conceptualizing agriculture-environment relations : combining political economy and socio-cultural...

CONCEPTUALIZING AGRICULTURE - ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS Combining Political Economy and Socio-Cultural Approaches to Pesticide Pollution

NEIL WARD and RICHARD MUNTON"

Introduction

The environmental problems of modern agriculture are an indictment of much of the technology it uses, but despite widespread recognition of the problems governments have often been slow to take effective regulatory action. There are good practical as well as political reasons for this. In particular, regulation is made more difficult by farmers contin- ually adjusting their farming practices in response to changing business and family circumstances. Farmers are not 'inert' or passive actors in the process of agricultural restructuring. Even if the general relations between the nature of agricultural technology and the system of environmental regulation may be socially and institutionally determined in larger political arenas, the trade-off between the two is worked out in practice on farms (Lowe et al. 1990). The changing social and economic circumstances of each farm constantly mediate the relationship between the use of particular techniques and regulation of the particular environmental consequences these may have.

The need to understand farm level processes of change is increasing because of a series of changes to policies affecting rural areas. Among these are the growing calls for income support for smaller farmers rather than generalized price support, and the demand for farm-based, multi- purpose planning designed to integrate food production and environmental management practice (see Countryside Policy Review Panel 1987; Lowe et al. 1986; European Commission 1988). These changes increasingly acknowledge that the environment is place specific, and that its local variation in quality is often crucial to its social value and to the management practices best suited to it. It follows that regulatory policies and practices have to be sensitive to this scale of variability if they are to be truly effective.

To date, there has been only limited research into how regulation of the environment should be incorporated within our broader understanding of farm adjustment (but see Lowe et al. 1992). We therefore examine, and then develop, some existing ideas of farm adjustment prior

* Rural Studies Research Centre, Department of Geography, University College L;ondon, UK.

sociologia Ruralis 1992. Volume XXXII (l), pp. 127-145

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to the presentation of some preliminary findings drawn from a study of water pollution, pesticide regulation and farmers’ attitudes conducted in south-east England’. Before doing so we review briefly, from a British perspective, the changing context in which farmers have to manage their businesses.

The British context

The pattern of farm adjustment is being strongly influenced by the re- positioning of agriculture within the food system and the rural economy. Over and above the current financial crisis confronting the farming industry in many advanced economies (Goodman and Redclift 1989), farmers are faced by two major structural challenges. The first concerns their weakening economic position as food producers within the food system. On the one hand, farmers are receiving a declining share of the value-added created by the system and, on the other, the nature of their husbandry practices is being increasingly determined by more powerful off-farm interests (Munton et al. 1990). This process is occurring in- directly as an outcome of the ‘technological treadmill’ and directly from the growing number of contractual arrangements between farmers and food processors and retailers.

The second challenge is represented by the growing consumption demands being placed on rural areas. These have led, inter afia, to the tighter environmental regulation of agricultural practices, which in Bri- tain ranges from incentives to retain ‘traditional’ farming landscapes, to requirements to change existing practices to prevent water pollution (or the risk of it happening). The tighter regulation reflects a growing general commitment to green issues as weil as a changing perception of the purpose of rural areas, characterized by a move away from food and fibre production to one of meeting the rising demands for rural living space, recreation and conservation. This change in balance is advancing unevenly, influenced by the local and regional prosperity of farming, the value placed by society on different rural environments, and the in- tensity of non-agricultural development pressures.

These two challenges present farmers with conflicting messages. The demands of the food system seem to necessitate the continued adoption of increasingly sophisticated industrial technologies that commit farmers to financial relations with the food system from which it is difficult for them to withdraw. The changing role for farming within the rural economy, on the other hand, requires that they take less risks with the environment and internalize some of the costs of the environmental disbenefits they cause. More generally, as pressures for market dereg- ulation for agricultural commodities grow (Byman 1990; Arnold and Villian 1990), so the demand for regulation elsewhere in the food system

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increases. This change is reflected in the need for the more careful prep- aration and presentation of foods, with regard, for example, to pesticide residues in food and damage to the environment. Illustrations include the recent introduction of a straw burning ban, the withdrawal of certain agrochemical products, and more rigorous farm waste handling controls. These changes now constitute a significant source of business uncertainty. Some have required substantial investment in fixed equip- ment, as in the case of livestock effluent disposal, or major changes to farming practice such as those following the straw burning ban.

The attempts to reduce output and to encourage new uses of rural land are proving unpalatable to sections of a farming community “bred on an ethos of accumulation and family continuity” (Marsden and Symes 1987, p. I), especially as all the pressures are not pointing une- quivocally in the same direction. For example, while a shift in the nature of agricultural technology from ‘high-output’ to ‘efficiency of inputs’ may well underlie many of the changes described, a general retreat from high technology farming is unlikely. Many agricultural techniques and practices have created their own forms of technological dependence, and their own powerful political interests to represent them. They have sought to ensure, with some success, that the British Government remains committed to an internationally competitive agriculture.

These differing policy signals thus place a high premium on flexibility and responsiveness at the farm level. It follows, therefore, that models of agrarian change must pay particular attention to the opportunities farmers have for negotiating their positions within the structural constraints and tendencies identified.

Concepts of farm adjustment under advanced capitalism

A political economy approach to agrarian change provides the most effective starting point for analysing the processes of agricultural restructuring (see, for example, Marsden et al. 1986; Goodman et al. 1987). The early literature regarded farm-level change as largely structured by the changing needs of off-farm capitals. These needs, it was argued, would lead to a unilinear pattern of agrarian development within which family interests in farming would progressively and inevitably give way to those of external capitals. Little attention was paid to other possible outcomes, the potential unevenness of the process, or the scope for farm-level resistance.

In the mid-1980s a modified position was presented which addressed some of these issues. It emphasized the changing relations between the external, or structural, processes which lie beyond the farm gate, and the internal production relations on the farm (Whatmore et al. 1987a). The

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empirical evidence provided in support of this position revealed significant local differences in the extent of external capital penetration. Most farm businesses remained family businesses even if their internal organization was becoming more complex and increasingly linked to a range of external credit, technological and market relations which constrained the decision-making options of the family (Whatmore et al. 1987b; Marsden et al. 1989). The evidence also demonstrated the greater importance of indirect than direct subsumption, reinforcing the view that it is the constant interaction between external capitals and the behaviour of the farm family which must be central to our understanding of change. Moreover, on-going work by Marsden et al. (1992) suggests that the needs of capital and the family may actually be complementary rather than in structural opposition. The wider significance of this conclusion is that farm families may have much greater opportunity to negotiate with capital than the standard political economy position assumes.

Most political economy models focus on production rather than consumption, and on food rather than the other goods produced by farmers. One consequence is that the management and regulation of the environment have been relegated to the margins of enquiry, a position that is no longer tenable (see Butte1 et al. 1990). This is not to suggest that the environment has been ignored completely. There has been regu- lar acknowledgement of the organic basis of agricultural production, its implications for production time and capital time, and the attempts of industrial capital to overcome this barrier to accumulation through technological advance (see, for example, Goodman et al. 1987). The contin- uing need for access to land and, therefore, the importance of how that access is regulated through the allocation of property rights, has also been examined (Cox et al. 1988; Whatmore et a]. 1990). There has also been some discussion of the need to bring nature back into our understanding of production if we are to grasp more fully the significance of uneven development (Fitzsimmons 1990; Redclift 1990). Nonetheless, there has been a general reluctance to treat the environment, and the regulation of its use, as a central issue in agrarian development. Given recent changes to agricultural and environmental policy, it is now essen- tial that this is done. How, then, should this task be approached?

Incorporating the environment

In this study we adopt a broad position. We would argue that the environment is socially constructed but not to the point of suggesting that its bio-physical characteristics are unimportant (see Williams 1973; Pep- per 1984; Yearley 1991). The value society places on the environment’s

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different, and often joint, products (food, fibre, recreational opportunities, wildlife etc.) is constantly changing. The value attributed to a particular environment is, therefore, time and place specific. Change in its value is invariably contested by the interests concerned with the production and consumption of its goods, with contestation mediated through a range of interlocking social processes including the market, technological advance, and regulation. Such terms as ‘pollution’, ‘degra- dation’ and ‘sustainable’, have no meaning outside concrete social con- texts (see also Redclift 1990).

These points are clearly evident in today’s changing relations between agricultural production and environmental enhancement in the UK. In recent decades, priority has been given to the production of food over other environmental goods in the organization and management of agriculture, although the one production system is responsible for a range of differing joint products across much of the countryside. It is not that farmers were, in the past, indifferent to their surroundings but their outlook was shaped pre-eminently by utilitarian conditions whereby a ‘clean’ (ie. weed-free), tidy and rationalized landscape was seen as func- tional to a productive agriculture. But such conceptions are being altered as a less intensive agriculture is being called for in which the value placed on the ‘semi-natural’ within the landscape is being more highly vaIued (for a broader discussion see Flynn et al. 1990).

Private property rights give farmers, inter alia, rights of use. These rights of use are not total but they provide farmers with considerable discretion to determine, in their own specific circumstances, what they regard as the right balance of outputs and means of achieving them. These private rights of use are jealously defended in Britain and although the scope of environmental regulation is being increased there is a reluctance to move from a traditional reliance on voluntary co-oper- ation (eg. codes of conduct or financial incentives) to formal controls and legal sanction. While and where this remains so, farmers are left with considerable discretion. Of particular significance, then, is how farmers assess the environmental ‘risks’ arising from their production strategies, especially as many of them still give priority - on the basis of past experience, expertise, fixed investment and economic gain - to food production over environmental goods. In so far as their judgements on acceptable environmental risk diverge from those of regulators, farmers may find their management discretion curtailed by the imposition of external controls, that possibility itself being part of the risk assessment process. At present, this remains an important area of discretion about which we are poorly informed.

The latitude or discretion offered to farmers also depends on the practicalities of enforcement, the degree of social censure associated with the issue, the information available to farmers and how they

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choose to act upon it. The practicalities of enforcement encompass the comprehensiveness of the ‘policing system’, including the technological means available to record and measure the degree to which acceptable environmental standards are being transgressed, and the ability to identify the ‘polluter’. These points are well illustrated when the problems of regulating point and diffuse sources of water pollution by farmers are compared. Point source pollution presents many fewer difficulties. The degree of social censure constantly changes in the tight of the ability of competing interests to portray the limited nature or the severity of the problem. In practical terms, the power relations between the regulator and the regulated are altered, relations which are themselves mediated through public debate, political and statutory processes, and legal decision. Moreover, there may be significant local variations in these power relations reflecting different local power structures and environmental priorities.

Finally, discretion is also constantly re-negotiable because the knowledge available to all the parties is not fixed. Its ‘value’ depends o n who produces it, how it is produced and by what means it is transmitted. Equally, it depends on how it is consumed, that is reccived, understood and acted upon. Because of the relative novelty of much environmental regulation for farmers, compared, for example, to market regulation, the ruler of thc game are more open to negotiation, and the extent of negotiation is correspondingly greater, while the consequences of failing to play by the rules are more uncertain.

Methodological implications

The main methodological thrust of the above critique centres upon the undue concern with structure in political economy approaches and the limited attention they pay to agency. We accept that the political economy approach makes unwarranted assumptions about people’s material interests and how these determine behaviour (Callon 1986; Hindess 1986; Schwarz and Thompson 1990), and that attention needs to be drawn to what actors know, how they come to know it, and what they do on the basis of their knowledge (Schwarz and Thompson 1990). Such a ‘socio-cultural’ or ‘socio-cognitive systems’ approach, the origins of which lie in the sociologies of science and knowledge, need not deny the insights of political economy. It suggests instead, we would argue, that the constructs of agrarian political economy, such as subsumption (see Marsden et al. 1986; Whatmore et al. 1987a) or appropriationism and substitutionism (see Goodman et al. 1987), should be treated as frame- works mediated by action and not as rigid determinants. Changes on farms result from choices and constraints, which a ‘knowledge systems’ approach can help explicate.

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The use of a ‘knowledge systems’ approach does, however, beg other important methodological questions. Of particular interest is the accre- tion of knowledge and information, and its mediation and use on farms. The evidence we have suggests that farmers are bombarded by, and seek, advice from off the farm (Tait 1978, 1985; Eldon 1988), but they contin- ually reinterpret such advice in the light of their experience and the objectives of the farm household. For example, it is generally agreed that farmers’ dependence on outside sources of technological and financial advice has increased over the last half century, and that these sources are not necessarily disinterested. The manner in which they advise the farmer not only affects the system of production employed, but also the scope for environmental conservation within the farmer’s business strategy. The evidence we have for Britain indicates the growing importance of private compared to public sources (eg. Eldon 1988; Tait 1978, 1985), just at a time when the public good aspects of farm management (eg. over the environment) need to be especially strongly promoted to allay public concern (see Munton et al. 1990).

We regard two related concepts as especially useful in linking together knowledge systems and the emphasis on interests contained in political economy. These are ‘negotiation’ and ‘strategy’. The former seeks to capture the process of mediation, or the manner in which farmers in- terpret and respond to the external advice they seek and receive. As Long argues, negotiation takes place at the ‘interface’ between “social actors with conflicting or diverging interests and values,” and it “sensi- tizes the researcher to the importance of exploring how discrepancies of social interest, cultural interpretation, knowledge and power are mediated and perpetuated or transformed at critical points of linkage or con- frontation” (Long 1989, p. 221). As a concept, negotiation challenges the artificial distinction between structure and agency and the one-way relationship between them frequently assumed in political economy. It does not, however, deny the possibility, or even the likelihood, of asym- metrical power relations. It thus retains and emphasizes local and individual choice without rejecting structural tendencies. It makes the process of mediation the focus of enquiry without pre-judging what the ‘real’ interests of farming households may be.

Nonetheless, negotiation is not a random or unstructured process. It would be incorrect, in our experience, to assume that some notion of ‘strategy’, (ie. a set of farm household aspirations and objectives), is absent even if negotiated outcomes cannot always be anticipated from the strategy outlined. We accept, therefore, that negotiation incorpo- rates aspects of conscious reflection, rationality and constrained choice, all of which are embedded in the concept of strategy (Redclift 1986; Crow 1989).

In analyses of farm adjustment, the concept has been frequently but

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loosely employed to incorporate the notion of individual or family- based responses to external constraints (see, for example, Redclift 1986; Gasson 1986; Marsden et al. 1989). Where it has been used in the context of agrarian models which presume, sooner or later, the inevitable subsumption of family interests, a narrower term, ‘survival strategies,’ has often been employed. But as Redclift (1986) points out, this preju- dicial connotation ignores the empirical evidence that many family farm businesses are capable of accumulating land and capital. In the present uncertain conditions, strategies need to be flexible and based on broad objectives, such as the pursuit of new income sources. The analytical difficulty lies in the search for empirical measures of strategy which do not ascribe,post hoc, a rationality or a level of control over events on the part of the farmer that was neither intended nor ever really there. It would be inadmissible to reject the notion of strategy on such grounds, but the practical difficulties of measurement emphasizc the importance of the case study method.

Pesticides and water pollution: a case study

Context

Pesticide usage in the UK has increased dramatically since the early 1970s, although there is some evidence to suggest that the rate of increase during the late 1980s, at least on cereal crops, has levelled off (see Table 1). However, the fall in the tonnage of active pesticide ingredient between 1982 and 1988 does not necessarily demonstrate a smaller pollution problem as it is in part due to a switch to smaller quantities of more potent products.

Table 1: The use ofpesticides on cereals in the UK (1977-19881

Total pesticides used (tomes of active ingredients)

9090.27

16708.17

1988 15690.00

Area of cereals grown (000 ha)

--- 3209.33

3444.49

3318.29

Tonnes of active pesticides ingredient applied per 1,000 ha of cereals

2.83

4.85

4.73

Source: Davis et al. ( 1 990)

The environmental pollution effects of pesticides are complex and poorly understood (Conway and Pretty 1991). Because of the high research

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and development costs of new pesticide products, particularly in the light of increasingly strict requirements for safety and environmental testing, most new pesticides are ‘broad spectrum’ compounds which act upon a range of pests rather than specific target organisms. This broad- ens the market for each product while increasing the potential for pollution. There is also a tendency towards over-application. Since the 1940s, the high returns from pesticides relative to other inputs have encouraged an increase in use, reflected in their growing importance in farmers’ cost structures. In the case of wheat, the proportion of variable costs attributable to pesticides rose from 8 per cent to 36 per cent between 1974 and the mid-1 980s (Nix 1989). Furthermore, their strategic husbandry role has been emphasized by the decline in traditional methods of pest control, such as rotational cropping (Norton and Mumford 1983). A combination of this strategic role and reasonable cost has encouraged farmers to ignore pest thresholds and spray preventatively at pre-set times as an ‘insurance’. Farmers tend to be risk averse in their spraying practices, believing it to be more important to consider the worst possible loss rather than the ‘normal’ loss when deciding upon pesticide use (Mumford 1982). Furthermore, farmers have tried to rationalize pesticide decision making to save time and cost by standardizing husbandry practices and ‘calendar spraying’’.

The pollution of ground and surface waters has increased as a result of these trends, at the same time as the European Community has established its permissible quantities in the water supply. Under its 1980 Drinking Water Directive, it set Maximum Admissible Concentrations (MACs) of 0.1 pg/l for any individual pesticide and 0.5 Fg/l for total pesticides. Numerous groundwater supplies, particularly in East Anglia, now exceed these levels (Lawrence and Foster 1987). In surface waters, pesticides have also been found in excess of the EC’s MACs. The most problematic chemicals are the herbicides atrazine, simazine and isopro- turon (IPU). Of these, only IPU pollution can be attributable solely to agricultural use, the other products being frequently used as weedkillers by local authorities and British Rail. IPU, a pre-emergent (residual) cereal herbicide, has been “consistently present” in some groundwater supplies to such an extent that some hydrologists are now calling for greater regulation of its use (see Farmers Weekly 1990), and the Govern- ment’s Advisory Committee on Pesticides is reviewing its permitted application rates and toxicology.

It is important to recognize, however, that in terms of current policy, public perception and farmers’ knowledge systems, the pollution of water courses by pesticides, by comparison with the more highly publi- cized problem of nitrate pollution, is regarded as a minor issue. Debates about pesticide use currently reside largely within the regulatory and

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scientific communities, and not among farmers. Nevertheless, its significance among policy makers as an emerging issue is reflected in growing discussion about new regulatory strategies in badly affected catchments. Among these catchments is the Ouse basin where IPU has been regularly detected at levels above the EC M A G in its upper reaches. For this reason, the area was selected for a farm survey. The main objectives of the survey were to examine the economic and social trajectories of farm adjustment, and to explore farmers’ attitudes to, and perceptions of, change on their farms, notions of good husbandry, environmental risk and pollution regulation. Here we report on a small part of the survey’s findings, focusing upon the mediation of pesticide advice through negotiations conducted between farmers and their advisers. We concentrate on the concept of negotiation, rather than strategy, in this discussion.

Evidence

The study area contains a range of farm types from small mixed livestock and arable farms to largc-scale specialist cereal producers. A sample of 63 farm businesses, all of which had some cereal production in 1985, was surveyed in spring 1991 using semi-structured questionnaire survey techniques. The average farm size for the sample was 219 hec- tares. In general terms, the production of cereals has become relatively less important to local farmers in recent years following a period of major expansion. The proportion of the farmed area under cereals has declined on 59 per cent of farms since 1980 and increased on only 19 per cent, such that for the 1991 season only 50 per cent of the farmed land was under wheat, barley and oats. Break crops such as oilseed rape and beans, on the other hand, are becoming more important. Farmers were asked in what ways, if any, their usage of cereal herbicides had changed since 19Sl.One-third indicated no change, a quarter said that they were using more residual (pre-emergent) herbicides, and a third indicated that total usage had decreased. Less than 10 per cent of farmers said that their application of regularly-used pesticides had increased. As profit margins have been squeezed since the mid-l98Os, the cost effectiveness of regularly-used herbicides has come under increased scrutiny.

Data were also collected on the sources of advice farmers used for pesticides, both for which products to use and how best to apply them (Table 2). Farmers were asked which sources of advice they used and their responses are shown in the first column. Farmers were then asked to list their first, second and third most important sources of advice relating specifically to pesticide usage, and their replies are shown in the second two groups of columns. The results underline the importance of private sector sources, particularly the merchant’s representative. Over

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50 per cent of farmers claimed that the merchant’s representative was their most important source of advice when deciding what type of pesticide to use and how best to use it. No farmers said that they never took advice from this source. Some 19 per cent of farmers insisted that it was on the basis of their own expertise that they decided which product to use. Two points deserve emphasis. First, the widespread use of private sources of advice cannot be explained solely on the basis of price advantage. Advice from merchants is not, in fact, free as those farmers who avail themselves of it have to pay a higher price for their pesticides. Second, the importance of private sector sources of advice may be parrly explained by wider cultural and ideological shifts during the 1980s relating to changing perceptions of competence in the public and private sectors. A general belief that those in business must be efficient because they function in the market place, and be customer-oriented and up-to- date has been promoted by Government. This view is also reflected in Government attitudes towards the organization of agricultural research and development more generally (Munton et al. 1990). It is also worth noting here that whilst 57 per cent of farmers had received advice from the National Rivers Authority (NRA), the Government agency responsible for protecting the water environment, no farmer found the NRA an important source of advice for choosing and using pesticides. This may be partly explained by the recent establishment (1988) of the NRA as a regulatory body responsible for enforcing environmental policies, with the result that it is viewed with caution or even suspicion by farmers seeking advice.

When farmers were asked if they felt there were differences in the quality of the information between the various sources, 65 per cent acknowledged that commercial advice could be biased. Many respon- dents then qualified their answers by arguing that the information they received from their own merchant’s representative was not biased. To illustrate these sentiments, some responses are detailed below.

Commercial advice can be biased

“Commercial sales people usually recommend the product they get most profit from.”

“Of course there is bias. An independent consultant has nothing to sell except his reputation. A commercial rep. has a product to sell.”

“There can be bias but you have to chose your adviser. The general opinion on [my commercial adviser] is if he leaves, how on earth could we carry on. He’s very well respected and works very hard. It’s not the same with all of them. Some are set terrible [sales] targets by their firms.”

There is no difference between commercial and independent advice

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“I think there has been bias in the past but the merchant’s reps are very aware of it now. For example, a merchant did advise my neighbour that he didn’t need to spray. It’s because independent consultants have set up in competition. Merchants are more aware of this.”

“Providing the merchant has a range of manufacturers to draw on, then there’s no problem. There are problems when certain merchants can’t obtain certain products ... Then they will recommend the product they can supply, while another product might be more suitable.”

“Since ADAS have gone commercial’, they are just as biased as commercial reps. It’s just that the bias will be different. Some commercial reps will be influenced by commercial factors such as higher margins or bonuses on certain chemicals. But ADAS have to justify their cost so they have to bias their.advice to show that they’re worth their salt. It would be difficult for them to visit a farm, charge for advice and then advise to do nothing. Most farmers are aware of the bias. It’s like sailing a boat. You tend to steer to compensate for the bias.”

Farmers’ treatment of the advice they received was further examined through a discussion of what options they would consider in developing a strategy for cutting herbicide use. Almost 70 per cent argued that they would not consider cultural methods of weed control (such as nil cultivation, scratch cultivation or direct drilling) as a means of reducing herbicide use and over 80 per cent would not consider mechanical weed- ing. The main reasons were economic and organizational. Likewise, organic farming, which was defined as applying no agrochemicals and seeking a premium on the price of the crop, was rejected by two-thirds of the sample. The remaining third said that they might consider organic farming but the costings were currently unfavourable.

Almost 90 per cent of farmers said they already undercut the herbicide dose rates advised on product labels, but usually did so only on the advice of their spray adviser. When asked if they ever undercut the dose rates recommended by their adviser, less than 40 per cent of farmers said they did so, in spite of the fact that many recognized that commercial advice was biased (see above, last quote). They acknowledged that merchants had an interest in selling as much pesticide as possible, or as much of the most profitable pesticides in their portfolios as possible, but felt that their own adviser, with whom they had ofren struck up a close working relationship, was not biased. Thus, farmers justified their reluctance to over-ride the advice of their advisers by arguing that they did not have the necessary technical expertise themselves to take such risks. They also suggested that if the pesticide failed, their negotiating position with the merchant would be undermined and their opportunity to claim compensation for failure would be jeopardized. These views are illustrated in the quotes below made in response to the question “As a measure to cut herbicide use, would you consider undercutting dose rates recommended by your adviser?”

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“If conditions are right, I’ll go lower than the label. I’m loathe to go against our consultant but I may put on less occasionally.”

‘‘I would never go lower than the adviser says. If I think he’s going too high, I’d get another adviser.”

‘‘I trust his judgement and [if I undercut] I wouldn’t be able to complain if the spray didn’t work.”

“I would only go lower if I was convinced it was right, and I would take some convincing.”

“I don’t like experimenting myself. It’s very difficult to get the adviser to stand by a recommendation to cut the dose rate. He might say “I know people who get away with half rate”, but he wouldn’t put himself on the line. You then cut it at your own risk.”

“If you pick and choose the conditions carefully you can cut dose rates. I would only undercut my adviser if weather conditions are ideal. They give their advice to make sure you’re covered, but with practice and experience, you can identify the weather conditions whereby you c3n go lower than they say.”

“I don’t agree with cutting dose rates really because if a weed recovers from a lower dose, its more likely to become resistant to the chemical.”

“Nobody gets rich doing half a job. I’d cut dose rates if my adviser recommends it but I’d never go lower than that. I wouldn’t have any comeback on the firm if it failed.”

Farmers were also asked what their responses might be to a set of re- strictions on herbicide use. Firstly, farmers were asked what they would do if IPU was banned from autumn application’. The most common response would be to switch to another chemical such as chlonoluron or Cheetah’ (41 per cent of farmers). One-fifth of farmers said they might still use IPU, but in the spring, and would drill later to reduce the risk of weed infestation. The second scenario was a total withdrawal of IPU, eliminating its use in the spring. Half of the farmers said that they would switch to chlortoluron or Cheetah, while 13 per cent said that this would force them to consider stopping cereal production altogeth- er. This is double the proportion of farmers who gave such a response to the autumn ban alone. Twenty-two per cent of farmers could not say what their response would be and would have to consult their adviser. The final scenario put to farmers was an autumn ban on the application of all herbicides. Responses were less consistent. The most common reply (24 per cent of farmers) would be to switch to Cheetah, followed by the use of IPU in the spring in combination with later drilling (22 per cent). Seventeen per cent of farmers said they might have to revert to spring cropping and withstand lower yields.

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Analysis The case study evidence underlines three key points - the importance of external advisers; the notion of action mediated through negotiation; and a primary concern with economic rather than environmental risk assessment.

The role of external advisers in pesticide decision making is crucial. Not only is the merchant’s representative by far the most important source of advice, but the extent to which farmers are prepared to moder- ate advice from external advisers is modest. In particular, farmers are assessing the risk of pesticide failure and the prospect of compensation from the manufacturers or merchants against the possible savings from applying pesticides at lower dose rates. Some farmers feel there is scope to make savings on pesticide costs in spite of the risk, and feel that the dose rates on product labels are set too high. Just how high these rates are set is unclear as the information is commercially sensitive. The wil- lingness of farmers to exploit this potential area of savings depends o n their confidence, knowledge and ability to withstand financial losses. Those most confident about experimenting with dose rates tended to be younger and more highly educated and were often the larger specialist cereal producers who employed a wider range of sources of advice. The more conservative were older, farmed smaller units and had mixed farms where cereal production formed only a part of the business.

The research also illustrates the dominance of economic risk assessment over environmental risk. The greatest risk in cutting dose rates is that of the pesticide failing and the supplier not being liable to pay compensation for crop failure or yield reductions. Environmental risk seems not to bear directly on the farmers’ decisions or the adviser’s advice. This can be explained in part by two points. First, as previously indicated, the pollution of surface and groundwaters by pesticides is a new issue. During the survey farmers were asked what they thought were agriculture’s main detrimental effects on the environment, before specific issues about pesticide usage were raised. Only one farmer out of 63 in the sample mentioned water pollution by pesticides. Second, there is an assumption among both farmers and advisers alike that once a pesticide has been licensed by the authorities it must be safe to use, provided they keep to the instructions on the product label or from the manufacturers’ advisers.

Conclusion

We have argued that a new perspective on agrarian change in advanced economies is required. It needs to incorporate, on the one hand, the reduced concern for production and a greater commitment to environmental protection, and on the other, greater uncertainty in the economic

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and policy environments. Together, these changes demand models which pay more attention to farm-level considerations and the abilities of individual farmers and their households to negotiate their own fu- tures than are allowed for in traditional political economy approaches. This has led us to seek to marry aspects of a ‘knowledge systems’ approach to farmer decision making with the insights of political economy. We draw particular attention to the concepts of negotiation and strategy which, when combined, emphasize the local construction of action which can be either constrained or liberated in particular cases by structural tendencies.

We have sought to illustrate aspects of this methodology through a case study of pesticide pollution of ground and surface waters in south- east England. Our analysis shows that it is the personal relations between farmers and their (interested) commercial advisers that are often crucial in determining pesticide use. It is in the process of negotiation between them that the fate of the local water environment is often sealed, although the environmental risks of herbicide use seem to have little impact on the outcome of their decisions.

The importance of such advice to decisions that farmers take has major implications for the regulation of agricultural production. It underlines the need for research into the strategies of the agrochemical manufacturers and their merchants. We need to investigate the constraints the advisors themselves are under, and thus to ‘trace the origins of action’ back up the system. It is not at all clear whether farmers, in general, can develop the necessary expertise in crop protection to enable them to modify to their advantage the pesticide advice they receive. It seems more likely that with the rapidity of technological change and product development they are becoming more dependent on the technical expertise of external sources of advice.

Notes 1. This paper draws on the PATCH research programme’s farm survey results, funded

by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under its Joint Agriculture and Environment Programme, and the results of participant observation research carried out by Judy Clark on the PATCH programme. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the ESRC, and thank Judy Clark, Philip Lowe and Giorgio Osti for their comments on a draft of th is paper.

2. ‘Calendar spraying’ refers to scheduled, or ‘insurance’ spraying practices at pre- planned times of the year, as opposed to ‘fire-brigade’ spraying which takes place once a specific problem in the crop has been diagnosed.

3. ADAS is the Agriculture and Development Advisory Service of the Ministry of Agri- culture, Fisheries and Food which gives advice to farmers on crops, animal husbandry, land use, conservation and business management. Before 1987 most advisory services were provided free of charge, but since April 1987 charges have been introduced for all advice except general advice for the ‘public good’ such as initial advice on conservation.

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4.

5.

IPU is mainly used on cereals for the control of black grass and wild oats in the autumn. These are the most common and problematic weeds in the River Ouse catch- ment area. Chlortoluron, like IPU, is a pre-emergent (residual) herbicide. It can only be used on particular cereal varieties. Cheetah is a new contact (ie. post emergent and non-residual) herbicide - used mainly in the spring - which was introduced in 1989, after an intensive advertising campaign in the farming press. It was hailed as an “environ- mentally friendly” herbicide because it is non-residual and does not persist in the environment. Most farmers felt that Cheetah was an expensive alternative to IPU, which is a well established and relatively cheap chemical, although a small number of the most progressive farmers had been experimenting with lower than recommended dose rates for Cheetah and had found it to be financially competitive.

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