Pesticide use and risk perception: an analysis from the laboratory fields.

Abstract

The central focus of this article is the analysis of farmers’ hybrid local knowledge and their perceptions of risk as they are present in the dynamics of legitimisation of pesticide use -including how it is selected, store, prepared and applied. The case study was situated in a rural area in Southern Brazil, where there is widespread intensive and unsafe use of pesticides in horticultural production. Through the data I question two presuppositions that are common in the literature on pesticide risks. One considers farmers as lacking the correct or sufficient information about health and environmental risks. The other sees farmers as victims of economic constraints, pressure by salespeople, or a ‘technological treadmill’. Without denying the relevance of these arguments, farmers are seen as knowledgeable agents with their own reasons and their own perception of the risks associated with the use of pesticides. I point to a current local knowledge that is a mixture of past and present experiences, resulting from the interface with expert knowledge, exposing a “cognitive dependency” on pesticides. In the conclusions, consideration is given to some implications of this research for the debate on participatory sustainable rural development.