Short abstract:

This paper examines the use of glyphosate-based pesticides on Finnish farms. In this more-than-human agricultural assemblage, glyphosate acts as a fickle coordination device, allowing farmers to shape relations and temporalities while also undermining efforts of control through its volatility.

Long abstract:

My paper examines the politics of glyphosate-based pesticides in Finnish agriculture, engaging with them as fickle coordination devices in a more-than-human agricultural assemblage. At chemical-dependent Finnish farms, this debated pesticide is embraced as an essential tool that allows farmers to coordinate with other elements in the unstable agricultural assemblage, including crops, weeds, weather, regulations, markets and technologies. By exterting control on plants through glyphosate, farmers have a chance of creating “clean” fields, producing harvests that pass market standards, and staying financially afloat.

However, successful coordination is becoming more difficult. The current agricultural assemblage is threatened by unusual weather, increasing pathogens, and poor profitability as well as potentially tightening pesticide regulations. Furthermore, efforts at precise coordination are undermined by glyphosate itself, as its relatings exceed human plans: it drifts in the wind and kills plants by accident, splashes or rises as a cloud of steam when poured into sprayer containers, and causes irritation in farmers’ bodies. These tensions raise urgent questions about the future of chemical-dependent agriculture with no simple answers.

This paper is based on research conducted for my master’s thesis. Through interviews and short-term participant observation on farms and in agricultural events, I tried to trace the complex web where glyphosate gains its value. By attending to glyphosate through its relations on Finnish farms, I explore how it is used to shape relations and align different temporalities, interrogate the complexities of pesticide bans, and contribute to much needed social science research on pesticides.