Thinking with Seeds and Seed Dealers: Exploring the Techno-Political Relations of Big-Ag Seed Sales in Rural Kansas and Missouri

This paper explores the material and techno-political relations which connect top-five agrochemical and seed-production corporations with the large-acreage, conventional farmers who plant their seed. I draw upon data collected during 12 on-site, qualitative interviews with Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri regional seed salespeople and agronomists who often act as gate keepers to the specialized, technical knowledge-scape of large seed production corporations. This research explores the material relations and conditions of seed salespeople and the flows between sellers and the humans/non-humans with whom they interact. Findings from this research suggest that NE Kansas and NW Missouri seed salespeople are uniquely positioned, mobile actants which interpret technical knowledge of ever-proliferating catalogues of hybrid, genetically engineered (GE) seed. While they often participate in the laboratory-ization of conventional farms, seed dealers also tend to be long-term members of rural communities who experience the declining population of farmers as a deep loss. Seed dealers locate this decline not with the large agro-chemical and seed production companies that design and produce social technologies (i.e. GE seeds), but with the technologies themselves as they materially and relationally constrain and enable certain agricultural practices (i.e. you must plant more to break even these days because the equipment is so expensive). In this paper, I think with seeds and seed dealers, joining in their material discourse, mobilizing a new materialist, assemblage-thinking approach (Latour 1999, Bennet 2010, DeLanda 2016) to re-examine often-overlooked actants in conventional agricultural practice: seeds and seed dealers. The paper participates in the trend towards generative, democratic research in agri-food studies (Carolan 2012, Lewis et al 2016, Dwiartama et al 2016) by thinking with research participants to open up a conversation about what conventional agriculture is, and what it could become.