Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
munity, and if more than one bad decision is made, he or she may have
to seek work in another field. Public extensionists are also likely to err
on the side of caution and prescribe a pesticide. New PCAs have few
incentives to reduce pesticide recommendations. They know that a bad
reputation is much more difficult to repair than a questionable pesticide
recommendation. The legal status of the PCA industry in California
exposes PCAs to significantly more risk than field men in other states.
Affiliated PCAs receive “errors and omissions” liability insurance
through their employers, a legal protection that independent PCAs
cannot afford.
Critics of affiliated PCAs claim they serve less of a link to UC knowl-
edge and more as a filter, passing along information dependent on agro-
chemical use and screening out agroecological knowledge. Affiliated
PCAs have been dogged by controversy—especially conflict of interest
charges—since passage of the law that created them. Robert van den
Bosch indicted them as members of the “pesticide mafia,” but efforts to
legislate a separation of pest-control recommendation and pesticide sales
have not succeeded.
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Conventional wisdom among partnership leaders
says that independent PCAs promote IPM or strategies based more on
agroecological knowledge than PCAs affiliated with chemical sales com-
panies. This is often, but not always the case. Independent PCAs also are
paid on a piecework basis, per acre instead of per pesticide. Critics of
independent PCAs observe that they too prescribe pesticides in lieu of
properly checking a field. Both affiliated and independent PCAs resist
additional knowledge-intensive practices, perceiving them to be risky for
growers and PCAs, although independent PCAs appear to have more
confidence reading ecological data in the field.
Affiliated PCAs recognize the social and political risks of their indus-
try's association with pesticides. They insist their industry is environmen-
tally responsible, and express this forcefully, with talking points
developed by the affiliated PCA trade organization, the California
Agricultural Production Consultants Association. They acknowledge
that selling pesticides is a controversial activity, but they insist they do so
because they are agricultural professionals dedicated to the well-being of
“our growers.” They express concern that partnerships are promoting
practices that ask them to do more and be compensated less, and they
point out that these practices increase the risks posed to growers.
