Alternative Paths to Food Security - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 215

Resistance to acceptance of SRI, and of agroecology more generally, can be attrib-
uted to contending interests or cognitive factors . The latter often correlate with the first
set of influences, but each is distinguishable and worth considering in its own right.
Commitment to ideas can be a powerful motivation that shapes behavior as much as
material interests do. Often the two can be enmeshed, of course. Yet they should not be
conflated where their respective influences can be delineated.
Individual Considerations
Scientists in all domains, not just in agriculture, are known to have personal ambitions
and competitive drives that contribute to the acceptance or rejection of new theories
or inventions. The “not invented here” syndrome, an unwillingness to adopt an idea or
product because it originates elsewhere, is a common phenomenon. This can derive
simply from pride, but financial interests can also be involved. Several rice scientists
who dismissed SRI as based on “unconfirmed field observations” (UFOs), and who
argued that SRI should not be investigated, expressed concern about possible competi-
tion for the funding of rice research (Sinclair 2004; Sinclair and Cassman 2004). A rea-
sonable inference is that the disparagement and dismissal of SRI was prompted at least
in part by perceived financial stakes.
These could be just individual concerns, however. At a higher level, the emergence
of SRI has been a challenge to the professions and institutions of rice research, and for
agricultural research in general, because the ideas and methods of SRI were developed
by an amateur, not a professional, someone working on his own without sponsorship or
funding (Laulanié 1993).2 That a priest could develop insights that eluded thousands of
well-funded researchers could be taken as an affront by some scientists.
There have been, to be sure, a number of agronomists who welcomed this contribu-
tion from outside their institutional domain, and who proceeded to contribute to a sci-
entific understanding of SRI (e.g., Lin et al. 2009; Mishra and Salokhe 2008; Stoop and
Kassam 2005; Tao et al. 2002; Thakur, Uphoff, and Antony 2010; Wang et al. 2002; Zhao
et al. 2009; Zhu et al. 2002). Given the focuses of this article, we should not dwell on
explanations at the personal level, even if they have some plausibility and merit. There
are some higher-level systemic implications for the food and agriculture sector from
considering an agroecological innovation such as SRI. Cognitive and political influ-
ences at the societal level usually operate more pervasively, beyond the lower-level inter-
sections of personal and institutional interests.
Higher-Level Considerations
The term “paradigm” is used often in the humanities and social sciences, as well as in the
physical sciences (Kuhn 1962), but not so often in the agricultural sciences. Yet it is very
relevant for an understanding of changes that occur in agriculture and food production
in broader social and political terms. The concepts, criteria, methods, and objectives