CONCEPTUALIZING AGRICULTURE ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS - COMBINING POLITICAL-ECONOMY AND SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACHES TO PESTICIDE POLLUTION

This paper examines the relations between agriculture and the environment at the farm level. It describes the changing British context in which farmers face two major challenges to their control over rural space. These arise from their weakening economic position within the food system and the growing consumption demands placed on rural areas. It is then argued that political economy perspectives on agrarian change provide only partial insights into our understanding of social action at the farm level. This weakness is highlighted by the growing concern for environmental regulation, rarely incorporated into agrarian political economy, and the local specificity of effective environmental management. The insights of political economy thus need to be combined with socio-cultural perspectives on the nature of change. The concepts of negotiation and strategy are proposed as ways forward. The role of negotiation is discussed in the context of farmers' pesticide decision making and the empirical findings reveal the crucial importance of negotiation between farmers and off-farm advisers.