The properties and relations of maize: a multispecies study of the role of crop biotechnology in African smallholder farming

One in five African faced hunger in 2020.

Major efforts are now being made to introduce new crops to African smallholders, to increase yields and boost food security. Yet the expected results have not been achieved and research has failed to explain why.

We argue that an important reason for this is the separation between the research on the crops from the research on the wider entanglements in which crops produce their outcomes: e.g. history, politics and economy.

While plant breeders concentrate on crop properties, social science research on technology adoption has focused on the farmers and their relations with other humans. Yet how crops actually function is a result of the interaction between crop properties and their wider relations.

Drawing on fieldwork with smallholder maize farmers in South Africa we will investigate the relational agencies of maize in African smallholder farming. This multispecies perspective builds on the insight that non-human nature has formative impact on human societies.

We thus need to engage with the agency of non-humans in order to understand human societies and to find solutions to human struggles.

The project will contribute important scrutiny of why the significant government and private sector resources to crop technology development and promotion have not benefitted African smallholders as expected, and what might be needed in maize properties and wider relations, for this to change.