Living without Fruit Flies: Biosecuring Horticulture and its Markets

Abstract

In this paper, informed by more-than-human and biosecurity literatures, I attend a neglected nonhuman considered a serious agricultural pest: the fruit fly. In addressing what it takes to live without fruit flies, biosecurity is theorised as ongoing, enacted achievement sustained (or not) by everyday and eventful interactions of heterogeneous spaces, strategies, and participants-human and nonhuman. Relations of fruits, flies, and people are explored through one vital attempt to biosecure life: Australia's Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone (FFEZ), a tristate pest-free area established to protect commercial horticulture from the fruit fly. Fruit flies become problematised as their appetites and mobilities confound fruit production and marketing, and affiliated biosecurity controls. Making fruit safe enrolls policy and agricultural sectors, but also more dispersed agents (travellers, residents, trees) and management sites (primarily off-farm). Since its introduction, the FFEZ's ongoing biosecuring normalised, with only occasional outbreak events. However, recent unprecedented outbreaks evoke questions about the FFEZ's future status. In such eventful times, it is worth reflecting on what kinds of living are possible in biosecurity zones-for flies, for resident human communities, and for agrifood networks.

Governing invasive plants: Policy and practice in managing the Gamba grass (Andropogon gayanus) – Bushfire nexus in northern Australia

“…In contrast, 'living with' (Aitken et al, 2009;Head et al, 2014), or more flexible approaches, are a well-established theme in biosecurity discussions of various animal diseases (Hinchliffe, 2007;Hinchliffe and Bingham, 2008;Mather and Marshall, 2011;Phillips, 2013;Barker, 2014). Nevertheless, as Mather and Marshall (2011) note, the notion of 'living with' can be vague and ambiguous in terms of offering alternative management strategies.…”

“…Following Mather and Marshall's (2011) call to specify more clearly what 'living with' might involve, and how choices might be made in the biosecurity field (mostly related to animal disease), a number of studies have analysed biosecurity as an ongoing, enacted achievement; it takes work (Enticott et al, 2012;Phillips, 2013). In her examination of the work it takes to live with(out) fruit flies in Australia, Phillips argued that existing flexibilities (such as those documented by Barker, 2008) are currently underestimated, and that there needs to be much more practical and material specification of how biosecurity is achieved.…”

Biosecurity: securing circulations from the microbe to the macrocosm

“…). Finding ways of living with disease within these indeterminate circulatory systems is important (Bingham and Hinchliffe ; Enticott 2010; Mather and Marshall ; Phillips ). So too is finding ways of living with biosecurity – if it can be remade to comprise actions that form part of a world in which we want to live.…”

“…This points to a wider issue within the biosecurity literature. Just as Phillips () critiques the captivation of eventual over everyday biosecurities in our accounts, there exists a tendency to extend theoretical insights from one mode of biosecurity to a generalised biosecurity – with animal disease emergencies dominating understandings of what biosecurity is.…”

Animal geographies I: Hearing the cry and extending beyond

“…First, while animal geographies scholarship is diverse, it continues to be dominated by an empirical focus on terrestrial mammals. Some recent work extends beyond this traditional remit towards non-terrestrial, non-mammalian species (notable earlier examples include Bear, 2011; Beisel et al, 2013; Phillips, 2013). Recent research on aquatic animals examines the lives of captive marine mammals (Taylor and Carter, 2018); experiences of killing fish deemed ‘invasive’ species (Atchison et al, 2017); ecological effects and affects of fisheries bycatch (Magrane and Johnson, 2017); and the legality (Braverman, 2018) and economies (Bear, 2017) of marine life.…”