Emergence of Agrarian Prosumer (AP)

This study aims to bring out the concept of an emergent actor of “Agrarian Prosumer (AP)” in the era of consumerist and/or post-Fordist productivist society of agriculture and food. In order to do this, we will focus on the process of “immaterial production” in a closer relationship between producers and consumers with a Korean case study, Hansalim cooperatives. While most of the members just enroll for the purpose of relieving food safety concerns, some have emerged as engaging in (re-)producing knowledge, information, communication and affection between the urban and the rural.
    Actors of Agrarian Prosumer (AP), first and foremost, enlarge the scope of agricultural production mode through their immaterial labors which represent a reciprocal understanding, mutual learning and caring for the rural. Not just do urban consumers constitute the actor, but rural farmers play a significant role in awaking their potentiality as a producer and empowering them as a subjective agent. Interestingly, they have transformed the local and organic food-scape through a growing attention to their immaterial labors rather than stick to the food quality itself.
    In the sense of opening a new production mode beyond the geographical local and environmental organic, the product, which AP actors produce, would be considered “lorcanic” (local + organic) food. This paper concludes with mentioning the political project of AP actors by creating or revitalizing a “space of intimacy” between the urban and the rural.