Agricultural Research in Romania: Rival Institutional Dependencies on Private Companies

Abstract

In Romania, agricultural researchers are enlisted to promote the agrochemical industry and large-scale intensive agriculture. This role can be made intelligible through notion of a scientific field, highlighting rivalries between the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the University sector. The former has lost its public funding but maintains its responsibilities within bodies devising and leading agricultural policy. The latter gives primacy to peer recognition and integration within international networks, but lacks co-financing required for being effectively included in international research projects. Each academic institution tries to devalue the rival's strong points and gain recognition for the superior value of its own assets. The funding provided by the private agrochemical industry adapts to the scientific field's structure: leading multinational firms take advantage of rivalries between academic institutions and fuel them at the same time. They consolidate current orientation taken by members of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, especially when seeking their support for authorization for seeds and plant-protection products. Industry funds also create new rewards for University staff, emphasizing international connections but disconnecting them from purely academic achievements. Meanwhile Romanian agronomists tend to defend the type of agriculture promising the most significant business opportunities for the agrochemical industry. Thus, it uses institutional rivalries for its agenda, though without directly influencing the direction of research.

Key Words:

• agriculture
• agronomy
• agrochemical industry
• academic rivalries
• field theory
• Romania

Notes

1 The notion of scientific field could be used to analyse a discipline, but it is also relevant at a larger or smaller scale. Bourdieu refers to a ‘structural interlocking’ of several fields: as for him, ‘it is immediately clear that a laboratory is a social microcosm, itself situated in a space containing other laboratories, these together constituting a discipline (itself situated in a hierarchized space, that of the disciplines), and that it derives a major part of its properties form the position it occupies within that space’ (Bourdieu, 2004, p. 32). In other words, there is a global scientific field, made up of all the disciplines together, within which smaller fields operate. A very autonomous laboratory is at the top of the hierarchy when the discipline to which it belongs benefits of a high degree of autonomy. This very discipline occupies a high position in the whole set of research activities insofar as the global scientific field tends towards autonomy.

2 There is a noticeable gap between this and the view that the historical development of agricultural research was the prototype for a ‘triple-helix’ which is today bases all scientific activity on continuous, balanced exchanges between the State, industry and the university sector (Etzkowitz, 2001, p. 24).

3 Asociatia Industriei de Protectia Plantelor din Romania; Asociatia Amelioratorilor, Producatorilor si Comerciantilor de Samânta şi Material Saditor din România; Asociatia Profesional AgroBiotechRom.

4 Revista Hortinform; Lucrari Stiintifice, Seria Agronomia; Buletin ICVV/Anale ICVV; Bulletin USAMV Horticulture; Lucrari Stiintifice Facultatea de Agricultura; Lucrari Stiintifice USAMV Iasi, seria Agronomie/seria Horticultura; Romanian Biotechnological Letters; Revista de Cercetari Agronomice în Moldova; Annals of the Viticulture and Vinification Research and Development Institute of Valea Calugareasca; Romanian Agricultural Research; Research Journal of Agricultural Science.

5 Revista ferma; Gazeta fermierului; Profitul agricol; Revista Lumea Satului; Agroazi; ABC Agricol; Gazeta de agricultura; Rodul Pamântului; Banii Fermierului; Info AMSEM.

6 The PhD is formally awarded by USAMV. However, thesis supervisors (conducători doctorat) are members of ASAS. The two institutions are located in close physical proximity: the Bucharest USAMV site is next to the ASAS headquarters on a campus on the northern outskirts of Bucharest.

7 Statement by Mihai Dumitru, Director of the Institute of Pedagogical and Agrochemical Research (Institutul de Cercetari pentru Pedologie si Agrochimie) (Profitul Agricol no. 26, 6 July 2011).

8 Conversely, marginal researchers who wish to develop an alternative scientific programme could not get the support of main trade unions when they look for an access to national administration. It is exemplified by the career path of Ion Toncea: after he got a degree in ‘organic agricultural sciences’ in Netherlands, this researcher managed to create in 1995 a Collective for Organic Agriculture (Colectivul de Agricultura Ecologica), within the ASAS Fundulea Institute. Five years later, he reframed it as a laboratory and renamed it Agroecological Centre for Research, Innovation and Technology Transfer (Centrul agroecologic de cercetare, inovare si transfer tehnologic). Over five hectares, he presents alternatives to chemical products for plant protection to farmers from the surrounding region. This educational work remains little known and hardly gains a hearing in other parts of Romania. Ion Toncea tries hard to circulate his proposals by the creation of the Organic agriculture national federation (Federatia Nationala de Agricultura Ecologica, FNAE). But this organization does not carry much weight faced with leading trade unions and researchers committed to agrochemical industry.