Living with Xylella: Securing viable rural futures amid a plant disease epidemic in Europe’s Mediterranean food basket

Plant health is vital for sustainable development. Plant pathogens threaten economies, food security, and rural livelihoods. Existing plant disease research focuses on ecology, epidemiology, and economic losses. This overlooks social questions such as what makes farmers vulnerable to plant disease and what enables them to adapt.

Without this knowledge, it is difficult to develop equitable solutions to manage plant disease. Our project will develop a participatory approach to understanding the social processes and outcomes of plant disease.

Our empirical focus is Xylella fastidiosa (XF), an invasive bacteria considered the most serious threat to EU plant health in generations. We will conduct fieldwork in two regions of Spain facing an outbreak of XF.

We will 1) use Q-method to map stakeholder perspectives on XF governance; 2) interview farmers to understand XF’s impacts in terms of differential vulnerability and ability to adapt; and 3) employ the participatory photovoice method to engage rural communities in envisioning possible rural futures for living with XF.

Through journal articles, policy briefs, a photo exhibit, and conferences, our findings will feed into ongoing dialogues on XF. By foregrounding place-based knowledge, our approach will help inform more equitable plant health policies.

Specifically, we will answer calls to merge ‘top-down’ efforts to manage plant pathogens with ‘bottom-up’ approaches that take into account farmers’ lived experiences and realities.