Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Conclusion
Pat Weddle observes that new technologies such as synthetic pheromones
are impacting farming faster than its traditional agriculture science sup-
port institutions can respond. Agricultural technologies—many of them
designed to replace organophosphates and other problematic agrochem-
icals—are being commercialized before they can be researched.
Agriculture may or may not be saved by these technologies, but it
certainly is being assaulted by them. Some of them are legitimate, but
without field trials and knowledge networks, how can growers know
whether or not they offer a real economic benefit? Agroecological part-
nerships are a chief strategy for connecting the extra level of expert
knowledge with the practical knowledge of growers.
Previous chapters have described partnership participants and the
kinds of practices deployed. This chapter has illustrated the dynamics of
knowledge exchange, and allowed us to compare different strategies for
configuring these networks. All draw from a mix of basic and applied
knowledge, and all address environmental impacts using agroecological
strategies and practices. Each commodity has its distinct history of social
relations, but sustained efforts require the participation of all categories
of participants. All have critical roles in circulating knowledge through
Latour's model of science. As this chapter has demonstrated, there is no
one right way to organize these networks. They emerge to fill gaps in
agroecological knowledge systems. Networks evolve through stages, just
as partnerships shape commodity knowledge systems in stages. (See
chapter 3.)
Agroecological partnerships draw from and apply knowledge gener-
ated by California's pre-existing science networks. Partnership networks
articulate basic, laboratory-derived knowledge with field application.
Pheromone-based partnerships in particular require sophisticated techni-
cal skills, and the economic advantage of these technologies must be
clear enough to justify the additional expense of this expertise.
Partnerships build on existing networks and extend them by generating
and sharing knowledge. Their configurations manifest theories of change
held by partnership leaders by making one or more sets of actors the
focus of additional knowledge support. Network analysis explains how
partnerships engage actors in the multiplicity of their relationships and
