‘I don't fertilise quite like that’: Mediating and distancing capacities of nutrient records at Finnish farms

Abstract

Farmers are increasingly required to record the actions taken and incidents occurring at farms. They are also expected to use the records to prove that animal welfare and environmental regulations are being followed. Yet, research suggests that record keeping disturbs, rather than supports, farming practices. The policy benefits are also suspected to be scarce. In this paper, we argue that the potential of records to act as useful calculative resources has been overlooked. The Finnish case study shows that recording nutrient use can allow fertilisation practices to be guided by water protection concerns. However, on some farms the requirement to keep nutrient records has been responded in ways that draws a distance between farms and regulatory control. The alignment of farm life and the recording requirements has followed different trajectories from one farm to another. Some farmers contest the science behind the fertilisation limits. Farms may also be poorly equipped to live with the limits that the records make visible. Optimal fertilisation then ceases to be an issue that can be solved by additional calculative support. Instead, record keeping indicates political divisions.