Reshaping Nature: Atomic Agriculture in the Cold War Era

Historians of science have widely investigated the impact of the atomic bomb on the development of post-WW2 life sciences, thoroughly documenting how the dissemination of scientific resources associated with nuclear energy shaped biological knowledge, laboratory instrumentation, and medical practices. In this burgeoning historiographic context, the application of nuclear science in agriculture has hitherto attracted relatively little scholarly attention. In particular, despite the pioneering contributions of Helen Anne Curry, Jacob Darwin Hamblin and Karin Zachmann, the development of mutation breeding in other national contexts different from the United States and, more in general, the global spread of atomic agriculture remain uncharted territory. The aim of this session is to partially bridge this gap, by providing a broader perspective, both geographically and analytically. First of all, the session will examine the transnational dimension of atomic agriculture, drawing attention on little known, yet fundamental, national case-studies, such as Sweden and Italy, but also exploring the transnational circulation of research methods, technological systems, irradiated organisms, from the United States to Europe (and vice versa), as well as from Europe to the Middle East and Central Africa. Secondly, the session will explore the complex interaction between the establishment of mutation plant breeding as a transnational scientific field, on the one hand, and the global geopolitics of atomic agriculture, on the other, involving conflicting actions and relationships between different United Nations’ organizations, such as the FAO and the IAEA.