THE NEW AGRARIANS: FORMING AND FARMING A POST-CAPITALIST LIVELIHOOD ETHIC IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Abstract

In contrast to the dominant mode of industrial farming, new agrarians seek a more ecologically- and socially-embedded form of agriculture, where soils are managed through regenerative practices and food is delivered to local or regional populations. In doing so, they challenge the cultural, economic, and political assumptions that have driven agricultural policy in America – mechanization, economies of scale, migrant farm labor, etc. More generally, they reject the accumulation logic of capitalist culture, and in doing so generate alternative means of creating value, meaning, and livelihood through agriculture. Whether the local food movement is a challenge to conventional food systems, it cultivates new agrarian subjects with ethical commitments that run counter to the rigid individualism and self-interest of the neoliberal subject. This dissertation details the formation of this agrarian subjectivity, which I term the livelihood ethic, and community economies as they are formed through agrarian training centers and networks in Northern California.