Addressing farmers or traders: socio-ethical issues in developing a national action plan for sustainable crop protection

Abstract

Member States of the European Union have an obligation to deliver a National Action Plan (NAP) on the sustainable use of plant protection products in 2012. The Dutch government started the process of drafting its NAP, in cooperation with public and private stakeholders, in 2011. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation routinely took the lead in this process. Starting from existing networks, they invited the usual suspects in the agricultural and environmental sectors to join the process. However, recent analyses of Dutch public debates on pesticide residues revealed how confrontations between environmental and agricultural organisations tend to result in cooperation of retailers and food chain partners in adjusting production systems and product assortments to socio-ethical concerns about pesticide residues. The lesson learned was that farmers and traders depend on each other for achieving transitions to sustainable agriculture. Therefore, researchers participating in working groups of the NAP process flagged the crucial position of food chain partners when pesticide residues and transition to sustainable use of pesticides are at stake. These researchers thus used their knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of transitions in food chains to emphasise the socio-ethical urgency of including food chain partners in the NAP process. Merely urging farmers to improve their crop protection systems, notwithstanding the cooperation of food chain partners, would count as an unwarranted imbalance in the division of socio-ethical duties among the involved stakeholders (ought implies can). First, the paper will present a conceptual framework for transitions in food chains, as generalised from Dutch public debates on pesticide residues. Second, the paper will outline the impacts of interventions by researchers in the stakeholder working groups preparing the NAP for sustainable crop protection. Third, the paper will reflect on the socio-ethical challenges and pitfalls of including private parties in public policy-making processes.