Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
These five are general to deploying agroecological initiatives in industrial
agricultural systems. Any initiative to extend agroecology in America
will have to deploy these five strategies to be successful, while helping
growers shift their perception of risk.
Partnerships Facilitate Agroecological Learning
All partnerships try to facilitate agroecological learning, and all but a
few of them have created a semi-formal process to enroll growers and
pest-control advisors. The process of engaging growers—recruiting them
and their participation in social learning—is absolutely critical to mak-
ing progress toward agroecological goals. The variability in enrollment
strategies reveals the assumptions partnership leaders hold about how
growers behave and what motivates them. All 32 partnerships facilitated
agroecological learning, and 30 devised structured social learning
processes. Twenty-nine formally enrolled growers in the partnership and
arranged for them to dedicate at least one orchard block/field for more
than one year. Twenty-five required growers to devise comparison
orchard blocks/fields.
The configuration of social learning and grower incentives varies by
the biophysical nature of commodity production and the granting pro-
grams that fund partnerships. The understanding of enrollment varied by
partnership, ranging from grower-led discovery learning to simply per-
mitting pesticide trials to be conducted on their fields. 12 BIOS pioneers
developed the formalized social learning process of grower-designated
comparison blocks with a mix of practices selected from a menu by the
grower. Partnerships create spaces for intensifying existing relationships
by focusing social learning toward agreed-upon agroecological goals.
Facilitating a shift in risk perception among growers has been critical to
partnership success.
Three examples from the three pioneer partnerships illustrate
the diverse meanings of enrollment. Doug Hemly enrolled other pear
growers in the Randall Island Project informally, with only a verbal
agreement, yet growers knew they were participating in experimental
research on a field scale, and exposing their crop to some risk.
Pheromone mating disruption requires the commitment of an entire con-
tiguous block, and thus comparison blocks are generally inappropriate.
 
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