ABSTRACT
This chapter takes first step towards unravelling the stakeholder dialogue that surrounds the pesticide issue. It gains an understanding of the human interaction that occurs when stakeholders of pest management interact. The stakeholders are those people who are in the problem context; the people who language about what they call a problem; and the people who comprise the social system. In stakeholder focus groups, two human developmental processes occur simultaneously: individual cognitive development and development of the stakeholder mind. Individual cognitive development requires changing ones belief structure something that stakeholders frequently require of others but not of themselves. Bateson describes mind as real thoughts, beliefs and relationships that exist in the real world among the involved stakeholders. As long as each stakeholder's needs, desires and paradigms are truly considered by the innovator, the larger system will have a greater chance of being represented.
