Another Technoscience is Possible: Agricultural Lessons for the Posthumanities

edited by Gabriela Mendez Cota

Introduction

When Foucault introduced the concept of biopolitics he referred to a historically specific power agenda involving a particular approach to life. This approach was at the root of the modern sciences of biology and political economy, both of which set out to describe, explain and manage their objects of study as abstract processes of production and reproduction. Agricultural science must be situated in relation to the biopolitical agenda of 'applying' the modern scientific approach to the management of social life. The scientification of agriculture took place in the United States towards the end of the 19th century through a process that entailed both a delegitimation of farmer-generated knowledges and the production of new, modern subjectivities. As farmers became entrepreneurs in need of scientific education and advice, newly trained agronomists devoted themselves to designing fertilizers, pesticides and hybrid seeds with the goal of maximizing yields. Public institutions were created which coordinated agricultural production with both science and trade policy. Agricultural science was thus inseparable from the process which transformed much of US agriculture into transnational agribusiness, and local farming networks all over the world into consumer endpoints of a globalized food industry. More

Another Technoscience... within Technoscience

1. Alison G. Power

Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies

2. Acácio A. Navarrete, Fabiana S. Cannavan, Rodrigo G. Taketani and Tsiu M. Tsai

A Molecular Survey of the Diversity of Microbial Communities in Different Amazonian Agricultural Model Systems

3. Wagner Bettiol, Raquel Ghini, José Abrahao Haddad Galvao, Marcos Antônio Vieira Ligo and Jeferson Luiz de Carvhalo Mineiro

Soil Organisms in Organic and Conventional Cropping Systems

4. Vincent Thieu, Gilles Billen, Josette Garnier and Marc Benoît

Nitrogen Cycling in a Hypothetical scenario of Generalised Organic Agriculture in the Seine, Somme and Scheldt Watersheds

5. Chengyun Li, Xiahong He, Shusheng Zhu, Huiping Zhou, Yunyue Wang, Yan Li, Jing Yang, Jinxiang Fan, Jincheng Yang, Guibin Wang, Yunfu Long, Jiayou Xu, Yongsheng Tang, Gaohui Zhao, Jiangrong Yang, Lin Liu, Yan Sun, Yong Xie, Haining Wang and Youyong Zhu

Crop Diversity for Yield Increase

6. Samuel Kilonzo Mutiga, Linnet S. Gohole and Elmada O. Auma

Agronomic Performance of Collards under Two Intercrops and Varying Nitrogen Application Levels as Assessed Using Land Equivalent Ratios

7. Ricardo Antonio Marenco and Ávila Maria Bastos Santos

Crop Rotation Reduces Weed Competition and Increases Chlorophyll Concentration and Rice Yield

8. Cristina A. Faria, Felix L. Wäckers, Jeremy Pritchard, David A. Barrett, Ted C. J. Turlings

High Susceptibility of Bt Maize to Aphids Enhances the Performance of Parasitoids of Lepidopteran Pests

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