Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Pesticides are part of today’s farming practices all over the world. In France, pesticides are still heavily used and quite controversial. Policies to frame pesticide use, are elaborated at European and national levels. Practices such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM) are encouraged and other alternatives have been researched during the past years. In France several plans have been established with the aim to drastically reduce pesticide use. Different groups of persons seem to have a say in the “pesticide debate”. Two major groups would be the farmers and scientists. How they imagine pesticides within today’s society and whether these imaginaries can influence practices and policies are interesting questions to address. This study aims at investigating farmers’ and scientists’ future imaginaries in France about pesticides. For both groups, imaginaries are understood as specific to the interviewee with recurring subjects between them such as consumers’ role, the need of food production, or the deep-rooted place of pesticides within farming practices. The construction of these imaginaries could be due to different socio-economical factors and external social imaginaries/discourses. Even if this study cannot clearly conclude if and how these imaginaries will have impact on policy, I would argue that such impact is possible. Finally, this study aims at contributing to the understanding of future imaginaries of farmers and scientists in France about pesticides and its construction and influence on today’s society.