On Controversial Technologies and their Alternatives: The Case of Agricultural Pesticides in France

In this article, we analyse the debates taking place within a public policy designed to reduce the consumption of pesticides in French agriculture. We show that the quest for alternatives to this controversial technology is the arena of competition between different potential solutions. Although initially dominated by an approach backed by agronomists in favour of a deep and systemic change in French farming, we show the emergence of a competing solution, backed in particular by the agrochemical industry and focusing on the development of substitute technologies to replace pesticides. In line with academic works that examine the construction of public problems, our focus on the solutions proposed to address these problems raises the question of the disparate timeframes that govern the actions of policymakers and scientists, and the difficulties faced by the latter in dealing with the pressures to make their research relevant.