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Journal of Rural Studies 25 (2009) 289–298

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Journal of Rural Studies

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Global neo-liberalism, global ecological modernization, and a swine CAFOin rural Bulgaria

Leland L. Glenna a,*, Georgi V. Mitev b

a Pennsylvania State University, AERS, Armsby Building, University Park, 16803 PA, USAb University of Rousse, Rousse, Bulgaria

Keywords:GlobalizationNeo-liberalismEcological modernizationSustainable rural development

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 814 863 8636.E-mail address: llg13@psu.edu (L.L. Glenna).

0743-0167/$ – see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2009.01.001

a b s t r a c t

Rural and development sociology studies have tended to credit globalization with low-wage, extractive,environmentally destructive outcomes. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have beentreated as a local manifestation of the destructive tendencies of globalization. However, recent schol-arship on globalization suggests that globalization may also be credited with high-wage, value-added,environmentally friendly economic growth. Moving beyond a general emphasis on the destructivetendencies of globalization, these studies reveal that variation in industry, national and internationalpolicies, firm characteristics, and local geography (socio-economic and biophysical) may influencesocioeconomic and ecological outcomes. We discuss how these factors help to create a more complexunderstanding of the relationship between agrifood globalization and local manifestations of CAFOs. Wethen highlight an example of a rural Bulgarian CAFO that is locally owned and has come to internalize itswaste stream. Our findings support recent scholarship that distinguishes between global neo-liberalismand global ecologically modernization and that emphasizes a more complex understanding of how localsocio-economic and biophysical factors interact with global processes to influence rural development.

� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1 Neo-liberalism also refers to rationalities and techniques that shift theresponsibility for regulation from the nation-state to international and subnationalgoverning bodies (Lockie and Higgins, 2007; Smith and Rochovska, 2007; Bonanno,1998; Heffernan and Constance, 1994). Such shifts in governance tend to enhancethe power of transnational corporations (Bonanno and Constance, 2006; McMi-chael, 2008). The United Kingdom has been a promoter of neo-liberalism, but somescholars point to the United States (US) in the early 1980s, when the US governmentstopped enforcing anti-trust laws, as the origin of neo-liberalism. The policy shiftwas justified with appeals to economists at the University of Chicago, most notably

1. Introduction

Globalization is a contested topic in the social sciences. Guillen(2001: 235) has characterized the contest as debating whetherglobalization is ‘‘civilizing, destructive, or feeble.’’ Globalization iscredited with producing high-wage, value-added, environmentallyfriendly economic growth in some areas and low-wage, extractive,environmentally destructive outcomes in other areas (Harvey,2006; Peck, 2005; Marsden, 2004; Stiglitz, 2002). Rural anddevelopment sociology studies tend to focus on the destructiveoutcomes of globalization over the ecologically beneficial outcomes(Buttel, 2003; Marsden, 2004). In this paper, we explore theoreticaland empirical opportunities for rural and development sociology tostudy the civilizing side of globalization. After reviewing rural anddevelopment sociology studies that seek to account for geograph-ically different outcomes of globalization, we present a case studyof a swine concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in ruralBulgaria to illustrate global and local factors associated withecological modernizing tendencies in rural development.

We consider this work a contribution to Marsden’s (2004: 130)challenge to understand ‘‘the extent to which we are seeing the arrival

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of a more autonomous ecologically modernizing process operating inadvanced societies, and as part of this, through rural developmenttrends specifically ..’’ He contends that theoretical developmentsand empirical contributions are needed to address this challenge.

On the theoretical side, we seek to expand the conceptualizationof globalization. Buttel (2003) is critical of the tendency to conflateglobalization with neo-liberalism and trade liberalization. He clar-ifies that neo-liberalism refers to ‘‘policies that are aimed atcreating profitable opportunities for private firms,’’1 trade liber-alization refers to the reduction of trade barriers, and globalizationrefers to the synchronization of international markets (Buttel,2003: 182). Therefore, although the terms are related, they should

Milton Friedman (2002), who argued that government regulation was interferingwith the proper functioning of the market and hampering the economy’s capacityto contribute to social welfare.

L.L. Glenna, G.V. Mitev / Journal of Rural Studies 25 (2009) 289–298290

not be used interchangeably. Trade liberalization and neo-liber-alism may be aspects of particular manifestations of globalization,but they do not account for the entirety. For example, in addition totrade liberalization and neo-liberalism, as Marsden (2004)observes, ecological modernization is also part of globalization.

Another theoretical issue to address is the tendency to portrayglobalization as an ‘‘exogenous force’’ (Buttel, 2001: 176). In thisconceptualization, local people and communities are often por-trayed as victims of globalization. Lyson (2006: 293) is critical ofthis perspective when he observes that rural communities‘‘unwittingly helped to create’’ the system of global corporate neo-liberalism by competing ‘‘against one another to attract footloosefirms ..’’ This critique highlights the need to understand theglobal–local interactions that might influence whether globaliza-tion will have civilizing, destructive, or feeble outcomes. A locallyowned firm may exist within global neo-liberalizing and globalecologically modernizing political–economic contexts, anda number of factors may influence whether that firm will movetowards neo-liberalizing or ecologically modernizing practices.

Guillen (2001) and Marsden (2004) agree that empiricalresearch needs to capture the complex and diverse impacts ofglobalization at various levels. We develop such an approach in ourcase study of a CAFO in rural Bulgaria by examining how interna-tional policies and practices (neo-liberalism vs. ecologicalmodernization), firm characteristics, and local socio-economic andbiophysical factors influence rural development outcomes.

The Hof Farm CAFO is located along the Danube River near thecity of Rousse, Bulgaria. It has persisted through Bulgaria’s multi-faceted transition, from state socialism to liberalized economy and,recently, to European Union (EU) membership. During these tran-sitions, the Hof Farm CAFO has been transformed from a state-owned company established to serve the broader hog breedingneeds of the Soviet Union to a locally controlled, worker-ownedcooperative.2 This is compelling as a case study because, duringthese multiple transitional stages, the CAFO began adopting tech-nologies that incorporated hog wastes into its production process,which is a deviation from the trend in industrial animal husbandryof externalizing wastes.3

CAFOs have come to epitomize the ecological irrationality ofindustrial agriculture. Centner (2004a, b) observes that animalhusbandry in agriculture once recycled animal wastes by using it tofertilize fields. CAFOs, however, have transformed the meatproduction process into one that externalizes wastes. As a result,industrialization has converted sustainable animal husbandry intoa locally unwanted land use (LULU) and promoted ecologicallydestructive agriculture (Glenna, 2006).

2 The fact that this CAFO was established under the governance of the SovietUnion also raises questions about the tendency to connect CAFOs and theirecological destructiveness to neo-liberalism. This CAFO originated under statesocialism, not neo-liberalism, and was dumping its wastes in the Danube River wellbefore transnational corporations began to dominate animal husbandry in theWest. However, we do not discuss that issue in this paper because our focus is onthe CAFO’s changes since the transition. Readers who want to pursue questionsregarding ecological destruction in Eastern Europe under the Soviet system andafter the transition may want to read Andersen’s (2002; see also Gille, 2000)discussion on how the transition from Soviet control to EU membership may haveled to more ecological subversion than ecological modernization. Readers may alsowant to read Sumelius’s et al. (2005) discussion on how the ecological problems inagriculture have shifted.

3 We recognize that CAFOs raise significant socio-economic and ecologicalconcerns in addition to waste management. Animal welfare, the spread of patho-gens, and antibiotic resistance are just a few of the other important concerns(Centner, 2004b). Although we will not address these concerns in this paper, westill think it is valuable to consider why a CAFO in rural Bulgaria would begin tomove towards more sustainable approach to waste management by seeking toincorporate waste into the production process.

Rural and development sociology studies tend to credit the rise ofCAFOs to the globalization of neo-liberalism, which originated in theUS and became global through transnational agribusinesses (seeHeffernan and Constance, 1994). Juska and Edwards (2004: 190)describe how global agrifood companies use a strategy of globalsourcing to seek to place their ecologically and socially destructivefacilities in areas of ‘‘low wages, low taxes, weak unions, lax regulatoryregimes, high poverty rates, large minority populations, and relativelylittle political power ..’’ As a result, by the end of the twentiethcentury, hog production in particular shifted from ‘‘small-scale,relatively independent producers to domination by large multina-tional corporations tightly aligned across a global production anddistribution chain’’ (Juska and Edwards, 2004: 190). Important for thispaper, those same global agribusinesses have sought to expand toCentral and Eastern European nations (Juska and Edwards, 2004).

Considering these trends, the Bulgarian CAFO that is the subjectof this paper is unusual in two ways. First, it runs counter to thedominant trend in CAFOs by becoming more ecologically friendly.Second, it has made the shift to more ecologically friendly practicesas the nation of Bulgaria has been opened to globalization. BecauseCAFOs tend to be associated with global neo-liberalism and thedestructive tendencies associated with globalization, we believe itis important to explore the factors that account for a CAFO withsocially and ecologically beneficial outcomes.

We are not seeking to connect the Hof Farm CAFO to global-ization by claiming it is a global company, since it is a locally ownedand operated facility. Rather, we are claiming that even a locallyowned company is influenced by globalizing processes. In thispaper we focus on two such influential processes: global marketsand global environmental regulations.

Scholars have emphasized that even local economic activitiesare embedded within a context of globalizing markets. McMichael(2008) and Araghi (1995), for example, have described how globalcommodity chains affect markets for local agricultural production,such as peasant farming. In the case of the Hof Farm CAFO, it issubject to the effects of global neo-liberalism in the form ofcompetition from agribusinesses pursuing global-sourcing strate-gies. As a country in transition from state socialism to liberalcapitalism, Bulgaria has been under pressure to open its markets totransnational corporate capital. Transnational agribusinesses areseeking to establish CAFO facilities in Rousse. Those companiescompete for market share with the Hof Farm. Thus, even a locallyowned CAFO is part of a global pork commodity chain.

Bulgaria is also influenced by global environmental policytrends. At the same time that Bulgaria has been exposed to globalneo-liberalism, it has been influenced by the global countermove-ment: ecological modernizing. Since Bulgaria acceded to the EU,this locally owned CAFO must adhere to strict environmentalregulations. In particular, the dumping of hog wastes in the DanubeRiver became a less viable waste-management option.

Although the Hof Farm is a locally owned CAFO, it has emergedwithin the context and under the influence of competing globalizingpolitical and economic forces. The challenge, as we see it, is todetermine the global and local factors that explain the emergence ofthis CAFO, with a particular emphasis on the forces that influence itsadoption of waste-internalization techniques. To meet this challenge,we examine local social and biophysical characteristics that influ-enced particular characteristics of this business enterprise. Sinceextant rural and development sociology studies often link CAFOs toglobal neo-liberalism, we believe it is important to highlight a CAFOthat has been influenced by global ecological modernization.

Before presenting the details of this case study, we survey ruraland development sociological research on globalization. This reviewreveals that variation in national and international policy contexts(neo-liberalism and ecological modernization), industry, type of firm,

L.L. Glenna, G.V. Mitev / Journal of Rural Studies 25 (2009) 289–298 291

and local geography (social and biophysical) are associated withvariation in local social and ecological impacts of development efforts.After considering how multi-level factors influence the Hof FarmCAFO, we discuss how our findings might inform future research toaddress questions of uneven geographic outcomes of globalization.

2. Globalization, neo-liberalism, ecological modernizationand uneven development

Our primary goal in this section is to draw distinctions betweenneo-liberal and ecological modernizing movements in globaliza-tion and to examine the literature on the uneven developmentoutcomes associated with globalization. Although there is muchambiguity surrounding the term globalization, it is generally usedto refer to structural changes that facilitate international exchangesof goods, services, capital, knowledge, and people (Fiss and Hirsch,2005; Stiglitz, 2002). Globalization is also used to describe inter-national governance institutions and trade agreements (e.g. Inter-national Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization,European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement, etc.), aswell as technological advances in transportation and communica-tion (Smith and Wiest, 2005; Stiglitz, 2002).

The European Union (EU) and the North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA) are both examples of globalization, since theyare structural changes that facilitate international exchanges ofgoods, services, capital, knowledge, and people. However, theyrepresent dramatically different approaches to regulating thoseexchanges. NAFTA epitomizes global neo-liberalism (McMichael,2008; Bonanno, 2006). In contrast, the EU’s regulatory approachpromotes waste reduction in the production process, which is moreconsistent with ecological modernization (Dryzek, 2005: 163).

Ecological modernization refers to legal and regulatory efforts tore-embed ecological aspects of production and consumption intothe prominent economic institutions of modern society (seeFrouws and Mol, 1997; Fisher and Freudenburg, 2001; Weidner,2002; Mol and Sonnenfeld, 2000; Sonnenfeld and Mol, 2002). Moreto the point, ecological modernization promotes calibratingmarkets, so that the reduction of ecological harms becomeseconomically beneficial. For example, markets and policies may bestructured so that companies will seek energy efficiency becausethey can reduce costs. The practical implication of the recalibratingof economic and political institutions is to promote the reincor-poration of ‘‘emissions and waste within the sphere of production’’(Gille, 2000: 203; Andersen, 2002; Dryzek, 2005; Christoff, 1996).4

This practical definition of ecological modernizationdnamely thereincorporation of wastes into the sphere of productiondoffers ananalytically useful approach to distinguishing between ecologicallybeneficial and harmful rural development. First, it offers a measur-able distinction between neo-liberalism and ecological moderniza-tion. If neo-liberalism tends to promote negative externalities, thenecological modernization, defined as tending to promote the inter-nalization of wastes, represents a more sustainable counter-move-ment to neo-liberalism. Second, a focus on waste internalizationprovides a linchpin to integrate the global and local influence ona rural development effort. The international and national regulatorycontext may be more or less favorable to waste internalization at thelocal level. Furthermore, local social and biophysical conditions mayalso be more or less favorable to waste internalization.

Recognizing the distinction between the neo-liberal andecologically modern strands of globalization is important because

4 It is important to emphasize that these scholars are not simply evaluating theadoption of a technology. Rather, they are evaluating whether waste is beingreincorporated into production.

rural development within a territory characterized as an ecologicalmodern form of governance will likely be very different from ruraldevelopment within a territory characterized as neo-liberal. Sincethe Hof Farm CAFO is located within an EU member nation, it isinfluenced by the ecological modernization form of governance. Atthe same time, Bulgaria is still in the process of post-socialistliberalizing, which opens it to transnational corporations seeking toemploy global sourcing strategies. To explore these competinginfluences on the Hof Farm CAFO, we develop in a subsequentsection a brief comparison of CAFOs in the United States (neo-liberalism) and the Netherlands (ecological modernization).

Another aspect of the dominant definition of globalization thatwe seek to revise is that of globalization as an exogenous forcewhich acts upon a locality. Buttel (2001), Marsden (2004), Lyson(2006), and Smith and Rochovska (2007) are critical of the local,actor-oriented versus the global, political-economy dichotomy.Hinrichs (2003) also contends that localization is not a panacea,even though some emphasize local control to counter the negativeimpacts of globalization. Indeed, studies indicate that shiftinggreater responsibility onto local governments may lead to localareas becoming more vulnerable to exploitation (Lockie andHiggins, 2007; Bonanno and Constance, 2006; Welsh et al., 2003).And, as we already mentioned, even local markets in remote partsof the world are not immune to global commodity prices. McMi-chael (2008: 167–169) describes how transnational corporationshave production and distribution facilities in countries all over theworld. Furthermore, subsidized agricultural production in the USand EU may place a downward pressure on worldwide commodityprices when the US and EU dispose of surpluses on global markets.

The challenge is to explain how the global activities affect the localactivities, and alsoto explain local activities without losing sight of theglobal influences (Marsden, 2004: 130; Smith and Rochovska, 2007:1164). We seek to do this by considering how the Hof Farm CAFO’swaste management practices were influenced by local social andbiophysical factors, while also considering how they were influencedby international trade and environmental protection policies.

Rural and development sociological studies of globalizationhave found that some industries are associated with more unde-sirable social and environmental outcomes than others. Forexample, the apparel and textile industries tend to use globalsourcing to find the weakest regulatory environments for theirmanufacturing and assembly sites. As developing countries andpoor regions within industrial countries strive to attract or retainemployment opportunities in the apparel and textile industries,there is a resulting downward spiral in labor and environmentalconditions (Abernathy et al., 2004). In contrast, companies in thepersonal computer industry tend not to be part of the race-to-the-bottom, because they are more focused on minimizing risks ofinterruptions in the commodity chain than in finding the weakestregulations (Curry and Kenney, 2004).

Social and ecological impacts of an industry may also varydepending on a production facility’s position within the commoditychain. Rothstein (2005) describes how a Mexican city was able totarget specific segments in the automobile commodity chain tobring stable and well-paying jobs. At the same time, however,Rothstein (2005) acknowledges that some segments might bedirtier and bring worse working conditions, and that thoseproduction facilities will be sited somewhere in the world.

Research in the agriculture sector has also revealed variation byindustry and type of production. Industrial animal production, suchas CAFOs, may indeed epitomize the ecologically irrational.However, organic agricultural producers and food companies seek toproduce environmentally friendly products because they canincrease profits by appealing to ‘‘green consumers’’ (Lyons et al.,2004; Guthman, 2004; Jansen and Vellema, 2004). Other factors are

L.L. Glenna, G.V. Mitev / Journal of Rural Studies 25 (2009) 289–298292

also important. Manager values and interests may contribute tosocially and environmentally friendly practices (Vorley, 2004).Agribusinesses that move toward sustainable practices tend to beinfluenced by ‘‘the internal dynamics within agribusiness firms, thepossibilities for interest groups to change agribusiness performance,the role of the public sector in innovation and the mode of regulationof agribusiness operations’’ (Jansen and Vellema, 2004: 3).

This brief survey of the rural and development sociology researchindicates that at least three factors may account for the social andecological outcomes of a local development effort. Variation by (1)national and international policies (neo-liberalism versus ecologicalmodernization), (2) type of industry, and (3) local social (firm typeand civil society) and biophysical conditions can each affect thepotential generation of positive or negative externalities. As Kenney(2004: 18) argues, depending on some of these factors, a firm mayeven ‘‘interact with those places to evolve positive externalities suchas improved skill levels in the workforce, the creation or attraction ofsuppliers, and an infrastructure of collective goods such as univer-sities, research institutions and transportation or communicationfacilities.’’ After a brief description of the Hof Farm CAFO, weexamine how these three factors (neo-liberalism vs. ecologicalmodernization, type of industry, and local social and biophysicalconditions) help to explain the outcomes of this swine CAFO.

3. The case of the Hof Farm swine CAFO

This study emerged from a collaborative project between Cor-nell University and Rousse University to establish a curriculum inregional and environmental management at Rousse University.5 Asdesigners of an environmental management course, we (aBulgarian soil scientist and a US sociologist) wanted to introducestudents to social and natural scientific issues in natural resourcemanagement. We decided that the Hof Farm CAFO would be anappropriate case study because it represented an intersection ofsocio-economic and biophysical factors. As we developed thecourse material, we realized that the Hof Farm’s waste manage-ment practices warranted further study.

Data for this case study were collected through a formal site visitand interviews, on May 17, 2005, with the executive director andthe chief engineer of the Hof Farm CAFO, as well as through lessformal conversations and visits.6 The director and engineer sharedinformation about worker wages and benefits, processing andmarketing goals, and plans for establishing a waste treatmentfacility. For data on ecological information in the Rousse District, werelied upon Rousse University’s research station at Breslan. We alsorelied upon secondary data on the population and economy gath-ered by the Bulgarian government and the World Bank.

The Rousse District, which has a total population of 267,600,borders the Danube River in north central Bulgaria. It is a rural

5 During the peer review process, a reviewer asked ‘‘Does it strike the authors asodd that, given their criticism of the US as a base for the most negative forms ofCAFO organization, an American land grant university would be helping Bulgaria toconstruct an ecological form of CAFO?’’ Sociologists in the US have generated manybooks and articles on the often paradoxical relationship between the land-grantuniversity system, private industry, and the economic interests of the state. One ofthe more interesting cases is the lawsuit against the University of California, Davis,over the mechanical tomato harvester (see Friedland, 1991). Another interesting setof readings addresses relationships between university researchers and industriesin agricultural biotechnology research (see Rudy et al., 2007; Glenna et al., 2007;Kloppenburg, 2004). Though it is outside of the scope of this paper to address thisissue in detail, readers wanting to follow up on this question may find the citationshelpful.

6 The Bulgarian soil science professor who is co-author of this piece worked as anengineer on the Hof Farm when it was still a collective. He is collaborating with thefarm to develop and implement the new manure management technology.

district, but its administrative center is the industrial and touristcity of Rousse (population 184,000, nearly 70% of the district’spopulation). The CAFO facility that is the subject of our study is inthe municipality of Slivo Pole, which is near the Danube River,30 km east of Rousse, and home to approximately 14,000 people.

The Hof Farm CAFO began as a collective farm in 1972. Itsmission was to gather, produce, and distribute industrial swinebreeds to other Bulgarian farms. It bred 5000 pigs in its first year ofoperation and expanded to 10,000 by its fourth year. After thetransition from state socialism, the CAFO remained state owneduntil 1998, when members of the collective purchased it througha combination of individual investments and credit and convertedit into a worker-owned cooperative. It is owned by 134 workers andis structured as an employee–management association.

Not all of the employees are owners. In addition to the 134 worker-owners, the farm employs 20 security guards, 6 secretarial and jani-torial workers, and 40 workers who cultivate the cropland thatsupplies a portion of the 1100 tons of grain needed to feed the pigs.

The jobs provided by the cooperative are important in a districtthat has seen a dramatic drop in agricultural production and foodprocessing factories in the past fifteen years. World Bank datareveal a drop in livestock production in Bulgaria by approximatelyone-third since the early 1980s (see Table 1). As job opportunitiesand wages declined, the demand for food dropped. Food processingcompanies closed as commodity supplies and markets dwindled.Throughout Central and Eastern Europe, farmers who were givenland and livestock when collectives were privatized often lackedthe resources to support livestock production and slaughtered theiranimals (Cochrane, 2002). Meanwhile, subsistence production hasincreased. Small plots of land account for as much as half of Bul-garia’s food (Kostov and Lingard, 2002).

In swine production, the Rousse district went from a high of200,000 hogs during the 1980s to the current count of 50,000. TheHof Farm CAFO accounts for 20,000 of those hogs, which areproduced by their 2000 sows and 100 boars.

It became common for Bulgarians to form cooperatives afterprivatization. In 1994, nearly half of rural households said that theyintended to keep their land in cooperatives. Part of the reason for thishas been the persistence of the tradition of cooperatives that existedeven before the Soviet takeover after the Second World War.Another explanation is that ‘‘Weakly developed markets for agri-cultural credit, land, labor, and outputs, which raise transaction costsfor private landowners and limit their ability to form viable farms,also appear to have played a role in households’ decision to incor-porate land in cooperatives’’ (Meurs, 2001: 57). During land resti-tution, the government distributed land to those who held title priorto collectivization in 1946. An average of 2 hectares was distributedto 2.6 million titles, but when the titles were further fragmented tothe heirs of the 1946 titleholders, the average plots were 0.4–0.5 hectares (Kopeva, 2003: 49). With small and fragmented plots ofland, and with little capital to invest in purchasing farm machineryand inputs, some land owners began pooling their small plots intoland cooperatives. They then began operating cooperatively orrenting to a private farmer or a company of farm managers.

The Hof Farm CAFO uses a combination of these approaches.Some of the CAFO employee-owners also own farmland. CAFOmembers own about 25% of the 400 acres they use to grow crops tofeed their hogs, and they rent the remaining 75%. By renting fromlocal land owners and purchasing feed grains, the CAFO generateslocal economic benefits in addition to employment. The farm isclose to becoming a vertically integrated operation. In addition togrowing a significant amount of feed, it also processes about 70% ofits hogs and sells pork steak and sausage products through a chainof stores in the region. The managers plan to expand processingcapacity to 100% in the near future. And they are incorporating

Table 1Economic and agricultural indicators for Bulgaria, the Netherlands and the United States.

Gini Coefficient (year) Livestock production indexa Fertilizer consumptionb Hectares arable land per capita

1979–1981 2000–2002 1979–1981 2000–2002

Bulgaria 31.9 (2001) 96.3 62.9 2334 328 0.54Netherlands 32.6 (1994) 88.3 96.5 8620 4755 0.06United States 40.8 (2000) 89.0 123.6 1092 1097 0.62

Source: World Bank 2004.a The index includes all livestock related products: meat, honey, and dairy products to silk, wool, and hides.b Hundreds of grams per hectare of arable land.

L.L. Glenna, G.V. Mitev / Journal of Rural Studies 25 (2009) 289–298 293

leaner hog breeds into production, so that the Hof Farm will be ableto accommodate market specifications for Western Europe asBulgaria accedes to the EU. Farm managers plan to expand the landownership and rentals to 1200 hectares in the near future, so thatall the needed feed grain will be generated internally.

The CAFO has faced and continues to face economic challenges.With its current profit margin of 2%, the cooperative is striving toincrease profits so as to distribute higher salaries. Salaries are set byestablishing a base, adding a percentage for the years of seniority,and then adding an additional percentage based upon the workingconditions of a particular job. In 2003, workers received an averageof US$130 per month, which was an increase from the US$90 in1993, but still below the government-established minimuminsured threshold. At the beginning of 2004, salaries were raised tomeet that government threshold, but this still does not liberateworkers from relying upon various state programs. Salaries aresupplemented with 12 kg of pork per month, and workers receivea 50% discount for lunch during work.7 The Hof Farm is hoping thatprofits will increase when it gets access to EU markets and thatthose profits will enable the cooperative to increase salaries.

There are ecological challenges in addition to the economicones. Swine produce approximately four times the waste ofhumans, making the Hof Farm CAFO as prolific in sewage produc-tion as a city of 80,000 people. Since Soviet times, this CAFOdisposed of liquid hog manure through a pipe that drains into theDanube River. The damage to the Danube might have been moresevere if that pipe had not regularly clogged with waste solids. Afterthe transition from socialism, the Hof Farm CAFO began payinga fine for dumping wastes in the Danube.

Since the Hof Farm became a cooperative, it has adopted a moreecologically friendly form of manure management. It currentlyproduces approximately 40,000 kg/day of solid and fluid waste. Itrelies upon 600 m3 of water daily to clean the barns (over201,000 m3 of water per year). Since the CAFO became a coopera-tive organization, the farm stopped pumping the waste into theDanube. It began separating the solid waste, composting it, andusing it as fertilizer on its 400 hectares of crop land. More recently,the farm began working with a soil and crop scientist at RousseUniversity to adopt a Danish manure management technology thatwill enable it to convert the wastes into fertilizer. This new tech-nology involves building concrete-lined ponds that are filled withstones, sand, and soil that filter the nutrients from the liquid waste(see Fig. 1). Leaching of nutrients is still an environmental problembecause all the lagoons are not yet completed. One pond hasconcrete lining, which prevents leaching. The four other lagoons arein various stages of completion. The water that is recycled through

7 In-kind payments are not unusual in post-Soviet countries. Southworth (2006)describes how a brick company in Russia paid its workers with bricks. In-kindpayments from a food company may be a more sustainable form of payment thanbricks. After all, there is a limit to how many bricks can be sold by the workersbefore the local market is saturated. However, workers can consume pork productsthemselves.

this filtration process can be reused to clean the barns. Reeds areplanted in the ponds to absorb the nutrients, and those reeds canthen be harvested regularly to be composted and used as green-manure fertilizer.

By separating the solid wastes during the barn cleaning process,the Hof Farm is able to generate 7300 tonnes/year of organic fertil-izer. The manure is composted for six months to one year before it isspread on fields. Fertilizer is applied at about 100 tonnes/hectarebefore fall plowing, which means that the farm is able to fertilizeapproximately 70 hectares of cropland each year. Since the Hof Farmusually does not plow before planting winter wheat and barleycrops, the fertilizer is applied only on fields that are plowed beforeplanting maize. However, a crop rotation on the fields means thatmost of the cropland is fertilized over the course of several years.

The environmental and production improvements have beendramatic. First, the farm no longer pumps 40,000 kg of waste per dayinto the Danube River. Second, the addition of composted organicmatter from swine waste has improved the soil structure and fertilityof the cropland (soil compaction was a serious problem during theSoviet era). Third, during years with good rainfall, maize yields haveincreased by as much as 20%.8 And these benefits persist even inyearswhen the soil is not fertilized. For example, the yields of barley andwinter wheat are 12% higher, even though that soil was fertilized ina previous year and a crop of maize had been harvested on it.

It is our contention that converting wastes into a production inputindicates the Hof Farm is moving towards ecologically modernproduction. Since the rural and development sociological researchpresents CAFOs as having a tendency to produce negative environ-mental externalities, we consider how the national and internationalpolicy context and local geographical factors might explain thisCAFO’s waste management practices. First, the CAFOs directors haveindicated that Bulgaria’s accession to the EU influenced their decisionto stop dumping swine wastes into the Danube River. However, theHof Farm still faces competition from US-based and other trans-national corporations. Therefore, it will be informative to consider theecologically modern tendencies of an EU nation’s policies relative tothe neo-liberal tendencies of the US. Second, the Rousse District’ssocial and natural conditions and the CAFO’s organizational structureand management motivations also merit attention.

Our case study will not allow us to make cause–effect claims orto offer generalizable conclusions. However, we contend that it ispossible to use a case study to highlight, as Becker (1940) describes,influential factors through the ‘‘purposive, planned selection,abstraction, combination, and (sometimes) accentuation of a set of

8 The yields would be consistently higher, but the irrigation system fell intodisrepair after the collapse of the Soviet system. The restoration of the watercooperatives that existed in Bulgaria prior to the Second World War may help toaddress this problem (Theesfeld and Boevsky 2005; Mitev et al. 2003). With watermanagement, they could grow more crops. According to the Brushlen ResearchStation, the soils and the continental semi-arid and temperate climate conditionsare favorable for winter wheat, barley, maize, soybeans and sunflowers, as well asvegetables, legumes, fiber crops, grapes and fruit trees.

WaterLagoon

WaterLagoon

Water

Water Lagoon

Lagoon

WaterLagoon

Solids separated

Hog Barns

Solids compostedfor fertilizer

Water reusedfor cleaning

Wastes cleanedfrom barn

Liquid wastetransferred

Vegetation onlagoons compostedfor fertilizer

Fig. 1. Hof Farm CAFO plan for waste management.

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criteria with empirical referents that serves as a basis for compar-ison of empirical cases .’’ (McKinney, 1966: 3). This methodenables us to develop theoretically informed variables from a casestudy that might be useful in guiding future empirical researchdirected at developing a sustainable rural development paradigm.

4. Geographic variation in the context of neo-liberal andecologically modern policies

Using a cross-national panel analysis, Jorgenson (2006) findsevidence that trade liberalization facilitates the commodification ofnatural systems, which enables developed countries to shift nega-tive outcomes of industrial production onto less developed coun-tries. Though an important finding, it does not explain thecomplexity of variations in ecological degradation, or socio-economic inequality, within industrialized nations. For example,several studies in the US have found that large corporations takeadvantage of uneven policies and economic inequality when citingtheir CAFOs, leading to a ‘‘geographic concentration of hogproduction’’ (Welsh et al., 2003: 227; see also Stretsky et al., 2003).Therefore, uneven geographic development does not only occur indeveloping or transitional countries. In this section, we describehow CAFOs vary between the EU and the US and discuss thesignificance of these geographic distinctions for Bulgaria.

To clarify these competing global political economic trends, wedevelop ideal typologies bycomparing the history and regulations ofCAFOs in the US and the Netherlands. Although the Netherlands hasyet to fully implement plans to promote environmentally benigneconomic growth, social scientists often refer to the Netherlands asone of a few nations that is favorable towards ecological moderni-zation (Dryzek, 2005). Meanwhile, the United States is often singledout as epitomizing neo-liberalism and as being especially resistantto scientific evidence of environmental problems and global treatiesthat would mitigate those problems (Dryzek, 2005). We recognizethat these characterizations should not be reified. The US is not

a pure form of neo-liberalism anymore than the Netherlands isa pure form of ecological modernization. However, ideal typesenable us to stress elements in the two nations that become usefulwhen considering national and international regulatory contextsthat affect Bulgarian swine production.

The Netherlands and US have taken starkly different approachesto regulating CAFOs, and both approaches are influencing Bulgaria’stransitional economy. Bulgaria faces a challenge as it strives to followthe advice of the World Bank and IMF to continue liberalizationwhile also making changes in accord with EU accession (Csaki et al.,2000; Creed, 1998). To that extent, globalization for Bulgaria repre-sents contradictory options typified by the US and the Netherlands.By joining the EU, Bulgaria is being pushed in the direction ofecologically modern policies, and it is subject to some of the sameecological policies as the Netherlands. But as a nation liberalizing itseconomy, Bulgaria is susceptible to neo-liberializing influences inthe form of enabling predatory transnational corporations seekinglocal production facilities in Eastern and Central European nations.Thus, the globalizing trends epitomized by the US and theNetherlands may not determine outcomes in Bulgaria, but they doindicate the potential trajectories for a Bulgarian CAFO. After pre-senting these potential trajectories, we consider how type ofindustry and firm, and local geography (social and biophysical) alsoinfluenced the particular trajectory of this Bulgarian CAFO.

As we have already indicated, the US has been recognized as theoriginator of neo-liberalism and CAFOs (Heffernan and Constance,1994). And research indicates that neo-liberal policies have beenconducive to negative externalities in areas with vulnerable pop-ulations. Welsh et al. (2003: 227) find that, in the US, large corpora-tions take advantage of uneven policies and economic inequalitywhen citing their CAFOs, leading to a ‘‘geographic concentration ofhog production.’’ Stretsky et al. (2003) found in a study of seventeenUS states that CAFOs tend to be concentrated in areas with highpercentages of minorities. This suggests that vulnerable populationsare less able to resist these LULUs. Bonanno (2006: 326) describes

11 We have been asked if population density explains the variation between CAFOpolicies in the US and the Netherlands. The assumption is that the US rural pop-ulation may be more tolerant of negative environmental externalities because thereis more open space for waste dumping. This assumption does not hold up withinthe US. Virginia and North Carolina are relatively densely populated states in theUS, and they happen to be where CAFOs first began to emerge. Neither Virginia norNorth Carolina is as densely populated as the Netherlands. However, Minnesota,

L.L. Glenna, G.V. Mitev / Journal of Rural Studies 25 (2009) 289–298 295

how, in the global neo-liberal context, CAFOs have shifted from whatwas first thought of as a ‘‘vector for the promotion of local socio-economic growth’’ into a mechanism that has ‘‘increased profits forfood producing corporations’’ and produced ‘‘overt environmentaldegradation and decreasing community well-being.’’ Some of thosesame US agribusinesses have sought to expand to Central and EasternEuropean nations (Juska and Edwards, 2004).

In keeping with the trend of global agrifood companies seekingareas of ‘‘low wages, low taxes, weak unions, lax regulatory regimes,high poverty rates, large minority populations, and relatively littlepolitical power .’’, Virginia-based Smithfield Foods purchased thePolish meat-packing conglomerate Aminex in April of 2000 with thegoal of developing a facility similar to the ones they had built in theUS (Juska and Edwards, 2004: 190). Although Aminex was valued at$550 million, Smithfield Foods secured it for $55 million in a hostiletake-over bid (Juska and Edwards, 2004; Ottaway, 2000). A coalitionof environmental activists in Washington, DC, and a Polish farmers’organization mobilized to fight the acquisition. The effort wasdeemed successful when, just ten months after the tour, SmithfieldFoods was forced to scale back its plans for the Aminex facility (Juskaand Edwards, 2004). However, despite the setback in Poland,Smithfield President Robert Sharpe claimed his company still plansto use ‘‘acquisitions to strengthen our presence to capitalize onmarketing opportunities to develop the protein marketplace inEastern Europe .’’ (Food Production Daily, 2005; Davis, 2005).

Bulgaria is not immune to these global sourcing trends. TheBulgarian newspaper Dnevnik (2005) reported that ChristensenFarms, the fifth largest pork producer in the United States, hasacquired a production facility in Bulgaria that would supply pork tothe EU and to the US. Seaboard Foods, the agribusiness conglom-erate and third largest hog producer in the US, purchased a wineryin Rousse, Bulgaria (Barlett and Steele, 2001). It may seek to expandinto CAFOs. The CEO of Smithfield Foods described his company’soutlook as ‘‘exciting times for Eastern Europe,’’ and his companyrecently established a facility in Romania, just north of Rousse(Freese, 2005). Thus, although the Hof Farm CAFO is locally owned,it is in competition with transnational corporations.

It is important to keep in mind that Bulgaria has not yet fullyliberalized its economy. Szelenyi (1998: 13) refers to the predilectionof many Central and Eastern European countries to forge ahead withliberalization after the collapse of socialism as ‘‘inverse Leninism,’’which reflects the idea that policy makers were more interested inpursuing the opposite of socialism than economic liberalization.Bulgaria adopted a series of laws in 1991 to liberalize land marketsand agricultural policies, but political and bureaucratic factors pre-vented complete implementation (Kostov and Lingard, 2002).Furthermore, many of the collective enterprises provided services tolocal people that were not necessarily profitable after privatization.When policy implementation began to threaten those otherservices, people resisted further privatization (Creed, 1998).

Although liberalization is incomplete, Bulgaria has becomevulnerable to exploitation by predatory companies. Bulgaria’s Ginicoefficient9 is similar to the Netherland’s (Table 1). However, thatcoefficient increased dramatically after the fall of the Soviet system.And the Rousse District has some of the highest unemployment inthe country.10 Like other Central and Eastern Europeans (WorldBank, 2002), Bulgarians are able to supplement their incomesthrough connections to family members who own small plots of

9 The Gini index measures the level of inequality among individuals andhouseholds in comparison to a perfectly equal distribution. A score of 0 wouldrepresent perfect equality and a score of 100 perfect inequality.

10 According to the Regional Governor of the Rousse District: http://ruse.e-gov.bg/gb/index.php.

land (Kostov and Lingard, 2002; Creed, 1998). Nevertheless, ruralBulgarians may be characterized as economically vulnerable. Andeconomically vulnerable populations are attractive to agribusi-nesses that produce negative externalities (Welsh et al., 2003;Stretsky et al., 2003; Juska and Edwards, 2004).

What may mitigate Bulgaria’s neo-liberalization is its accessionto the EU. As the US was failing to enforce regulations during the1980s and 1990s (Heffernan and Constance, 1994), the Netherlandswas intensifying and centralizing regulatory control, ‘‘particularlyin the areas of manure and mineral management and other aspectsof environmental pollution, animal health and welfare, and animalhygiene and prevention of outbreaks of disease’’ (Commandeur,2003: 3). Laws in the Netherlands to reduce nitrate, phosphorus,and other pollution threats require CAFOs to keep carefulaccounting records of the manure production and disposal. Viola-tions of the regulations are treated as criminal offenses (Brussardand Grossman, 1990; Schiffman et al., 1995).11

The different regulatory strategies for managing livestockwastes in the US and the Netherlands may account for the Ner-therlands’ slow growth in livestock production between 1979–1981and 2000–2002 (Table 1). The tough regulations in the Netherlandsare generating incentives to reduce pollution and to findcommercial applications for the manure, such as fertilizerproduction for sale in other countries (Brussard and Grossman,1990: 112; Hendriks and van de Weerdhof, 1999). However, theserestrictions have also hurt commercial viability of Dutch hogfarming (Wossink and Benson, 1999). Newspaper stories aboutDutch farmers moving to the US to escape regulations provideanecdotal evidence to confirm negative economic effects onfarmers (e.g. Sutherly et al., 2002; Slabaugh, 2004).

The EU has added another layer of strict regulations on top of theDutch laws. In March 2005, the European Commission filed a claimwith the European Court of Justice stating that the Dutch agriculturalregulations were failing to meet the standards of the EU’s nitratesdirective. The Commission accused the Netherlands of failing toadequately limit manure generation and for failing to levy high enoughfines to dissuade violations of the law (European Commission, 2000).

Although the Dutch and EU policies are more restrictive than USpolicies, and at least rhetorically favorable to ecological moderni-zation, there certainly is no guarantee that a nation joining the EUwill foster ecological modernization. Frouws and Mol (1997: 279)point to evidence suggesting that Dutch policies have not led to‘‘the ecological modernization of agriculture.’’ Gille (2000)contends that Hungary’s strategies for promoting the internaliza-tion of wastes in the production process were undermined when,after joining the EU, it adopted the assumption that markets weremore effective than state regulations at managing environmentalproblems. Andersen (2002: 1413) states that Central and EasternEuropean countries have experienced more ‘‘ecological subversion’’than ecological modernization since joining the EU. One might

Iowa, and Nebraska have low density populations compared to Virginia and NorthCarolina, and yet they have tougher anti-corporate farming laws that limit CAFOs.Texas has a relatively low population density and it is quite liberal toward CAFOs.However, the environmental threats from Texas CAFOs are immense becausea major aquifer lies beneath Texas. Population density simply does not explainvariation in regulations. We believe that the power of agribusiness relative tovulnerable populations is a better explanation than population density in predictingstrictness of CAFO regulations (e.g., Welsh et al., 2003; Stretsky et al., 2003).

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reasonably expect to find more cases of ecological modernization inEU member nations than in the US. However, it is too simple toassume that a particular set of political institutions and regulationswill yield ecological modernization (Andersen 2002).

This review suggests that although EU policies certainly mayhave an important influence on the Hof Farm CAFO practices,factors in addition to policies are also important. And facts aboutthe Hof Farm’s efforts to alter practices raise questions about theadequacy of relying on national and international policies toaccount for waste internalization. After all, once the regulationslimited the Hof Farm from dumping its wastes into the DanubeRiver, it still could have found other environmentally destructiveways to dispose of wastes. Accession to the EU alone does notaccount for its decision to internalize wastes.

5. Local social and biophysical factors

Unlike publicly traded global corporations, the Hof Farm isa locally owned cooperative. Large companies have beendescribed as being governed by the ‘‘tyranny of the bottom line,’’a phrase that refers to the fact that ‘‘Public companies need tocare for shareholders first’’ (Zimmerman, 2004). And there areexamples of this in agribusiness. Vellema (2004) describes howthe large agribiotechnology firm Monsanto was forced to seek outprotection from a large pharmaceutical company when Monsantocould not provide a return on investment fast enough forshareholders.

Lyson (2006: 300) notes that empirical studies ‘‘affirmed thesocial and economic benefits of small business on community lifeand the deleterious effects of big business .’’ And some argue thatcooperatives may be even more beneficial than locally ownedprivate companies. Mooney (2004: 96) argues that worker-ownedcooperatives are different because, rather than being forced torespond to global shareholders, their organizations create‘‘inherent structural ties to the local’’ that promote innovation,flexibility, and a long-term focus. Others claim that cooperativesserve as ‘‘economic development tools that can help a group ofproducers generate start-up capital, jobs, and tax revenues fora community’’ that ‘‘promote local economic and communitydevelopment’’ (Merrett and Walzer, 2004: xi–xii).

Cooperatives are not necessarily economically sustainable. Aslarge global corporations increase their market capitalization,a value-added cooperative becomes one of the few viable optionsfor local farmland owners to generate economic growth for theirlocal communities (Goldsmith, 2004: 180). Mooney (2004: 89)warns that this global context presents a threat to the long-termviability of the cooperative. Although worker-owned cooperativescreate structures that favor innovation, flexibility, and a long-term focus on serving local needs, they may expand theirenterprises ‘‘beyond their locale of origin’’ when they compete orinteract with publicly traded global agribusinesses (Mooney,2004: 89). When they expand their operations, cooperatives tendto take on the organizational structures of and become vulner-able to being purchased by global agribusinesses.12 Mooney(2004) contends that cooperatives need to maintain a focus onsocial and political goals, in addition to economic efficiency, toremain sustainable.

Bulgarian cooperatives tend to have a local focus and to followa different conception of economic efficiency than US cooperatives.

12 For example, the Minnesota Corn Processors cooperative was recentlypurchased by Archer Daniels Midland. The farmers who sold their shares to ADMclaimed that, as a global company, ADM could survive through market fluctuations,whereas the farmers in the cooperative needed money during a down year (Losure,2002).

During a site visit and interview (May 17, 2005) with the executivedirector of a dairy cooperative in the Rousse District, the directorexplained that the dairy had lost money for several consecutiveyears. When we asked why he had not closed the dairy operationand focused on the profitable vegetable production and processingbranches of the cooperative, he seemed surprised by the question.He explained that closing the dairy operation would mean thatbetween fifteen and twenty people would be out of work. For theBulgarian cooperative, efficiency is defined as employing as manypeople as possible with available profits, not reducing the numbersof workers to maximize dividends to the owners. When we askedthe Hof Farm Cooperative director about this, she stated that heroperation adhered to the same concept of efficiency.

Another important local social factor is the agricultural university.The 1990 law that led to the restructuring of Bulgaria’s universitysystem has been described as necessary for generating civil societyinstitutions that can address political, ecological, and technical issues(Boyadjieva, 2000). That is occurring in a practical way as RousseUniversity is playing a central role in helping the Hof Farm update itsmanure management technology and in training future business andpolitical leaders in the region. Rousse University worked with CornellUniversity to develop a new master’s degree curriculum on RegionalEconomic Development. In addition to introducing students to newtechnologies, strategies of management, and EU funding sources, oneof the courses in this new curriculum included a case study of thesocioeconomic and ecological conditions and regulations that willaffect the Hof Farm CAFO.

A serious biophysical problem in Bulgaria, soil depletion, alsoserves as an incentive for internalizing wastes back into theproduction process. Many Central and Eastern European countriesfaced problems of soil and water nutrient pollution during the Sovietera. After the transition, the problem changed to one of soil nutrientdepletion, because few farmers could afford fertilizer (Sumeliuset al., 2005). Fertilizer consumption plummeted in Bulgaria after thetransition (Table 1). Comparing Bulgaria’s fertilizer consumptionand arable land per capita to the same measures in the Netherlandsand the US is illustrative. Although fertilizer consumption in theNetherlands is still very high, it has dropped dramatically in the pasttwo decades. Fertilizer consumption in the US has held steady. WithBulgaria’s large amount of arable land and its dramatic drop infertilizer consumption, it becomes a more appropriate place than theNetherlands for utilizing organic fertilizer from CAFOs.

As we noted earlier, the lack of fertilizer was an importantreason for the Hof Farm managers’ decision to recycle hog wastes.This has provided benefits for the soil and improved yields. Thethin, porous soils in the Rousse District are conducive to leaching ofphosphorus and nitrates into the underground water streams thatrun from the Balkan Mountains to the Black Sea. However, with theproper manure management techniques in place, the CAFO can bemore ecologically sound than a collection of diffuse, small livestockoperations.

6. Conclusion

Research on trends in globalization and CAFOs has been criti-cized for conflating globalization and neo-liberalism, for treatingglobalization as exogenous and inexorable, and for ignoring the roleof local social and biophysical factors. Meanwhile, locally focused,actor-oriented research has also been criticized for not adequatelyconsidering the influences of global structures and trends. Marsden(2004) argues that the shortcomings of both might be overcomethrough the development of theoretical concepts drawn fromrecent rural and development sociological studies of global neo-liberalism and ecological modernization. Following his lead, wehave used a case study of a swine CAFO in rural Bulgaria to highlight

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factors influencing ecologically modern aspects of an agriculturalenterprise within a globalizing context.

Recent studies on globalization and ecological modernizationacknowledge the unsustainable socioeconomic and ecologicaltendencies that global capitalism presents. But some of thesestudies also recognize that variation in the global regulatorycontext, in local socio-economic and biophysical conditions, and infirm organizational and management characteristics can influencethe social and ecological outcomes of an economic enterprise. Thechallenge is to develop explanations to account for how thesefactors might explain geographically uneven consequences.

An analytical development in ecological modernization, whichemphasizes the practical (internalization of wastes) over thepolitical, is useful for explaining geographical variation. We applythis to our case study by conceptualizing two distinct types of ruralagricultural development. Neo-liberal development tends towardsthe externalization of waste while ecologically modern develop-ment tends towards the internalization of waste. The Hof FarmCAFO becomes intriguing within this conceptual frameworkbecause its efforts to internalize wastes indicate that it is moving ina different direction than trends in industrialization of animalproduction. We sought to explain this unusual move for a CAFO byconsidering its waste management practices within the context ofnational and international policies and within the context of localsocial and biophysical conditions.

We found that one reason the Hof Farm is internalizing itswastes is because they face stricter regulations as Bulgaria accedesto the European Union, which reflects the influence of globalecological modernization. Specifically in this case, a companywithin an EU member state cannot continue to dump hog wastes inthe Danube River. However, we also found that this regulationalone does not account for the change in waste managementpractices. What may be as important as EU policies in influencingthe Hof Farm CAFO is a set of local factors. As a cooperative, the HofFarm managers are focused on increasing profits to improve workerpay and to expand employment opportunities, rather than toincrease profits for shareholders. As a result, they are not opposedto labor-intensive waste management strategies. And because ofthe local soil conditions, they are seeking new strategies to inte-grate wastes into the production process because it will enablethem to improve crop yields. Furthermore, the director’s commit-ment to flexibility and innovation has led the Hof Farm to seek outcollaborations with Rousse University. The Bulgarian cooperativestructure, the opportunity to work with the local agriculturaluniversity, and the lack of crop fertilizers make the adoption ofmore ecologically sound waste management approaches a reason-able approach.

We argue that these findings support a theoretical distinctionbetween global neo-liberalism and global ecological modernizationand indicate a need to consider local social and biophysicalconditions. Though we cannot generalize from our findings, theyhighlight global and local variables that might serve as a frameworkfor future comparative research. That research might compare, forexample, agricultural enterprises in Central and Eastern Europeannations that are EU members with other Central and EasternEuropean nations that are not EU members and that have differentlocal social and biophysical conditions.

In addition to our hesitation to generalize from our single casestudy, we recognize the need for caution when considering thelong-term viability of this rural development effort. It is importantto take seriously the scholarship on global neo-liberalism andCAFOs (e.g. McMichael, 2008; Bonanno, 2006). Transnationalagribusinesses use global sourcing to cut costs and have significantpolitical power. These global economic conditions may limit thecapacity of a small cooperative to provide rural development.

Furthermore, it is necessary to consider how various local strategiesto resist neo-liberalism may merely lead to ‘‘tolerable’’ livingconditions without necessarily leading to sustainable rural devel-opment (Smith and Rochovska, 2007). Despite these caveats, thisstudy demonstrates that, even in an increasingly unsustainableglobal agrifood system, it is possible that a swine CAFO, under theright conditions, can contribute to ecologically modern ruraldevelopment.

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