Sustainable Agriculture & Policy
What does it mean to create a more sustainable agricultural system? How do policymakers approach this question in the light of a compulsory paradigm of increased innovation, and promissory tools, such as digital technologies? Whose (technology-biased) innovation is envisioned, and how do digital tools presumably help small-scale, biodiverse farmers, when most of these tools favour large-scale, monocultural agricultural systems? How do such techno-optimistic policies and reforms reflect - or are co-produced with - political values, institutions, and (pan-)national ideals, such as of the European Union and Germany?
As part of the research project "Innovating Food, Innovating Europe?" (2019-2021), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), I explored this question through ethnographic research on policy events and conferences, expert interviews, and policy analysis in Brussels and Germany. Results have been published in the article "Fixing sustainability through technoscience and diversity: the case of EU-agriculture policy" in Environmental Science & Policy, and in an ethnographic chapter of an EU-policy workshop in the edited volume Naked Fieldnotes: a rough guide to ethnographic writing (University of Minnesota Press).
This research project has been disrupted and postponed due to pandemic. However, research assistant Marlise H. Schneider took advantage of the exceptional times and conducted short-term ethnographic research as harvest helper at a Bavarian hops farm. Together we published results of her research, arguing that as harvest helpers during this state of exception, German citizens learned how the pandemic highlighted (and exacerbated) long-known biopolitics of seasonal workers. This also has implications for how policymakers need to foster a more just agricultural system that acknowledges seasonal workers' key role in guaranteeing food security for Germany, while providing more incentives for German citizens to have hands-on opportunities and direct exchange with farmers. See here for the open-access article.