In 1973, Jim Hightower and his associates at the Agribusiness Accountability Project dropped a bombshell – Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times – on the land-grant college and agricultural science establishments. From the early 1970s until roughly 1990, Hightower-style criticism of and activism toward the public agricultural research system focused on a set of closely interrelated themes: the tendencies for the publicly supported research enterprise to be an unwarranted taxpayer subsidy of agribusiness, for agricultural research and extension to favor large farmers and (...) be disadvantageous for family farmers, for public research to stress mechanization while ignoring the concerns and interests of farm workers, and for the research and extension establishment to ignore rural poverty and other rural social problems. By 1990, however, there had been a quite fundamental restructuring of the agricultural technology opposition movement – one that is not often well recognized. Two overarching changes had occurred. First, agricultural-technology activism had shifted from contesting land-grant/public research priorities and practices to contesting private agribusiness technological priorities and practices. Second, the relatively integrated, overarching Hightower-type opposition had undergone bifurcation into two quite distinct social movements: the agricultural sustainability/local food systems movement on one hand, and the anti-GM food/crop and anti-food-system-globalization movement on the other. In this paper I explore the causes and consequences of these restructurings of the agricultural research and technology opposition movement. Chief among the major factors involved was the fact that “Hightowerism'' involved an ineffectual representational politics. Hightowerist claims – especially the claim that land-grant research was detrimental to family farmers – generated little support among the groups it claimed to represent (particularly “small'' or “family'' farmers). The two successor movements, by contrast, have relatively clear and dependable constituents. Further, the progressive molecularization of agricultural research, which proved to be both an antecedent and consequence of corporate involvement in agricultural research in the US, has decisively changed the issues that are contested by technology activists. Since the age of Hightower, the agricultural technology activist movement has shifted its 1970s and early 1980s emphasis from contesting public sector/land-grant research priorities to contesting private sector activities, particularly genetic engineering, GM crops, and globalization of agricultural technologies and regulatory practices. Even the sustainability/localism wing of the new agricultural technology movement configuration has progressively backed away from contesting public research priorities. The efforts of the sustainable agricultural and localism movement have increasingly focused on quasi-private efforts such as community supported agriculture, green/“value-added'' labeling and marketing strategies, and community food security. Some implications of this increasingly bifurcated, agricultural technology, activist movement configuration in which there is decreased interest in land-grant/public research priorities are discussed. (shrink)

Proponents of sustainable agriculture seek deeply rooted social changes, but to advance this agenda requires political credibility and work with diverse partners. Asthe literature on political co-optation makesclear, the tension between conviction andcredibility is persistent and unavoidable; nota problem to be solved so much as a built-incondition of movement politics. Drawing on acase history of California's largestsustainable agriculture organization, astructural assessment is made of the strategicchoices facing movement leaders, organizationaltensions that accompany these choices, andperceived gains and losses. The case historydemonstrates (...) how movement leaders craft middlerange strategies that adapt to politicalcircumstances while retaining attachments tocore values and constituencies. Thesestrategies are ripe with tradeoffs, placingdemands on leaders who must implement them in aspirit that sustains organizational vitalitywhile broadening political and social impact.But they also enlarge the democraticsensibilities of movement leaders, increasingtheir ability to listen, learn, and forgealliances based on shared goals rather thansimilar motives. (shrink)

BIOS and BIFS are two California-based, small-scale alternative agricultural demonstration programs that define an applied Agriculture Partnership Model of extension. This model operates through a structure of local project leadership, a process of responsive farmer outreach and a primary goal of voluntary pesticide reduction. It reaches back to a Land Grant approach to extension of personal relationship, equal partnership, and collaborative learning. Overall findings from a systematic assessment of BIOS and BIFS imply that the operation and impacts of these two (...) Agriculture Partnership Projects owe more to the model, approach, and values of the projects than to any specific farming or extension techniques. A model of local partnership and responsive, learner-centered outreach, operational values such as flexibility and relationship, and a balanced systems approach to farm management and project operation combine to create a promising organizational response to the rapidly changing regulatory, environmental, and political circumstances confronting conventional farmers in California. Though some farm advisors and field research specialists within the University of California Cooperative Extension have successfully used the projects to leverage decreasing Extension resources, increase their one-on-one contact with farmers, and learn new outreach and agricultural skills, others within that system are highly critical of the two projects. Organizational tension between Cooperative Extension and the quasi-university Partnership Projects largely reflects differences in fundamental beliefs and values about legitimate knowledge, learning processes, and effective teaching as well as primary goals for agricultural outreach. (shrink)

Agricultural decision making is characterized by two challenges common to multiple arenas: linking science to decision making and linking science and decision making across multiple levels. The U.S. agricultural research, education, and extension system was designed to address these challenges. By investigating this system, this study deepens the understanding of science and decision making, specifically exploring the notion of boundary organizations in two significant ways. First, it provides a preliminary test of the hypothesis that boundary organizations mediate between the shifting (...) domains of science and policy, finding that they are instrumental in creating and maintaining an integrated system of assessment and decision making for addressing depletion of the High Plains Aquifer. Second, it extends the concept of boundary organization beyond the science-policy dimension to incorporate the dimension of levels of organization—not only bridging science and policy but linking science and policy across different levels. (shrink)

Product differentiation has emerged as a central dynamic in contemporary agrofood systems. Departure from the mode of standardization emblematic of agrofood modernization raises questions about future technical trajectories and the ways in which learning will be sustained. This article examines two innovation trajectories: the rapid coupling of biotechnologies and information technologies to yield products differentiated by constituent components—a model based on a cognitive logic of decomposition/ recomposition—and the proliferation of product networks that mobilize distinctive, localized resources to create complete identities—a (...) model based on a cognitive logic of identity. The article analyzes the information structures—institutional mechanisms that support information exchange and learning—in each of these opposed development paradigms. We find that knowledge creation under each of the logics occurs through mechanisms not recognized within the respective paradigms. On this basis, we derive institutional hybridity as a fundamental resource in systems of innovation. (shrink)