Prosperity, Plants, and Pesticides: The Dangers and Opportunities of Agricultural Biotechnology

FAIN: DOC-299566-24

University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. (Athens, GA 30602-1589)
Pablo Lapegna (Project Director: October 2023 to present)

Research for a book manuscript exploring how the use of agricultural biotechnology impacts both local economies and health outcomes.

This project examines the dangers and opportunities of agricultural biotechnology, which has the potential to both bring prosperity and contribute to environmental and health problems. Agricultural biotechnology, as genetically modified (GM) crops, has transformed farming. This technology has underpinned prosperity, particularly in Argentina, where farmers and governments have reaped the benefits of GM soybean production. Activists and rural populations, however, have voiced concerns about the environmental and public health impacts of herbicides used in GM crop production. How do people, communities, and societies negotiate the tensions between economic prosperity and environmental and health impacts? And what can the practices, ideas, and feelings that underlie agricultural biotechnology tell us about our relationship with nature? We will write a book manuscript addressing these questions and bridging the humanistic social sciences and the environmental humanities.