spe-
cific features associated with a marketed product’, and performance
standards which specify ‘a level of environmental performance to
be met’ (Mech and Young, 2001, p. 8).
As part of the encouragement of EMS, the Australian govern-
ment launched an AUS$8.5 million National Pilot Program in April
2003 ‘to test and enhance the potential of EMS as a business man-
agement tool for primary production, and to understand and ad-
dress any limitations’ (DAFF, 2004); 16 pilot projects were
funded, representing a broad range of industries, regions and envi-
ronmental conditions. Other federal government initiatives have
provided assistance to industries in developing and implementing
EMS and other environmental assurance approaches, and a (re-
cently dis-established) ‘EMS Incentives Program’ to encourage
adoption by individual producers. Initial government investment
is seen as a means of supporting the development of market mech-
anisms for regulating provision of environmental public goods.
Despite the claimed potential of EMS as a tool for integrating
financial, environmental and social issues, there is growing evi-
dence that ‘linked environmental-marketplace benefits are proving
elusive to find in agriculture’ (Mech, 2004, p. 7; see also Chang and
Kristiansen, 2004). This appears also to be the case in other inter-
national markets, where there is little evidence of increased (or re-
tained) market share or higher prices (see, e.g., Bellesi et al., 2005).
The currently elusive market benefits from certified EMS – both in
Australia and elsewhere – raise several key questions. Firstly, does
the absence of demonstrable market incentives mean that farmers
are less likely to adopt market-based instruments than if market
demand existed for commodities produced using EMS practices?
And secondly, what is the relationship between economic and
non-economic incentives in landholder adoption of EMS? These
are questions of some significance for Australian agriculture, since
the assumption in recent NRM policy thinking – in tune with neo-
liberal rationalities of governing – is that market incentives pro-
vide the most effective way of changing the environmental
behaviour of farmers. If these incentives are weak, are there other
reasons for farmers to adopt and persevere with EMS practices? In
situations where EMS have been adopted, what is the relevance of
EMS for these farmers, and how do they integrate these ostensibly
neoliberal standards into their existing practices in a way that is
meaningful? And does the adoption of EMS serve to contest neolib-
eral forms of governance, extend neoliberalist practices, or both?
Through a case study of a regional EMS in Australia – the Gippsland
Beef and Lamb EMS, located in the south-east of the State of
Victoria – we explore the reasons for farmers’ adoption of EMS as
a strategy, the ways in which agri-environmental standards shape
farming practices, and the relationship between the economic and
non-economic benefits they derive from this course of action.
4. The case of Gippsland EMS
The history of the Gippsland EMS dates back to the late 1990s
when members of Gippsbeef, a producer alliance (later renamed
Gippsland Natural), were looking for ways of meeting future mar-
ket demands. Seven of the original alliance members became in-
volved in a pilot project to ‘test’ the application of EMS initiated
by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), a producer-owned com-
pany that provides services to livestock producers, processors,
exporters and retailers. Subsequently, in 2002, Gippsland Natural
applied successfully for funding to participate in the Federal Gov-
ernment’s national EMS pilot programme. This funding covered
the costs of training, co-ordination, legal advice and auditing.
EMS was adopted by interested members of the group due to the
availability of government funding, the flexibility of EMS over pro-
duction-based standards – such as organic standards – as well as
a desire to ‘see if consumers would buy an environmentally
2
While EMS is currently the main type of environmental standard of interest to
governments, and other actors, around Australia, there are other schemes that
attempt to integrate farm viability and environmental management. The most
prominent of these is the market-based instrument (MBI) programme, which has
trialled mechanisms such as trading schemes, auctions, and other surrogate market
settings to encourage improved natural resource management (Dibden and Cocklin,
2005; Mech, 2004; NAPSWQ, 2005).
V. Higgins et al. / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785 1779

sustainable product’ underpinned by both environmental and
quality assurance (Williams and O’Sullivan, 2006, p. 6).
The pilot project was launched in February 2004 under the ban-
ner ‘Gippsland EMS’ with the meat marketed using the ‘Enviro-
meat’ brand. By November 2005, 60 beef producers in Gippsland
had implemented an EMS – although not all to third-party certifi-
cation; 25 of these producers had qualified to supply Enviromeat,
although few of these actually had the opportunity to sell meat
through this avenue. In applying EMS in practice, the Gippsland
EMS group adopted – with some minor changes – The Australian
EMS Manual and Workbook (Crawford, 2003). This workbook was
developed specifically for land managers in Australia and is based
on the requirements of ISO14001. The EMS workbook commences
with the defining of a land manager’s environmental policy and ac-
tion plan, and moves through the steps for implementing the ac-
tion plan, monitoring progress and reviewing the system. The
book also outlines the steps required to undertake first, second
and third party audits.
In order to investigate why this group of farmers adopted EMS,
we conducted interviews during 2005 on 18 farms with 28 farmers
(10 couples and 8 individuals); a limited number of subsequent
interviews were conducted in 2006–2007. Most farmers and their
spouses were aged between 40 and 59 and almost all were farm
owner-operators. The size of farms ranged from 40 acres to 1,840
acres, although a majority were less than 500 acres. Thirteen of
the management teams had Landcare membership and more than
half were also members of Gippsland Natural. The leaders and
many of the participants are located in areas within easy reach of
the city of Melbourne and were able to engage in off-farm work
and other supplementary activities. The data from these interviews
were organised thematically and the results outlined below. For
the purposes of reporting, the 18 farm management teams inter-
viewed are allocated a code ranging from F01 to F18. The gender
of the informants is signified by an ‘m’ (male) or ‘f’ (female) follow-
ing the code (e.g., F01-m).
4.1. Developing a niche premium product for domestic consumers
As a federally-funded pilot project, the Gippsland EMS was
established to assess the value of EMS as a business and environ-
mental management tool for farmers. The National Framework
for EMS in Agriculture reflects the Australian government’s neolib-
eral objective of using EMS to maintain or enhance international
market access ‘in the context of World Trade Organisation Rules
and increasing consumer demand for environmentally friendly
production’ (NRMMC, 2002, p. 21). In practice, however, the group
has used the EMS process to produce premium quality beef (Env-
iromeat) for domestic niche markets, selling a specialised (environ-
mentally-certified) product at a premium price through shortened
food supply chains. The group has thus drawn upon EMS as a
means of bypassing the constraints of conventional markets, giving
greater producer control over ‘commodities instead of just placing
them in the marketplace and letting them go’ (F07-f) and cutting
‘out as many middle links in that [food supply] chain’ (F03-m).
However, many of the farmers – more than half of those inter-
viewed – were also participants in Gippsland Natural, which pro-
vided similar marketing benefits and had the advantage of
possessing an established brand and sales outlets, but did not en-
able members to obtain environmental certification. For Gippsland
Natural members, an EMS enabled them to verify formally the
‘green’ credentials of their meat, thus tapping into the market of
environmentally aware consumers. As one farmer noted:
We’re saying we’re sort of clean and green, but we had noth-
ing to back up our claims with, so we thought well, if anyone
really challenged us on, you know, ‘You’re saying you’re nat-
ural, but you know, are you really?’ We had no formal pro-
cess in place to say ... we are doing things well by the
environment. So a group of the Gippsland Natural Producers
got together and said well, we’ll be part of this pilot project.
(F02-m)
EMS was presented as an additional marketing option for members
of Gippsland Natural. While many have chosen not to pursue an
EMS, other members interviewed saw it as an opportunity worth
exploring further. The Enviromeat brand focuses on prime pasture-
fed beef that is quality assured (through Meat Standards Australia,
hereafter referred to as MSA
3
) and hormone-free – characteristics
it shares with Gippsland Natural meat – but in addition is environ-
mentally certified to ISO14001 EMS standards. Sold originally on a
trial basis through a local farmers’ market at Phillip Island (near Mel-
bourne), Enviromeat is now available through two specialty food
retailers located in metropolitan Melbourne and a nearby coastal
town (San Remo). In addition, there are currently two restaurants
in Melbourne which serve Enviromeat. The proximity of Gippsland
to Melbourne enables the marketing of Enviromeat to build on con-
sumers’ familiarity and favourable perceptions of the region.
At the time of our interviews with EMS participants, only a few
farmers were involved in supplying Enviromeat. As a consequence,
very few reported significant financial benefits. Nevertheless, a la-
ter report noted that farmers supplying ‘beasts’ for Enviromeat in
2006 were receiving 10–45% better prices than they obtained for
‘conventional’ beef (Williams and O’Sullivan, 2006, p. 34). While
there were 25 accredited suppliers at the time of our interviews,
only a few of these supplied meat regularly, and then only in small
quantities, due to restricted (although growing) demand. Given the
lack of immediate financial benefits, it might be expected that
farmers who were not certified to sell to Enviromeat, or had not
had the opportunity to supply their beasts, would see little point
in continuing with an EMS. However, this was not the case. As with
the organic growers interviewed by Lockie et al. (2006), most pro-
ducers remained keen to persist, rather than opting out.
4.2. Regulation of environmental activities
While many farmers wished to avoid the economic, social and
environmental problems associated with selling into conventional
markets, they recognised the marketing of a niche product as but
one strategy for ensuring their long-term viability. EMS was also
seen as giving farmers control over how they were regulated, en-
abling them both to meet existing regulatory requirements and
pre-empt future regulation of environmental activities, by both
governments and overseas retailers. The adoption of EMS was a
means of ensuring there were no restrictions, within their control,
preventing market access. As two farmers noted:
[We] still had the belief that in the long term at some stage
some of the importers of our products would use environ-
mental issues as a lump of wood to whack us round the head
with to try and ... stop access to their markets and we’re in
the kind of position to overcome that (F09-m)
...we thought, well, we don’t like to be told what to do on the
farm. We like to decide for ourselves, so we thought let’s go
along [to EMS training] and find out, so in effect we are some
of the early group setting the parameters rather than being
told what the parameters will be on your farm. (F16-m)
In the absence of significant domestic consumer demand for envi-
ronmentally-certified products, and lack of immediate regulatory
3
Meat Standards Australia is an established private organization which certifies
meat quality according to an ISO9001:2000 certified system. See http://
www.msagrading.com/
1780 V. Higgins et al. / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785

pressure from overseas markets, it might be assumed that EMS
would be of limited relevance to farmers. Nevertheless, farmers re-
mained keen to use EMS as a mechanism for building their manage-
rial capacities and improving environmental management. Thus,
rather than incurring the added expense of full third-party
ISO14001 certification (once this cost was no longer covered by
government funding), most of the farmers interviewed were inter-
ested in using the EMS process to achieve personal benefits (Higgins
et al., forthcoming). The significance of EMS is demonstrated in the
National Pilot Program Final Report which found that, while most
participants believed that market drivers did not exist for adopting
third-party certified EMS, 81 per cent intended to continue using
the process associated with it (URS, 2006, pp. 3–10). As we argue
below, EMS was viewed by producers as having a range of ‘internal’
benefits for improving their future capacity to deal with ‘external’
challenges.
4.3. Using EMS to reinforce and build existing management practices
Most farmers interviewed as part of our research found the
EMS process was useful in reinforcing and extending their existing
environmental and business management practices. This willing-
ness may be explained by the fact that all beef producers in
Victoria are required to maintain records of cattle movements,
and use ear tags, to ensure cattle meet required standards of trace-
ability in case of any subsequent food safety problems. As a conse-
quence, beef farmers are already exposed to processes of
documentation and auditing of on-farm management practices.
In addition, over two-thirds of the farm management teams we
interviewed were active members of their local Landcare group,
and many had previously been involved with MSA and/or Cattle-
care
4
standards. These associations had exposed them to particular
techniques for natural resource management, animal handling pro-
cedures, record keeping, and so forth. Most producers also had long
personal (and often family) histories of engagement with environ-
mental management practices, such as conservation of biodiversity
on their farms. For this reason the EMS process was not viewed as a
radical shift either attitudinally or in terms of the practices required
– in fact it was highly commensurate (Higgins et al., 2007; see also
Carruthers, 2005; URS, 2006).
5
A common view of producers was
that ‘the EMS was really just spelling out the philosophy that I
already had ... So philosophically it was in line with what I was al-
ready doing. It just reinforced it’ (F04-m). Many believed that they
had ‘always sort of been environmentally aware’ (F15-f), and that
they ‘didn’t find a lot of things that we were not doing correctly’
(F17-f). Others were interested in EMS as a way of gaining exposure
to ‘different views and different ways of looking at things ... It’s
good to have other inputs, even if you don’t make use of them, just
to see how other people look at the world and the farm etcetera’
(F08-f).
Although EMS may be seen primarily as reinforcing existing
attitudes and practices, it did have an impact on environmental
management, resulting, for example, in changes in stocking rates,
grazing strategies, and land use. In fact, one farm management
team (F01) reported reducing their stock from 500 to 350 head
since commencing an EMS. However, most of the immediate
changes focused on fencing off environmentally sensitive areas
from stock. While the short-term changes may not seem signifi-
cant, it was the longer-term ‘internal’ changes in thinking which
farmers reported were the most important benefits of an EMS.
While the EMS process reinforced what a number of farmers
were already doing, it also assisted them in formalising, and better
organising, their management activities. Given the previous expo-
sure of these farmers to record-keeping, auditing and reporting
procedures, these benefits provide further evidence that they were
able to incorporate the EMS process as part of existing practices
and use it strategically to extend their existing routines. These less
tangible personal benefits have been reported elsewhere (e.g.,
Carruthers, 2005; Carruthers and Vanclay, 2007) but given little
sustained attention. The contribution of EMS processes to the
building of farmers’ managerial capacities is noteworthy given
the focus of farm and agri-environmental policy in the last 15 years
on capacity-building and self-reliance through increasingly forma-
lised neoliberal technologies of governing (Higgins, 2002, 2005;
Higgins and Lockie, 2002). Although the extra paperwork imposed
by auditing technologies is often seen as disempowering for farm-
ers (Campbell et al., 2006; Carruthers, 2005; Mech and Hugo,
2004), and the Gippsland EMS farmers interviewed found while
the process of maintaining the documentation tedious and time-
consuming, the resulting formalisation of farming practices gave
them a more holistic and accurate view of their farms. For
example:
Yes, [it’s] absolutely all about documenting it and I guess a
plan for your future too, yes, it [EMS] gives you a road for your
future. And of course one of the good things about it is that
you do have to compile all your data, you know, all your soil
tests and ...bore readings for our salinity things and our pas-
ture and, you know, like, whereas before you might have had
one in the filing cabinet and one in the computer and one in
the drawer and the other one – it’s actually all together. So it
does bring your operation together. (F01-f)
I think generally just documenting what you do is helpful in
defining your practices and actually thinking about the
detail of your practices. We didn’t find a lot of things that
we were not doing correctly, but it was nice to see that list
of best management practices and actually comparing your-
self to those and seeing if there were things that you could
improve and it made us actually document the things that
we are doing. (F17-f)
[EMS provides] a disciplined way of looking at our environ-
ment issues, I suppose, because a lot of the things, the things
I’m driving about and have stored up here [in his head] and
... [spouse] has things in her mind about jobs to do and I
suppose this basically puts down on paper all the things that
would otherwise sort of go round our heads and possibly
lose ideas or forget things. So I suppose it probably just doc-
uments more what we’re thinking. (F06-m)
Documenting practices also assisted in prioritising projects around
the farm.
So it sort of has re-prioritised our focus on some of the pro-
jects that we’ve undertaken. Now we knew that those pro-
jects, we wanted to do those things anyway, right, so it
hasn’t – or there’s some new ones I suppose, but mainly
the issues in our farm activities, we sort of were aware of
anyway, but we may not have got round to prioritising.
We probably wouldn’t have prioritised them without the
EMS. (F10-m)
The biggest influence it had on us was that it changed some
of the priorities that we had in our whole farm plan. ... we
decided some of the things that we had put in place, like
putting up some of the bio-links and those kind of things,
we needed to change where we were going to put them
4
Cattlecare is a quality assurance programme for beef producers.
5
It is important to note that the EMS adopters interviewed represent a minority of
landholders in the Gippsland region, and a similar pattern exists Australia-wide (see
URS, 2006). Most landholders in Australia do not have the same degree of
understanding and familiarity with the kinds of agri-environmental practices
required (see Carruthers, 2005; Cary et al., 2002) and would be likely to see EMS as
conflicting with, rather than building on, existing farming practices.
V. Higgins et al. / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785 1781

and in what order we were going to do them in ...they were
probably the things that had probably more of an impact
than actual change in farming practices or changing land
classifications and that kind of stuff. (F02-m)
Improved documentation, and increased capacity to prioritise envi-
ronmental issues, had several productive effects on farm manage-
ment. Thus, while EMS may not have contributed to major
changes in farming practices, which were already broadly consis-
tent with the continuous improvement process of EMS, it did shape
how farmers organised their management and planning. The EMS
process had provided our participants with the formal capacity to
pursue the continuous environmental improvement, which forms
the basis of the EMS approach. This included more informed deci-
sion-making, and confidence in pursuing particular practices, rather
than others:
[EMS has] shown us other options, and it’s shown us the sci-
entific reasons, perhaps, why this will do better than that, it
has very much. Exactly how? Well, we’ve got more informa-
tion, so we – I feel that we’re better, more capable of making
a wise decision, and there are ways that things are done.
(F07-f)
I think there’s definitely benefits in formulating what you’re
doing and documenting it. The bit that I still have to do is
refine the action plans and the timetable of those and then
factor that into my management. It makes you aware of a
balanced range of environmental issues, whereas I tend to
be biased towards the biodiversity side. It does give balance.
(F04-m)
[The EMS manual] ...brings up a lot of things that I’ve never
thought of. Yes, and as I said before, it gives you confidence
that you’re employing best practice in your own system.
(F13-m)
For one farmer, the process raised questions over how EMS might
be incorporated into the activities of his local Landcare group:
...some of the issues which struck me in the EMS process
has allowed us to say to our Landcare group, hey, that’s a
good idea. Can we do that as a Landcare group? You know,
you’re looking at remnant forest and trees on roadsides
and trees in creeks, which is part of the EMS thinking pro-
cess, and tackling it on a district basis from our Landcare
group. (F16-m)
Finally, EMS created opportunities for improved joint decision-
making within the farm family. Indeed, several wives have become
involved in farm management for the first time through participat-
ing in the EMS process.
I would say that it’s actually been a huge driver to have [the
farmer’s spouse] more involved in the farm and farm busi-
ness ... and probably one of the great things that we’ve
got out of it is to actually sit down together and say, well,
what are we trying to do? You know, not what am Itrying
to do? I’ve done Ag. Science, I’ve been teaching people farm
planning for years, you know. I’ve done the physical hands-
on stuff but it’s like, what are we doing in business, what are
we trying to achieve, where are we trying to go, what are our
goals, what are our ambitions, how do we get there, and it’s
given [spouse] the opportunity to sort of say, well, why do
you make that decision? (F11-m)
[My spouse has] been very helpful and useful in developing
our EMS project, which has been great. It’s worked extre-
mely well. I think that’s probably one of the strengths of,
one of the real benefits that has flown from this project is
the way she’s become more involved in the farm and want-
ing to do things that she’s probably always had in her mind,
but when we talk about how we see the farm looking, it’s
been really useful and worthwhile and beneficial and good
for her and good for the partnership, basically. (F12-m)
EMS therefore had productive effects not simply in terms of render-
ing visible alternative courses of action, but also in contributing to
changes in the making of management decisions. These findings ac-
cord with the work of Higgins (2005, p. 129), who demonstrates
how neoliberal technologies of measurement and verification prob-
lematise ‘farmers’ existing capabilities and encourage them ‘to act
on their managerial conduct in new ways’.
4.4. Using EMS to qualify for grants and other assistance
The EMS process assisted farmers in ‘proving’ responsible envi-
ronmental stewardship to governments, consumers and the broad-
er community. Not only was EMS viewed as an important
mechanism for improving the environmental image of farmers,
but it also represented a source of personal pride in verifying to
themselves and others that they managed their land and water re-
sources responsibly. For instance:
...there’s lots of people around who really want us to farm in
a way that’s kind to the environment. I guess this was a way
for us to probably – well, we think this could be a way for us
to demonstrate to other people that we are doing the right
thing in the way we’re going about it. (F10-m)
When I first started the benefits were basically [a] warm and
fuzzy feeling, that you’re doing something for the environ-
ment and you could actually say no, I’m not hurting the envi-
ronment, that’s what EMS say, no, I’m not – here’s my
paperwork, it’s actually showing that I’m doing improve-
ment, so it’s actually written down. (F14-m)
The capacity to demonstrate and obtain public recognition for
environmental management was not only a source of personal
satisfaction but was seen by some participants and the group
organisers as an advantage in enabling farmers to apply for state-
based natural resource management funding. Here we see a
blurring of boundaries between economic and non-economic moti-
vations for adopting EMS. In a neoliberal political environment,
where farmers are expected to improve their environmental man-
agement with minimal government support, the adoption of an
EMS was argued by some to enhance their chances of securing
funding, especially for the provision of ecosystem services (Cocklin
et al., 2006).
[EMS] still does come down to a dollar and cents issue, but
we’ve started looking at other avenues to address the dollar
and cents. ...rather than just say yes, we’ve got to address
this, we’ve now thought, okay, there’s catchment manage-
ment issues, how can they become involved? And if we go
and say look, it’s part of an EMS process, CMA [Catchment
Management Authorities] and Natural Heritage Trust, those
organisations, are a lot more interested in helping, so it’s a
wider community thing (F18-m)
Some farmers believed that aspects of the EMS process may even be
used in the future by governments to make decisions on peoples’
right to farm. In other words, those without an EMS could be seen
as lacking the capacities for environmental stewardship and there-
fore ‘undeserving’ of support from government in times of need,
such as under drought conditions. As two farmers noted:
...the last couple of years the whole thing’s really snow-
balled as to what governments are trying to do with EMSs
on properties. ... I really think that eventually they’d like
1782 V. Higgins et al. / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785

every farmer in Australia to have some kind of environmen-
tal quality assurance system on their property (F02-m).
... the further we’ve gone into it, the penny is quite pipped
with me that, hang on, we could use this as a bit of a tool
to say, you know, if the pendulum swings and Ray Martin
[a media personality] gets on the television now and, oh,
the poor farmers are doing it tough, we’ve got another
drought and so forth and there’s the general perception or
the general feeling from the public towards farmers is quite
positive, but if that pendulum swung the other way, which
potentially it can, everything goes through cycles, farmers
that have certainly not been proactive to best address envi-
ronmental issues would be ... seen very unfavourably and
could be shown up as being very poor. So, yes, this is a tool,
but that’s not the main motivator but certainly it’s becoming
increasingly evident that it’s a good thing to have. (F18-m)
The importance of EMS as a model for improved natural resource
management is underlined by a recent initiative launched in the
same catchment management region, the Smarter Planning Smar-
ter Action (SPSA) programme. Run through the GippsLandcare net-
work in south-east Victoria, SPSA received funding through the
National Landcare Program to pursue a staged approach to imple-
menting EMS. Whereas accreditation to ISO14001 was a key objec-
tive with the Gippsland EMS, the SPSA programme took a different
approach based upon Environmental Best Management Practices.
The aim was to develop a Land Management Action Plan which fol-
lowed the EMS process but without third-party certification.
Accreditation to ISO14001 was available as an option but, given
the current lack of market incentives, this was not pursued by most
of the participants. With EMS approaches likely to become a part of
new natural resource management arrangements after the expiry
of the present federal environment programmes, Natural Heritage
Trust and National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, in
2008 (NRMMC, 2006), it will be interesting to see whether this ap-
proach to environmental standards – what might be called EMS
‘Lite’ – becomes the norm in future for producers selling on the
domestic market. Alternatively, might full certification be imposed
as a requirement either by retailers wanting guarantees that food
producers are meeting adequate standards of environmental care
or by government agencies as a prerequisite for access to funding
programmes?
5. Conclusion
This paper concurs with recent agrifood research which high-
lights the significance of private standards in the extension of neo-
liberal forms of rule. As a number of scholars have noted, standards
and labels adopted by farmers extend, rather than provide genuine
contestation of, neoliberal governance (e.g., Guthman, 2007). Ap-
plied to agri-environmental governance in an Australian context,
our analysis appears to confirm that EMS based on ISO14001 was
indeed a successful vehicle for the local application of neoliberal-
ism, contributing to the production of neoliberal subjectivities
and practices on-farm. For instance, through drawing upon govern-
ment funding, farmers were able to use EMS as a way of building
their managerial capacities in order to compete more effectively
in domestic and international markets, pre-empt tougher environ-
mental regulations by public and private agencies in Australia and
overseas, and prospectively gain a premium price for their meat. In
addition to these improved market prospects, EMS reinforced also
the significance of particular neoliberal practices of notation and
calculation, such as the self-auditing and peer auditing of environ-
mental plans, as part of becoming ‘good’ environmental managers
engaged in continuous environmental improvement. Equally, the
provision of initial funding enabled the Australian government to
contribute to environmental improvement while remaining com-
mitted to its goal of producing self-reliant, globally competitive
farmers. Thus EMS could be considered an example of a ‘flanking
mechanism’, restoring government legitimacy and compensating
for gaps in societal provision resulting from neoliberal roll-back
(Castree, 2007; Peck and Tickell, 2002), but at the same time
devolving responsibility for fixing problems to voluntary organisa-
tions and individuals.
However, this should not be seen as a one-way process of
landholders either being manipulated by the state or naïvely fol-
lowing practices which undermined their agency and contributed
to their further subordination to ‘the market’. This reading of the
data overlooks how the EMS complemented, and was used strate-
gically to build on, farmers’ existing goals, making use of opportu-
nities provided by the state to undertake actions which fitted
with their own agri-environmental values and practices. In other
words, just because EMS is deployed as a mechanism of neoliberal
rule, this does not mean that it produces uniformly neoliberal ef-
fects. Our research highlights how the local application of envi-
ronmental standards negotiates and shapes, rather than simply
contributes to the success of, neoliberal rule. Thus, while neolib-
eral governance is generally characterised by a strong reliance
on market forces, these are expressed only weakly in the actual
operations of the Gippsland EMS. It is true that farmers perceived
that EMS might bring future economic benefits in the form of
price premiums and assured market access. Nevertheless, the
achievement of these economic goals was mediated by the influ-
ence of farmers’ existing beliefs, values and practices, which
placed a high value on conservation and environmentally sustain-
able management.
In the absence of immediate economic rewards, farmers’ sought
to use EMS to build on their existing knowledge and practices. This
contributed to a range of benefits which are not obviously market-
related, including changes in farm management to minimise
environmental impact of farming activities; improved capacity –
through documentation – to ‘see’, prioritise and act on areas of
environmental concern; extra confidence in employing particular
environmental practices over others; greater involvement of other
members of the management team in environmental and farm
decision-making; and the personal satisfaction derived from seeing
improvements in one’s land and its biodiversity. In addition, while
EMS was a means of gaining access to short-term government
funding and resources (e.g., advice, training, payment of expenses)
that might not otherwise be available, more important was the
support an environmental standard gave to the image of farmers
as good stewards who could be trusted to care for the land. Thus,
although the ostensible target of these standards may be the
consumer (or retailers wishing to appeal to discriminating and in-
formed consumers), another – possibly equally or more important
– target is the public and the government.
We conclude that in exploring the relationship between neolib-
eralism and natural resource management much more attention
needs to be given to the non-market benefits and effects. As we
have demonstrated, neoliberal mechanisms of agri-environmental
governing – such as EMS – do not simply have neoliberal outcomes,
especially when adopted by producers with a pre-existing commit-
ment to conservation and environmental improvement. On the
other hand, as Guthman (2007) points out, there are limits to the
ability of neoliberal mechanisms to achieve wider societal protec-
tions. Mechanisms such as EMS and eco-labels may be effective on
a limited scale when adopted by producers with a pre-existing
commitment to conservation and environmental improvement,
but the majority of landholders remain unmoved, and most con-
sumers are indifferent to environmentally-friendly food. Recogni-
tion of the limitations of purely market-based approaches has led
to an increasing acceptance by all levels of government of the need
V. Higgins et al. / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1776–1785 1783

to provide funding to support on-farm environmental improve-
ments, breaking with Australia’s previous extreme neoliberal com-
mitment to agricultural liberalisation and rejection of farm
subsidies (Dibden and Cocklin, in press). This leads us to the
optimistic reflection, following Bakker (2007, p. 448), that ‘ostensi-
bly neoliberal reforms may be congruent with other political agen-
das’, such as environmental sustainability, and create ‘political
opportunities that may be progressive’.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the assistance of a Monash University
Small Grant in funding the research on which this article is based.
Cocklin and Dibden participated in the research as part of a project
on agri-environmental governance and multi-functionality funded
by the Australian Research Council.
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