Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
advisors were at pains to say that their environmentalist sensibilities were
in balance with other considerations:
CRH:
Do you think of yourself as an environmentalist . . . ?
GrapeAdv:
I think those principles of being concerned about what you're
doing—if you want to call that an environmentalist—I guess when you say
environmentalist a lot of people would have a different view of what that
may potentially be.
CRH:
People out there chaining themselves to trees?
GrapeAdv:
I'm not out there chaining myself to someone's spray rigs so
they won't spray a pesticide. [CRH laughs.] That's what a lot of people
have envisioned as environmentalists, that they're a bunch of crazies. But
I think if your defi nition is someone who is concerned about what is hap-
pening . . . I guess yeah. We have a lot of words like that that mean differ-
ent things to a lot of different people [laughs].
CRH:
So, do you think of yourself as an environmentalist?
PlantPath:
I suppose so, although those are loaded terms in the political
world. I'm not an environmentalist in the true sense of the science. I'm a
plant pathologist, and to me an environmentalist in the science world is
more systems-oriented in their research. But if you are referring to the
political term of someone who is promoting and defending the environ-
ment, certainly, I share those concerns and would put myself in that circle,
in that broader sense. [By] the same token, I'm not really an activist—I
choose not to be too involved politically and actively in terms of those
issues.
In both cases, the advisors recognized themselves as environmentalists
but were careful to avoid a defi nition of the term that was overtly political.
Each framed his environmental conscience as an agenda that did not cross
into protest or other forms of public statement. The key strategy for advi-
sors is to frame their concerns about agriculture's environmental impact
as balanced, sensitive to each side of an issue but giving full allegiance to
neither:
GrapeAdv:
Yeah, [environmental issues] are a big concern. I think we do
get drawn in—sometimes, they can be somewhat political issues. But if
you're drawn in, you're drawn in as kind of an unbiased source. Not too
long ago [the county] had some concerns about [farming on] hillsides. And