Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
develop their own pest-management strategy whole plant/insect system.
In practice, some BIOS staff did not effectively communicate the full
range of risks, or facilitated field days that failed to do so. Some Farm
Advisors attacked BIOS for promoting “anecdotal” information. BIOS
publications promoted UC-generated agroecological knowledge on such
things as cover crops, monitoring, early harvest, and sanitation, but in
the eyes of many Farm Advisors this could not redeem the partnership
from the sin of presenting information that was not universally true.
Agroecology in Agricultural Partnerships
Putting agroecology into action begins with mobilizing organisms—
including humans—into new patterns of relationships guided by ecolog-
ical knowledge in particular places. For agroecological strategies to
succeed, participants first have to be motivated to seek alternatives to
chemical-intensive farming. They demand different types of knowledge,
ranging from the theoretical to the practical. These kinds of knowledge
depend on the kind of social learning narrated above.
Farming systems are not static, but rather dynamic across time and
space, and to manage them with agroecological strategies and practices
require an adaptive approach.
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Agroecological learning binds people
more closely to nature and its ecological organisms and relationships.
The careful observation and monitoring necessary to manage these
organisms and relationships is labor intensive. Growers and scientists
have to invest more in gathering site-specific and time-specific agroeco-
logical knowledge. Agroecological initiatives seek to replace the potency
of technology, chiefly agrochemicals, with the vitality of living organ-
isms. Partnerships conceptualize bio-diversification and its synergistic
benefits within the context of economic monoculture. Bio-diversification
in California means the introducing and management of the beneficial
organisms, chiefly cover crops and natural enemies, although in other
initiatives, such as intensive rotational grazing, agrobiodiversity is man-
aged in other ways (e.g., pasture plants). As growers remove ecologically
disruptive and hazardous organophosphates from farming systems, they
are presented with new opportunities to manage ecological organisms
and relationships. This approach can be effective, but is generally less
predictable than manufactured technologies. Few of the growers, the
