Presentation short abstract

This paper analyzes the global pesticide complex on Turkey’s cherry frontier. I show how hydrogen cyanamide, an EU-banned growth regulator, functions as a temporal fix that forces early market entry. This creates a temporal rift and a modern Circles of Poison dynamic sustained by an unenforced ban.

Presentation long abstract

This paper analyzes a contemporary Circles of Poison dynamic on Turkey’s agro-export cherry frontier. Growers rely on hydrogen cyanamide—an acutely toxic growth regulator banned in the EU but widely used in Turkey—to force premature blooms and enter markets earlier. Although not formally classified as a pesticide, its regulatory history and exposure profile mirror the dynamics of the global pesticide complex: transnationally uneven bans, dependent production networks, and the offshoring of toxic risk onto workers and peripheral agrarian landscapes.

I conceptualize this system through the notion of a temporal rift. Hydrogen cyanamide acts as a temporal fix that accelerates ecological time, forcing dormancy to end weeks early, collapsing orchard lifespans from thirty years to as few as six, and locking growers into escalating chemical dependency. This temporal violence is borne primarily by farmworkers, who handle a compound linked to reproductive harm, organ damage, and acute poisoning. At the same time, growers confront economic entrapment as early-season competition and export-sector volatility compel reliance on a chemical they know is degrading their orchards.

The paper intervenes in three themes highlighted by the panel. First, on regulation, bans, and toxicity, it examines Turkey’s nominal yet unenforced ban and the “gray zone of legality” enabling continued use. Second, on epistemologies and the politics of knowledge, it shows how state agencies render a political-economic crisis technical. Third, on violence and agrarian change, it traces how chemical acceleration restructures labour, ecology, and growers’ reproduction, positioning Turkey’s cherry frontier as emblematic of contemporary pesticide political ecologies.