Pesticides: Towards an International History

Our joint research project in international and environmental history focuses on the international governance of pesticides in the second half of the twentieth century, particularly on the beginning of international debates in the late 1950s and 1960s. This was the time when many industrial countries, in an effort to increase agricultural production, turned to industrial agronomic approaches that relied on the use of chemical inputs like pesticides. In parallel, private and public actors alike promoted the use of chemical inputs in so-called developing countries in order to overcome food shortages.
In our project we explores the early history of international debates on pesticide safety and regulation by looking into the archives of two institutions: those of the International Labour Organization in Geneva (ILO Historical Archives) and those of the European Economic Community and the European Community in Florence (Historical Archives of the European Union, HAEU).

This project is co-coordinated by Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Associate Professor International History and Politics at Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID).