A new critical social science research agenda on pesticides

The global pesticide complex has transformed over the past two decades, but social science research has not kept pace. The rise of an enormous generics sector, shifts in geographies of pesticide production, and dynamics of agrarian change have led to more pesticide use, expanding to farm systems tha...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agriculture and human values 2024-06, Vol.41 (2), p.395-412
Main Authors: Mansfield, Becky, Werner, Marion, Berndt, Christian, Shattuck, Annie, Galt, Ryan, Williams, Bryan, Argüelles, Lucía, Barri, Fernando Rafael, Ishii, Marcia, Kunin, Johana, Lapegna, Pablo, Romero, Adam, Caicedo, Andres, Abhigya, Castro-Vargas, María Soledad, Marquez, Emily, Ojeda, Diana, Ramirez, Fernando, Tittor, Anne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agrarian structures
Agricultural Economics
Agricultural Ethics
Agricultural practices
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Agrochemicals
Civil society
Development Studies
Discussion Piece
Education
Environmental Sociology
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Pesticide resistance
Pesticides
Philosophy
Resistance
Science
Social networks
Social research
Social sciences
Sustainable Development
System effectiveness
Toxicity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The global pesticide complex has transformed over the past two decades, but social science research has not kept pace. The rise of an enormous generics sector, shifts in geographies of pesticide production, and dynamics of agrarian change have led to more pesticide use, expanding to farm systems that hitherto used few such inputs. Declining effectiveness due to pesticide resistance and anemic institutional support for non-chemical alternatives also have driven intensification in conventional systems. As an inter-disciplinary network of pesticide scholars, we seek to renew the social science research agenda on pesticides to better understand this suite of contemporary changes. To identify research priorities, challenges, and opportunities, we develop the pesticide complex as a heuristic device to highlight the reciprocal and iterative interactions among agricultural practice, the agrochemical industry, civil society-shaped regulatory actions, and contested knowledge of toxicity. Ultimately, collaborations among social scientists and across the social and biophysical sciences can illuminate recent transformations and their uneven socioecological effects. A reinvigorated critical scholarship that embraces the multifaceted nature of pesticides can identify the social and ecological constraints that drive pesticide use and support alternatives to chemically driven industrial agriculture.
ISSN:0889-048X
1572-8366
DOI:10.1007/s10460-023-10492-w