Semi-subsistence Producers and Biosecurity in the Slovenian Alps

• Published in: Sociologia ruralis Vol. 49; no. 4; pp. 330 - 343
• Main Author: Larsen, Ana Frelih
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.10.2009
• Subjects: Adaptation to change; Agrarian reform; Agricultural policy; Agricultural production; Alps; Bioethics; Ethnography; EU accession; EU directives; European Union; Family farms; Farmers; Farming; Governance; Interviews; Regulation; Rural Development; Rural sociology; Security; Slovenia; Small farms; Alps; Slovenia
• ISSN: 0038-0199; 1467-9523
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9523.2009.00481.x

In this article I examine the encounter between biosecurity and semi‐subsistence producers in the Slovenian Alps. The article shows that biosecurity, as part of a broader shift in agri‐food governance stemming from Slovenia's entry to the European Union, has dramatically reshaped the playing field for semi‐subsistence producers, driving agricultural restructuring and diminishing farmers' strategies of subsistence slaughter and informal marketing. By examining farmers' adjustments to and perceptions of these changes, as well as their attempts to contest biosecurity regulations, this article explores the interplay of economic, cultural and symbolic influences that have resulted in suspicion of the logic of state regulation. In this context, farmers' experiences of biosecurity also strongly impact on their perception of and interest in state‐led rural development initiatives. Based on extensive ethnographic interviews with 42 farm households, this article examines practical and conceptual aspects of the tension between semi‐subsistence production and biosecurity in a Central Eastern European context.