Hegemony, Quasi-Counterhegemony, and Counterhegemony in Pesticide Use in Latin America With Special Reference to Mexico

Abstract

In the center of the corporate agricultural regime is the pesticide-industrial complex which is part of the current hegemonic order in the reproduction of capitalism. There are quasi-counterhegemonic movements, however, in the form of Integrated Pest Management and a fully counterhegemonic trend in the form of agroecology. Not only does agroecology as a science and practice eschew the use of pesticides in favor of biological controls developed by Latin American peasants over hundreds of years, but it has become a national and transnational movement led by La Vía Campesina (The Peasant Way) and agroecology has also become institutionalized on both of those levels. I consider cases from Latin America, with an emphasis on Mexico. JEL Classification: Q1, Q16, Q18, Q19