Pests, Peasants, and Publications: Anthropological and Entomological Views of an Integrated Pest Management Program for Small-scale Honduran Farmers

This debate between an anthropologist and an entomologist is a frank, detailed account of an integrated pest management (IPM) research and extension project for subsistence maize and bean farmers in Honduras. Dialectic tension runs through questions of the style of technology generation through on-farm research, the value of farmer experimentation and indigenous technical knowledge, farmer participation contributing to greater pesticide use, and the worth of media in extension. The authors argue some of the ethical, pragmatic and scientific issues of human experiments in agricultural extension.