Methyl iodide, once promoted as a suitable alternative to methyl bromide for soil fumigation in strawberry systems, was withdrawn from the market in 2012 after a contentious regulatory battle that revolved around its high toxicity. At the time of its withdrawal, Arysta LifeScience, the maker of the chemical, claimed that it was no longer economically viable. In this study, I investigated what made the chemical nonviable, with a specific focus on growers’ nonadoption of it. Interviews with strawberry growers in the four top California strawberry-growing counties revealed that growers’ decisions not to use it were primarily related to public disapproval, although the continued availability of methyl bromide and other fumigants played a contributing role by making adoption less urgent. The study results suggest that policies in place during the methyl bromide phaseout did not strongly encourage the development and extension of less toxic alternatives, which undermined the strawberry industry's position.

A major collaborative project launched in 2017 to accelerate the development of disease-resistant strawberry cultivars is responding urgently to two developments: increasing restrictions on fumigant use and the appearance of two novel pathogens not evidently manageable with allowed fumigants. As part of that project, I sought to understand the factors that guide growers' cultivar choice and assess their willingness to choose a pathogen-resistant cultivar to reduce or potentially replace fumigation. From a survey completed by 33 strawberry growers and in-depth interviews with 20 growers, I found that most growers prioritize yield in choosing cultivars, despite the industrywide problem with low prices. Few growers said they would be willing to substitute disease-resistant cultivars for fumigation without fail-safe disease control methods. Many growers, even those with existing organic programs, would opt for soilless systems in a tighter regulatory environment. This study thus suggests that disease resistance breeding must be coupled with support for other disease management techniques, and the economic situation that makes growers feel that they cannot forgo yield also needs attention.

Focusing on various sites of an international farmer exchange program, this research examines the geographic, socioeconomic, and cultural relevance of Northern-based alternative food networks in the context of a less developed country, specifically Peru. In theory, alternative food networks (AFNs) revalorize small-scale farmers, rebuild local food systems, and strengthen ties between consumers and producers. Efforts to promote AFNs and scholarship exploring these efforts are largely confined to the global North, despite the common challenges facing small-scale farmers in both more and less developed countries. In an attempt to bridge the scholastic and geographic gap between North and South, this dissertation examines AFNs from a global perspective, focusing on the mechanisms best suited to facilitating the diffusion of ideas and practices associated with AFNs, and revealing how initiatives like farmers’ markets and community gardens may serve similar functions in diverse settings.

This research promotes the internationalization of AFNs in three distinct case studies, each corresponding to a separate chapter. The first case study, based on research conducted with Peruvian and Ecuadorian exchange participants in the U.S, explores perceptions of transferability regarding organic farming systems. I argue that the most valuable elements of this international agricultural exchange reside not with the diffusion of agricultural innovations, but with how cross-cultural experiential learning promotes critical reflection on place-appropriate production. In the second case study, I argue that an organic farmers’ market in Lima, Peru, despite replicating many of the troubling exclusionary characteristics of similar markets in the U.S., demonstrates the potential to improve rural livelihoods while raising consumer awareness about the benefits of organic agriculture. Here I suggest that expanding the scope of analysis to encompass the global South requires reconceptualizing the workings and implications of AFNs in a global context. In the third and final case study I argue that three key factors have influenced the emergence of what I refer to as “organic subjects” in a community garden (CG) in rural Northern Peru: increased conventional farming practices; the influence of a garden organizer as the agent of an organic ideology; and the material practices associated with participating in the garden. The actions taken by the women of the Club de Madres that created this garden reinforce the idea that CGs produce subjects, and that such subjects may well be oriented towards an agenda of agrarian change that promotes environmental awareness and ecological farming practices, key elements of emerging alternative food networks in the global North and South. As the three case studies together show, examining AFNs in a Southern context presents opportunities to “theorize back” to the North to consider the historical contexts from which AFNs have emerged; how so-called “developing world issues” of poverty and inequality can be transformed into globally relevant issues; and how AFNs North and South can address global and increasingly acute issues like food insecurity and food justice.

While malnutrition has been recognized as a persisting social problem since the emergence of modern nutrition science, in recent years, the international agricultural development field has made efforts to tackle malnutrition through a range of potentially conflicting innovations, commonly known as nutrition-sensitive agriculture. Yet, development agencies’ practice of cataloging solutions has not resolved the internal contentions within agricultural development, nor has it acted as an effective way of tackling malnutrition. Draw on Foucault’s discussion on problematization and STS scholars’ theorizing of problem-solution coupling, this research studies five coexisting agrifood project for addressing malnutrition in the Philippines to grappling with the complexity beneath the coexistence of agrifood solutions. How and why do particular agrifood solutions coexist? And how do these coexisting solutions attempt to address malnutrition collectively? These five projects are: 1) The Golden Rice Project, aiming to develop a new type of genetically modified rice for Vitamin A deficiency and carried out by the International Rice Research Institute; 2) The Iron-Premix Rice Project, focusing on developing technologies to mix rice with iron during the post-harvest processing and researched by the Philippine National Food and Nutrition Research Institute; 3) The Moringa Industry Development Initiative, advocating to institutionalize governmental support for the production of moringa-supplemented products and facilitated by the Moringaling Philippines Foundation Inc.; 4) The government-backed BeRICEponsible Campaign, promoting brown rice consumption nationally and executed by the Philippine Rice Research Institute; 5) The School-plus-Home Gardening Project, utilizing school gardens to supplement the pre-existing school feeding program and devised by a coalition of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), University of Philippines Los Baños, Department of Education, and six public schools in Laguna Province. I approach these five solutions from three aspects: the history of problem-solution dynamics, the configuration of each solution, and the shared infrastructure underlying all the solutions. In Chapter Two, I point out that the coexistence of multiple agrifood innovations as solutions to malnutrition is not merely a contemporary phenomenon but has existed throughout history. I developed the concept of problem-solution constellation to demonstrate how different agricultural approaches associated with the five projects in my research have reappeared in history multiple times as solutions to malnutrition. In Chapter Three, I switch from a longitudinal to a horizontal view and center on the contemporary status of these five projects. I analyze how each agrifood project configured an assemblage that rendered technoscience situated. For the Iron-Premix Rice Project, I argue that the kernel-shaped iron-premix is the key element that brings together the assemblage. In Chapter Four, I highlight three infrastructures embedded in the configuration of all the assemblages. The first is the epistemic infrastructure, which concerns how malnutrition is perceived and understood. The second is the research infrastructure, including public research centers, universities, and international development agencies or research institutes. The third is the mobilization infrastructure, mainly referring to the meetings of development actors. The problem-solution analytical framework speaks to the practical-critical divide in the scholarly literature on multiple fronts. For practical scholars, the problem-solution constellation analysis highlights the limit of comparative analysis of solutions based on an individualist methodology. For critical scholars, the findings in this research helped steer critical analysis away from focusing on the most contentious technology only and help situate the contentious solution in relation to other coexisting solutions and the targeted problem.