Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Agriculture and Human Values https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10028-6 Julie Guthman: Wilted: pathogens, chemicals, and the fragile future of the strawberry industry University of California Press, Oakland, California, 2019, 308 pp., ISBN 9780520305274 Felipe Peregrina Puga 1 Accepted: 13 March 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 This new book is oriented toward the strawberry assem- blages in a heterodox way, without abandoning the politi- cal economy problems. Through interviews with growers, industrial actors, pesticide regulators, agriculture-oriented scientists and practitioners, and approaching historical research associated with California’s agricultural history, Guthman’s account is entirely dedicated to many problems involved in the strawberry assemblage. The main argument is that the factors and practices which established the straw- berry industry as an important activity in California, such as fumigation, breeding plants, and valued lands, have turned in the last years into a threat for all the stakeholders. Approaching a diversity of main actors and nonhuman entities, the frst chapter is dedicated to situating the meth- odological choices and the structure of the book. Guthman suggests a theoretical framework that accounts for the com- plexity of interspecifc relationships, instead of ready anthro- pocentric stories. Tracing a history of a specifc pathogen, Verticillium dahliae, Guthman shows in the second chapter how this spe- cies has become an incredibly important object of interest both to science and industry. Through these excavations in history, the author explains the relationships among fumiga- tion eforts against Verticillium and the appearance of new pathogens, and how these scenarios afect our scientifc knowledge of pathogenesis. The third chapter is dedicated to the problems associated with plant-breeding programs from industrial and academic institutions and the struggles over the intellectual property of varieties. Although the chapter is dedicated to these prob- lems, it also highlights the emphasis of agricultural sciences in supporting some topics of interest, such as plant-breeding programs, to the neglect of others, such as the growth of soil pathogens. Researchers from the University of California (UC), growers and industrial actors were interested in devel- oping new varieties of plants in order to avoid the problems of soil diseases. However, the problems arose when private sector actors started to sue the university to obtain univer- sity-patented varieties that were in germplasm at UC, accus- ing the university of having abandoned the earlier project. The lawsuits were favorable to UC because, according to DNA analysis, the berries developed by private companies were derived from genetic material that had been cultivated by UC but had not been released for wider use. The main argument about the threat of fumigation to the strawberry industry appears in Chapter 4, where toxins and pesticide restrictions become the main objects of discussion. Pesticide regulations have acquired new character over time, now including assessment of risk and cost beneft. Also, rather than banning many chemicals, regulators began to recognize risks and recommended mitigation measures. The mitigation measures, though necessarily recommended by a scientifc committee, failed to reduce the use of chemicals in agriculture. Quite the opposite, they enabled continued use of chemicals, even despite growing resistance to pesticides. Guthman is not opposed to pesticide regulatory bodies; instead she questions the main assumption underlying such institutions: the depoliticization of chemical regulation, as if it was just a technical problem of chemicals. Although the pathogens and fumigants are parts of Cali- fornia’s agricultural history, the strawberry industry could not have been established without California’s natural advan- tages in soil and the control of the immigrant workforce. These features are presented respectively in Chapters 5 and 6, where land markets and the arrival of Japanese and * Felipe Peregrina Puga felipeperegrina@gmail.com 1 Department of Social Anthropology, Institute of Philosophy and Humanities, State University of Campinas, Cora Coralina Street, 100, Campinas, SP 13083-896, Brazil