Many studies reveal the contributions of plant breeding
and agronomy to farm productivity and their role in reshaping
global diets. However, historical accounts also implicate these
sciences in the creation of new problems, from novel disease
vulnerabilities propagated through industrial monocrops to the
negative ecological and public health consequences of crops
dependent on chemical inputs and industrialized food systems
more generally.
Increasingly, historical analyses also highlight the
expertise variously usurped, overlooked, abandoned, or
suppressed in the pursuit of “modern” agricultural science.
Experiment stations and “improved” plants were instruments of
colonialism, means of controlling lands and lives of peoples
typically labeled as “primitive” and “backward” by imperial
authorities. In many cases, the assumptions of colonial improvers
persisted in the international development programs that have
sought since the mid-20th century to deliver “modern” science to
farming communities in the Global South.
Awareness of these issues has brought alternative domains
of crop science such as agroecology to the fore in recent decades,
as researchers reconcile the need for robust crop knowledge and
know-how with the imperatives of addressing social and
environmental injustice.
Helen Anne Curry; Ryan Nehring. The history of crop science and the future of food. Internet: <nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com> (adapted).