The main goal of CON-EF is to introduce a historically informed policy analysis of the Greek agri-food industry as an attempt to unravel path dependencies, sociotechnical dynamics and pathways that can inform contemporary challenges that the Greek agri-food sector is facing. CON-EF will provide public and private decision makers in agri- culture, fisheries, aquaculture and food sectors with a deep understanding of sociotechnical interdependencies, the material interconnectivity between the energy regime and that of agri-food as well as a deep understanding of different steps, resources and networks of actors along the innovation pathways leading to impacts. CON-EF also aims to raise the awareness about the sustainability of a Mediterranean diet mode of consumption by giving a deeper and material perspective of its mode of production. CON-EF provides a policy-relevant history of the food chain in Greece as an exemplar case of the Mediterranean food chain by focusing on the techno-scientific networks, their articulation and agency in configuring the food chain from 1950 to the present. The techno-scientific networks are conceptualized both as a. networks of infrastructures (technological and research) that enabled/disabled the material conditions of techno- logical change and b. networks of experts – engineers, chemists, soil scientists, biologists, toxicologists, medical doctors, plant pathologists, agronomists, biotechnologists, food scientists, veterinarians and biochemists – that functioned as en- tanglers in shaping socio-technical transitions. The techno-scientific networks as the focus of the analysis have been neglected or completely downplayed in the current historiography as well as the political analysis of socio-technical transitions in the food industry. The existing approaches of the agri-food sector in Greece lacks emphasis on the co-production of agri-food with techno-scientific networks, knowledge politics and the character of energy and water regimes within the agri-food regime. They have not placed any emphasis on the environmental impact of agri-food transitions. The proposed research will differ in scope, methodology and historiographical approach as it locates the meaning of the environment at the centre of its analysis; it examines the terms with which the use of science and technology – mostly through the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and additives – transformed the food chain in Greece. To this end, it also studies energy and water techno-scientific management and their co-production with certain types of agri-food models, which (re)defined the meaning of “environment”.
In this framework, the research study will move into two interconnected and complementary directions: a) the co-production of the energy and water-management regimes with practices (use of fertilizers and herbicides/pesticides) and policies which reproduce intensified agriculture, aquaculture and animal husbandry models, b) the legitimization of scientific practices and the use of technological networks which configured the meaning of environment and reproduced practices that furthered the use of pollutant toxic preservatives and antibiotics.
