Regulation by impasse: Pesticide registration, capital and the state in Costa Rica

Abstract

Costa Rica's prodigious use of pesticides, as well as the burgeoning plantation sector that these agrochemicals support, exacerbates the tensions between extraction and preservation at the heart of the country's development model. We explore these tensions through a study of the country's pesticide registry, the regulatory process to approve active ingredients and formulations for use. After nearly two decades of reform efforts, the registry is widely recognized to be non-functioning: most of the country's pesticides exist in administrative limbo and relatively few new compounds have been approved. Based on extensive interviews and in-depth policy analysis, we construct four phases of reform and use a strategic-relational approach to the state to analyze this process. We conceptualize the registry's gridlock as a form of governance that we term regulation by impasse, an arrangement reproduced through disputes within and between the cognizant ministries, juridical bodies and other regulating authorities, in relation to the shifting strategies and contexts of political economic and wider social forces. We argue that hegemony is tenuously maintained through the registry dispute itself, while revealing the deeply frayed condition of the Costa Rican development model.

Pyrogenic Carbonaceous Materials Production of Four Tropical Wood Produced by Slow Pyrolysis at Different Temperatures: Charcoal and Biochar Properties

“…Costa Rica, a small country in Central America, has this condition of little development in pyrolizer equipment, because its energy matrix is based on the production of hydroelectric energy, so other energy sources such as biomass are less important, even though there is significant availability [13]. In addition to little development in equipment, the country has a large amount of productive activities that are carried out by very important agricultural crops, meaning a great demand for fertilizers and agrochemicals, which are currently not considered as a good sustainability policy for the agricultural sector [14,15]. Thus, the agriculture sector is increasingly looking for more appropriate options for crop management, which include soil management and developing more environmentally friendly agrochemicals [15,16].…”