Journal article written by 2009 DPDF Agrarian Studies Fellow Pablo Lapegna:

Drawing on fieldwork developed between 2003 and 2011, this article examines the expansion of genetically modified (GM) crops in Argentina and its consequences, namely, cases of pesticide drifts affecting rural communities. I compare cases in which peasants in northern Argentina protested against pesticide drifts (in 2003) to cases in which they did not react contentiously when facing environmental contamination (2009). I analyze these cases to address three issues that have not received enough attention in the scholarship on GM crops: First, the articulation of multiple scales, ranging from global to local; second, the variation within subordinate actors and their responses, oscillating between resistance and adaptation; and third, the environmental problems brought about by agricultural biotechnology, specifically the use of agrochemicals and its negative consequences. An ethnographic approach to GM crops can shed light on how the global project of agricultural biotechnology looks like when seen “from the ground.”