Regenerative: the making of social media savvy neo-farmers

Food is often taken for granted with little thought given to its multilayered complexities and conflicts. Historically, its production and consumption created civilisations and continually sustain human survival over the centuries and beyond. Presently, when we think of food we often think of industrial agriculture, which is the dominant narrative of food provenance in affluent industrialised society. Running against this industrial agriculture meta narrative of food provenance in Western society is the small-scale family run farming sector, which is experiencing a renaissance. Here in Victoria, Australia, many people (mostly tertiary educated but untrained in farming) are migrating to rural areas to take up farming as a vocation, bringing with them a new perspective and approach to farming. In my research, I refer to this new breed of farmer as regenerative small-scale farmer, or neo-farmer. The neo-farmers in this study use social media to tell their stories of farming inspiration and aspiration. The analysis emerging from this research challenges the current and dominant rural narrative of farmers and farming practices. Food sovereignty is at the forefront of this emerging narrative, which is underpinned by the new moral economy framework of Gibson-Graham’s diverse economies, facilitated and enabled by digital technologies. This multidisciplinary study deploys qualitative methods of in-depth interview and case study to analyse transcripts, images and social media feeds. The ethnographic approach in combination with observation technique focuses on the interconnection between agency and empowerment nestled within alternative food systems, and the sense of "farming freedom” supported by the new moral economy framework, which is aided by both strategic and non-strategic adoption of social media. My research investigates the interrelations and entanglements between many actors: human and non-humans. It also looks at the intersectionality between socio-economic and political clout (or lack of it) to help shape a new narrative for a fledging farming sector, with the help of digital media. It is basically a story about food—ethical and sustainable food—and the provisioning of such food, from production to mode of distribution. In my study, I am proposing that food provenance by regenerative small-scale farmers is a social media communication performance staged by human and non-human actors. This novel approach to food provenance delinks the regenerative small-scale farmers from colonial and post development agricultural structures, paving a new direction for the future small-scale farming sector in Victoria. Insights from this research lay the groundwork for future investigation into social media communication performance by regenerative small-scale farmers and other emerging/marginalised sectors.