RECURRING CONTRADICTIONS IN AGRARIAN DEVELOPMENT - PESTICIDE PROBLEMS IN CARIBBEAN BASIN NONTRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE

The promotion of nontraditional export agriculture is a cornerstone of US development efforts to spur economic growth and help pull Central America and the Caribbean out of a decade-long crisis. This paper analyzes the continued reliance on pesticides in the current development strategy and the socioeconomic implications of the ecological disruption the chemical technology generates. Relying on interviews with producers, exporters and government officials from Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and the United States, as well as surveys of Guatemalan farmers, the authors argue that the current agricultural development strategy perpetuates social and technological factors which heighten the potential for renewed crisis in the agrarian sector. Inadequate knowledge of pesticide hazards and a lack of control over pesticide use is leaving farmers, farm workers, and exporters increasingly vulnerable to economic, public health and environmental problems. Paradoxically, some measures to overcome these problems threaten to undermine efforts to improve social equity by further concentrating land and resources in the hands of large national and transnational production units.