The politics of uncontrolability: Governing pesticide risks through distancing and zoning technologies

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 20th century, synthetic pesticides have been a central vector for the intensification and industrialization of agriculture. As hazardous substances, they have been marketed and distributed with a set of risk management technologies, presented by the industry and public authorities as effective means to control their impact on the environment and human health. One of these technologies is the establishment of safety distances and buffer zones between areas where pesticides are applied and other areas, inspired by measures taken to regulate the risks of manufacturing industries since the beginning of the industrial revolutions. In France, since the 1990s, public authorities have imposed no-treatment zones between crops and waterways, residents’ homes, or so-called natural areas, in the name of the safe use of pesticides. In this paper, we rely on analyses of public archives and interviews with numerous actors (ministries, environmental NGOs, scientists, industrial representatives, farmers) to describe the development and implementation of this zoning technology and the public controversies it triggered. We show how the idea that it would be possible to limit the risks associated with the use of pesticides by imposing safety distances was first put forward to limit water pollution in the 1980s, and then extended to take into account other issues such as human health and biodiversity. First, we emphasize the fragility of the scientific knowledge on which the measures defended by the public authorities are based. It draws on scientific disciplines and experts (expology, epidemiology, toxicology, biology) confronted with the difficulty of measuring multiple contaminations in diverse and heterogeneous spaces. Secondly, we emphasize how zoning and distancing risk management policies are based on an abstract conception of spaces, made up of separate compartments to be protected (productive/non-productive space; air/water/soil). This encourages the rationalization of living environments and ignores several interactions of health and environmental problems created by pesticide use. For example, we show how the establishment of safety distances to protect the residents of treated fields can worsen the working conditions of agricultural workers. Finally, we underline how the establishment of buffer zones and safety distances leads to a proliferation of legal rules that are difficult to apply and control. We suggest this contrast between regulatory complexity and the impossibility of implementing regulations must be understood as a mode of government, which organizes the un-controllability of pesticides diffusion, keep critics at distance, and justify the continued use of pesticides despite pollution.