Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
surroundings.
64
An unknown number of herbivorous insects and para-
sites ''hitch-hiked'' aboard the introduced plants. By the 1880s, farmers
regularly reported losses due to pests, including Phylloxera vastatrix, a
tiny insect that damaged the roots of grape vines. In 1886, a University of
California researcher succeeded in grafting susceptible European vines to
the roots of resistant grape varieties found in the eastern United States.
ThistechniquecontrolledtheeconomicdamagescausedbyPhylloxerabut
compelled growers to incur considerable replanting costs. Subsequently,
the state of California assumed an increasingly active role in controlling
the introduction of plants to California and funding research focused on
crop pests.
65
Although multiple pest control methods, including the introduction
of both resistant plants and ''beneficial'' insects, achieved some spectacu-
lar successes in California, most orchardists turned to chemical sprays for
pest control in the early twentieth century. Steven Stoll suggests that a
preferenceforchemicalcontrolswaslinkedtotheirrapidandbroadkilling
power: ladybugs might be effective in controlling only one or two kinds
of insect herbivores, but early chemical controls tended to eliminate—
temporarily—a wide range of insects. Assisted by both researchers at the
UniversityofCaliforniaandprivatechemicalmanufacturers,fruitgrowers
turned to lead arsenate and other chemical compounds for pest control
nearly thirty years before United Fruit started applying copper sulfate to
control Sigatoka. A handful of studies in the 1910s raised concerns about
the accumulation of soluble arsenic in orchard soils, but the economic
growth that the fruit industry enjoyed at that time muted such criticisms
in much the same way that United Fruit's profits during the same time
period drowned out criticism of its production practices.
66
The rapid and massive expansion of single-variety production, com-
bined with an increase in the circulation of plant material, resulted in
epidemics of plant pathogens and outbreaks of herbivores and parasites
in many of the export sectors examined here, including bananas, citrus,
grapes, and sugar.
67
Diseases and pests appear to have played a minor
role in Latin American coffee production, whose history cautions against
adopting explanatory models that assume a direct relationship between
expanding monovarietal production and crop plant disease epidemics.
Governments, growers' associations, and corporations responded to the
threats posed by pathogens and pests in a broadly similar fashion that
included sponsoring scientific research focused on reducing economic
losses. Although much attention has been given to the development and
use of synthetic pesticides, the breeding and distribution of crop plant
