Ostrom on Herbicide Resistance Management

by Levi Russell

I thought I'd share an interesting article I ran across last month on community-based approaches to herbicide resistance. The authors focus on the work of Elinor Ostrom as they evaluate the history of community-based solutions to common-pool resource problems and discuss how these solutions might be applied to herbicide resistance. Here's an excerpt from the conclusion:

What is to be done? First, we can recognize the wisdom of the Nobel Economic Sciences Prize Committee for awarding Elinor Ostrom part of the 2009 prize in economics for “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.”—Oliver Williamson deservedly shared the prize for his “analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm". There is now a rich body of research on managing common pool resources that can inform community-based approaches to resistance managements. Second, to organize to prevent herbicide resistant weeds, farmers and other stakeholders do not have to start from scratch. The multiple examples of community-based programs to control mobile insects and invasive weeds illustrate that farmer groups—in collaboration with and assistance from the research and extension communities—have organized effectively to overcome barriers to collective action problems. There is legal and administrative precedent as well as institutional memory that could aid farmers in developing resistance management programs based on programs they are already familiar with and which have a record of success. The particulars of herbicide resistant weed management will certainly differ from such insect and invasive weed programs. Insect biology and movement differs in spatial and temporal dimensions from that of weeds. And insect eradication programs have at times relied on mandatory area-wide spraying or practiced area-wide sterile insect releases. While both these actions took discretion out of the individual farmer’s hands, they were actions that farmers collectively accepted. Other organizational arrangements may also serve as useful examples. Endres and Schelsinger (2015) suggest that drainage districts perhaps provide a structure that can be replicated for effective community-based herbicide resistance programs.