Agrotoxics and the Agribusiness Industry: Discourses for a toxic life. An analysis from a social determinants of health perspective

Abstract

In Colombia, the agribusiness industry argues that pest control is essential to feed the world population, establishing a new model of production based on the intensive use of agrotoxics. However, the health impacts of these products are absent from the industry’s discourses. This study used critical discourse analysis to analyze and characterize discourses of modes of production and work process that lead to exposure to agrotoxics and health impacts among families in rural areas of Usme and Sumapaz in Colombia. The following data collection techniques were used: participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. The discourses show that interaction between structural forms that define the construction of reality transforms subjects. In the case of agribusiness and the use of agrotoxics, this interaction constitutes institutional symbolic violence. This discursive relationship imposes an everyday life that normalizes exposure to agrotoxics and transfers the responsibility for their health impacts to rural communities.

Determinants of Collaborative Negotiation Style on Agribusiness Performance of High Value Food Crop Products in Tanzania: Evidence from Middlemen in Arusha

“…The expertise are important key players in agribusiness chain from the primary stage of production to the tertiary level of consumption. Other important players are multinational cooperation Sekine et al (2009) state corporations Ginting et al (2013), entrepreneurs Mohamed et al (2020), institutional development Azizah et al (2020) agribusiness companies Piracón et al (2022) On the other hand, lack of collaboration with suppliers, increase in overall cost of searching for information, policing and searching for information, bargaining and decision making (Ngaruko 2022) along with lack of information sharing and not using technology, On the assessment of factors affecting agribusiness performance in Somali land, John (2022) found that; entrepreneurship training, use of mobile money transfer, prolonged drought, price fluctuation, greenhouse technology, capital and access to extension services were statistically significant at 5%.…”