ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades there has been renewed concern about food security and the state of the global food system. Bringing together the biological, technical and human factors in agricultural production, agronomy is at the very centre of efforts to sustainably enhance agricultural productivity. This chapter explores the notion of development-oriented agronomy in more depth. It summarises the original contested agronomy argument. Then, the chapter focuses on the notion of knowledge politics, which sits at the core of contested agronomy. It is in this context that a focus on knowledge politics within development-oriented agronomy becomes particularly important. Focusing on knowledge politics, is not merely an exercise in highlighting the political nature of agricultural research, or enhancing our understanding of the contestations that pervade contemporary development-oriented agronomy. The chapter argues that the dominance of the approaches and disciplines associated with New Public Management (NPM) have played a particularly important part in driving contemporary knowledge politics in publicly funded agronomic research.
