Food systems

Contributing institution: University of California at DavisPreviously hosted as part of Mann Library's Locale collection

The relevance of Regional Political Ecology for agriculture and food systems

The region as a concept continues to hold promise as a way of breaking through the many binaries that often divide political ecology. Operationalizing a regional political ecology approach allows the researcher to generate a large number of insights and conclusions that a more narrow disciplinary (disciplined) focus and non-scalar approach would miss; this is because important biophysical and social processes intersect with each another and work together to produce and/or mediate important outcomes for human and environmental well-being. The article draws on a number of cases to examine what comparison of political ecological research between regions could look like. I argue for a reinvigorated relationship between regional political ecology as an approach and agrifood systems as the object of study, and pose questions that can help shape this endeavor. Keywords: regional political ecology, regional comparisons, network political ecology, agriculture, food systems, agroecolog

"It just goes to kill Ticos": national market regulation and the political ecology of farmers' pesticide use in Costa Rica

This paper addresses pesticide residues on vegetables in developing countries through the specific case of Costa Rica.  Pesticide residues are often very high on vegetables in developing countries, generally considerably higher than in industrialized countries.  Using a political ecology approach, I combine qualitative and quantitative primary data with secondary data to answer two questions.  Why do farmers use pesticides in a manner that results in high levels of residues on vegetables?  And, how do markets with unequal regulatory strength affect farmers' pesticides use, and, by inference, the resulting exposure of different populations fed by different market segments?  While usually attributed to farmer ignorance, I argue that the pesticide residue problem arises from a triad of causes: higher efficacy of more residual and toxic pesticides, combined with many vegetables' biological trait of consecutive harvests, and a volatile vegetable market upon which farm household reproduction depends.  With high input costs and low farm gate prices, farmers in markets with minimal regulation will use more residual and toxic pesticides.  Using the idea of a double standard, I show that lax regulation in the open national market means that farmers are less cautious about residues on national market produce than export produce, and that some export farmers use the open national market as an outlet for their produce when they use highly residual pesticides.  Uneven regulations between North and South are manifested in farmer's management decisions, and lead to the injustice of higher residues in developing country vegetables. Keywords: pesticide residues; pesticide use; uneven regulation; Costa Rica; developing countries; national market vegetables; export vegetables; environmental injustic