NDLI: Commercializing chemical warfare: citrus, cyanide, and an endless war

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Romero, Adam M.
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	Astonishing changes have occurred to agricultural production systems since WWII. As such, many people tend to date the origins of industrial chemical agricultural to the early 1940s. The origins of industrial chemical agriculture, however, both on and off the field, have a much longer history. Indeed, industrial agriculture’s much discussed chemical dependency—in particular its need for toxic chemicals—and the development of the industries that feed this fix, have a long and diverse past that extend well back into the nineteenth century. In this paper, through the narrative of a late nineteenth century creation story, I go in search of a crucial linchpin in that longer history. I argue that industrial pest control has been imbued with the practices, discourse, materials, and ethics of modern chemical warfare since its inception. Faced with pest-induced collapse, Los Angeles citrus growers and scientists of the USDA and UC Agricultural Extension chemically fixed the citrus pest problem by developing and utilizing the cyanide gas chamber. Cyanide fumigation quickly became the toxic cornerstone of the citrus industry, enabling its intensification and expansion as the pest infection became systemic. By the turn the century, furnished with an economic poison made cheap and weapons-grade due to changes in the world gold mining industry, growers transformed cyanide fumigation into a necessary agricultural input. In chemically overriding an agro-ecological contradiction of capitalist agriculture, growers, scientists, and government officials amalgamated industrially organized agriculture to accelerating and endless chemical warfare. These suddenly necessary agricultural practices signaled a state change in world-ecology and agroindustrial organization, thus, the discovery of effective industrial control for citrus pests was not only a pivotal moment in the history of Southern California but it was also an event that has had world-historical implications.
Starting Page	3
Ending Page	26
Page Count	24
File Format	PDF
ISSN	0889048X
Journal	Agriculture and Human Values
Volume Number	33
Issue Number	1
e-ISSN	15728366
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2015-02-27
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Citrus Chemical warfare Cyanide Chemicalization Southern California Chemical agriculture Gas chamber State-change Ethics Agricultural Economics Veterinary Medicine History Evolutionary Biology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Agronomy and Crop Science

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece By Victor Davis Hanson

Mary Ridder, Roots of Change: Nebraska’s New Agriculture

The myth of the protected worker: Southeast Asian micro-farmers in California agriculture

Strawberry Fields: Politics, Class, and Work in California Agriculture by Miriam J. Wells

Social sustainability, farm labor, and organic agriculture: Findings from an exploratory analysis

Raising organic: An agro-ecological assessment of grower practices in California

Christopher R. Henke: Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California

Agriculture and human values

Agriculture and human values

Commercializing chemical warfare: citrus, cyanide, and an endless war

Similar Documents

Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece By Victor Davis Hanson

Mary Ridder, Roots of Change: Nebraska’s New Agriculture

The myth of the protected worker: Southeast Asian micro-farmers in California agriculture

Strawberry Fields: Politics, Class, and Work in California Agriculture by Miriam J. Wells

Social sustainability, farm labor, and organic agriculture: Findings from an exploratory analysis

Raising organic: An agro-ecological assessment of grower practices in California

Christopher R. Henke: Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California

Agriculture and human values

Agriculture and human values

Commercializing chemical warfare: citrus, cyanide, and an endless war