Strawberry fields forever? Conflict over neo-productivist Spanish polytunnel technology in British agriculture

• Plastic Spanish polytunnels are a technology of neo-productivist British agriculture.
• UK growers can now compete on the supermarket-driven global strawberry market.
• The appearance of polytunnels in rural communities has caused bitter conflict.
• Planners are identified as the ‘strawberry tools’ for exercising weak regulation.
• Polytunnels allow glimpses of likely future conflicts from agricultural technologies.

This paper uses the example of Spanish polytunnels to demonstrate how the deployment of ‘neo-productivist’ agricultural technologies to meet the demands of food security and sustainability within a globalised food chain is likely to precipitate greater countryside conflict. Field-scale ‘Spanish polytunnels’ for strawberry growing have become a new feature of the British agricultural landscape. This has been driven primarily by supermarkets searching for high quality and quantity supplies of soft fruit. With production becoming industrialised, conflict has ensued in some rural communities where polytunnels have appeared. Interviews with prominent strawberry growers and protestors against polytunnels illuminate a vociferous and embittered wrangle. Within it, land use planners are labelled as ‘strawberry fools’ by both sides for failing, until recently, to provide decisive regulation to prevent conflict and effect its resolution. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the future characteristics of conflicts precipitated as new agricultural technologies are implemented rapidly, impact unevenly and are received acrimoniously.

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