Becoming Organic

“This is a remarkably well written, nuanced ethnography of how farmers in the Uttarakhand Himalaya of India ‘became organic,’ exploring the relationship between organic and industrial/conventional agriculture.”—Ian Scoones, author of The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation
 

“In this carefully researched and beautifully written book, Shaila Seshia Galvin carefully unfolds how the quality called ‘organic’ is constructed in everyday practices of state officials, farmers, and corporation representatives.”—Shafqat Hussain, author of The Snow Leopard and the Goat: Politics of Conservation in the Western Himalayas

“What does certified organic agriculture look like in a region that has never undergone agricultural modernization? Through this beautifully written ethnography, Galvin shows us that becoming organic is more than adopting a set of agronomic practices.”—Julie Guthman, author of Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry

“The ‘organic’ is often identified with an absence, specifically of pesticides. Galvin’s beautiful ethnography attends instead to presence, illuminating the situated labors that bring the organic into being in the Indian Himalaya.”—Sarah Besky, author of Tasting Qualities: The Past and Future of Tea

"Becoming Organic is brilliant and pleasure to read. Shaila Seshia Galvin shows how 'organic' acquires meaning in an agrarian landscape marginal to development but central to religious and ecological imaginaries in India."—Daniel Münster, University of Oslo