Short Food Supply Chains, Long Working Days: Active Work and the Construction of Professional Satisfaction in French Diversified Organic Market Gardening

Abstract

AbstractThis article analyses professional satisfaction of farm managers of organic diversified market garden farms selling through short food supply chains, in the south of France. Faced with strong economic and agronomic constraints, the cropping arrangements on these farms result in very tense experiences, both spatially and temporally. However, our analysis shows that while diversified organic market gardening is a demanding farm work environment, it paradoxically can create high professional satisfaction as a result of the complex integration of different elements, including social support and decision latitude. Indeed, the diversity of tasks, farmers’ autonomy, their role in decision‐making, and the challenging dimensions of organic farming contribute to what Karasek and Theorell call ‘active work’. Nevertheless, our research concludes that social support appears to be necessary to reach a good level of work satisfaction. Our findings also identify future research opportunities to examine, for example, how diversification impacts the work and the professional satisfaction of hired workers in organic market gardening contexts.