Regulating pests—material politics and calculation in integrated pest management

Wolff, Leon

doi:10.1177/25148486221076138

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 72 publications

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“… 2013 ). As such, IPM implies a profound epistemological shift (Wolff 2023 ) from scientific reductionism to a more holistic mode of systems thinking.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Disease Configurations, Black-Grass Blowback, and Probiotic Pest Management

Cusworth,

Lorimer

2024

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

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This article explores approaches to managing pests that are being developed in response to the faltering effectiveness of antibiotic regimes of chemical control. It focuses on black-grass ( Alopecurus myosuroides ), an endemic plant in European agriculture that has emerged as a serious yield-robber with increasing levels of herbicidal resistance. Following farmers and agronomists who have developed “integrated” approaches to black-grass management, the article identifies approaches to biosecurity that do not target unwanted life so much as they modulate ecological systems in their entirety. Pathogenesis, in this relational understanding, follows not from breaches of dangerous life into healthy space, but from ecological intra-actions that enable the proliferation of some life to compromise the multispecies livability of the body in question. The article contributes to the literature by detailing how this configurational approach works in the world. It traces the polymorphic spatial imaginaries required to map pests well; the process of knowledge intensification needed to reveal which configurations can resist pathogenesis; and the probiotic biopolitical interventions used to safeguard farmland productivity. The article uses black-grass to present a temporal metanarrative of intensive farming causing ecological blowback, leading to the development of approaches to pest management predicated on a pragmatic tolerance toward unwanted life.

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“… 2013 ). As such, IPM implies a profound epistemological shift (Wolff 2023 ) from scientific reductionism to a more holistic mode of systems thinking.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Disease Configurations, Black-Grass Blowback, and Probiotic Pest Management

Cusworth,

Lorimer

2024

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

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“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”: Regenerative agriculture, farming by numbers, and calculability in soil microbiopolitics

Krzywoszynska

2024

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

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Microbes are increasingly central to visions of sustainable and healthy futures, including in farming movements such as regenerative agriculture. In social science and environmental humanities scholarship, (re)connecting with microbes is seen as a way to challenge, conceptually and practically, the very ontology of human-nature separation which underpins the destruction and violence in human relations with other living beings and with environments. The crux of this onto-ethical potential is a shift towards relational modes of knowing microbes, rooted in localised, proximate, and sensuous practice, and expressed in embodied expertise. This paper engages critically with this promise by calling attention to persistence of calculability to people's self-governance within current microbiopolitics. Through a case study of regenerative agriculture in the United Kingdom, I argue that while embodied expertise of soil microbes is seen as crucial to soil health-oriented farming, it is also dismissed as an insufficient in guiding farmers and shaping future practice, including by farmers themselves. Regenerative agriculture continues to function within “farming by numbers”, an agri-biopolitical regime in which farmers’ and advisors’ subjectivity is that of calculating managers situated in calculable environments. As a result, calculability acts as a ‘break’ on the development of alternative microbial onto-ethics, and regenerative agriculture practitioners look for ways to bring soil microbes into the realm of calculability (e.g., through metagenomics). Consequently, the way microbes are being incorporated into future agri-environmental relations reinforces rather than threatens existing structures of biopolitical power. Overall, I argue that human-microbe research, potentially due to its empirical focus on alternative practices, has underplayed the importance of calculability to people's self-governance in relations with microbes. The struggle for a new microbiopolitics, especially in agriculture and environmental management, will require addressing the continued importance of calculability, and a creative and socially relevant experimentation with alternative forms of expertise.

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Sugarcane sustainability in a changing climate: a systematic review on pests, diseases, and adaptive strategies

Msomba,

Ndaki,

Joseph

2024

Front. Agron.

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The cultivation of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) in the face of climate change requires robust strategies for managing pests, diseases, and weeds. This systematic review exposes critical deficiencies in current practices and underscores the need for climate-adaptive strategies. Climate change differentially influences pest behaviour, disease progression, and weed growth across various regions, yet the lack of region-specific responses impairs effective management. The review emphasizes the necessity for localized approaches that consider specific climatic conditions and the development of predictive models to anticipate pest and disease outbreaks. These models include Decision Support Systems (DSS), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) models, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Species Distribution Models (SDMs), Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM), and Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Crucial strategies encompass integrated pest and disease management, adaptive breeding, precision agriculture, and ongoing innovation. Precision agriculture technologies, such as remote sensing and drones, enable early detection and prompt interventions. By adopting these adaptive measures and addressing existing research gaps, the sugarcane industry can bolster its resilience and maintain productivity amidst evolving climatic conditions.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n71.

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Regulating pests—material politics and calculation in integrated pest management

Cited by 4 publications

References 72 publications

On Disease Configurations, Black-Grass Blowback, and Probiotic Pest Management

On Disease Configurations, Black-Grass Blowback, and Probiotic Pest Management

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”: Regenerative agriculture, farming by numbers, and calculability in soil microbiopolitics

Sugarcane sustainability in a changing climate: a systematic review on pests, diseases, and adaptive strategies

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