Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture through Social Networks

by Keith Douglass Warner

American agriculture has doubled its use of pesticides since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. Agriculture is the nation's leading cause of non-point-source water pollution--runoffs of pesticides, nutrients, and sediments into streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. In Agroecology in Action , Keith Douglass Warner describes agroecology, an emerging scientific response to agriculture's environmental crises, and offers detailed case studies of ways in which growers, scientists, agricultural organizations, and public agencies have developed innovative, ecologically based techniques to reduce reliance on agrochemicals. Agroecology in Action shows that agroecology can be put into action effectively only when networks of farmers, scientists, and other stakeholders learn together. Farmers and scientists and their organizations must work collaboratively to share knowledge--whether it is derived from farm, laboratory, or marketplace. This sort of partnership, writes Warner, has emerged as the primary strategy for finding alternatives to conventional agrochemical use. Warner describes successful agroecological initiatives in California, Iowa, Washington, and Wisconsin. California's vast and diverse specialty-crop agriculture has already produced 32 agricultural partnerships, and Warner pays particular attention to agroecological efforts in that state, including those under way in the pear, winegrape, and almond farming systems. The book shows how popular concern about the health and environmental impacts of pesticides has helped shape agricultural environmental policy, and how policy has in turn stimulated creative solutions from scientists, extension agents, and growers.

292 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2006

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Already dated, but I wish I had read it when it was first published. The book covers innovative efforts to include farmers who are interested in agroecological approach to farming. Many of the case studies are familiar to me, but some—particularly in the Midwest—are not. The social action theory behind farmers forming and organizing networks to share information is very informative and serves as a global model. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the agroecology movement.

In addition to being dated, my other critique, that cost it the second star, is that it does not recognize or even explain the complicated relationship between the agroecology and organic movements. The few references to organic agriculture are critical and it seems to buy into the conventionalization hypothesis of organic agriculture without explaining or critically examining the connection. Organic farmers were pioneers in many if not most of the social networks studied. Some were already organic and spearheaded forming the networks, while others were conventional / transitioning farmers when the networks were formed and transitioned to organic. While the book makes clear early on it is not about organic farming, a better explanation would have helped readers understand the reasons. Suffice it to say, I believe agroecology and organic to be mostly compatible and the lessons of the book to be of use to organic farmers, advisors, and other practitioners interested in advancing organic agriculture.