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Pesticide Reforms and Globalization: Making the Farmers Responsible

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Alan Hall
Alan Hall
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Windsor
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Abstract

This paper examines a regulative shift in Canadian pesticide legislation which directs attention away from the agrichemical companies to individual farmers as the focus for preventing pesticide pollution. There are three parts to the analysis, each of which makes a particular connection between the globalization of agriculture and the development of the new regulative approach and discourse. The shift is first understood as a way in which agribusiness was able to resist environmentalist demands for increased control over the corporate promotion and development of pesticides. The link between the ideologies of globalization and agriculture's strategic responses to the environmentalist pressures are examined. The second part of the analysis looks at the broader restructuring of Canadian agricultural production and market relations to show how the intensification of agriculture within globalization helped to create significant political-economic crises within agriculture. It is argued that the policy and regulative focus on pesticide use practices and pesticide users was partly an effort to deal with these crises and the pressures to accumulate. Finally, the analysis looks at the link between globalization and the strategies and ideologies of the environmental and health movements.

Résumé

L'auteur de cet article se penche sur la nouvelle orientation adoptée dans la législation en matière de pesticides, législation qui tend à mettre davantage l'accent sur la responsabilité des agriculteurs dans la prévention de la pollution par les pesticides que sur celle des sociétés qui les fabriquent. L'analyse comporte trois parties, dont chacune tente d'établir le lien entre la globalisation du secteur de l'agriculture et l'élaboration d'une nouvelle conception de la réglementation et d'un nouveau discours. Cette nouvelle orientation s'est d'abord voulue un moyen adopté par les fabricants de pesticides pour déjouer les pressions exercées sur les fabricants par les groupes écologistes prônant un contrôle plus strict de la composition des pesticides et de leur utilisation. L'auteur examine le lien existant entre la globalisation et les stratégies mises en œuvre par le secteur de l'agriculture pour faire face aux pressions des écologistes. Dans la deuxième partie, l'auteur étudie le rapport entre la profonde restructuration des modes de production agricole au Canada et celle du marché en vue de démontrer comment l'intensification de la production dans un contexte de globalisation a engendré d'importantes crises de nature politique et économique dans le secteur de l'agriculture. Selon l'auteur, la politique et la législation, en mettant l'accent sur le mode d'utilisation des pesticides et les utilisateurs eux-mêmes, visaient, en partie, non seulement à résoudre ces crises mais également à faire face aux besoins pressants d'accumuler. Enfin, l'auteur analyse le lien entre la globalisation et les stratégies et principes appliqués par les mouvements écologistes et de promotion de la santé.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Spring/printemps 1998 , pp. 187 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1998

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