A few years ago, the garden of a friend of David Greenwood-Sanchez’s angered a neighbor, who filed a complaint with the city of Falcon Heights, just outside of Saint Paul. The neighbor was concerned that, as a front yard garden, it was too large and might be used commercially for the unauthorized sale of fruits and vegetables. The City agreed and ordered an immediate ban on all front yard gardens.
Greenwood-Sanchez, now assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, and his friend advocated against the policy, gaining over 10,000 signatures on a petition, and igniting what would become a heated skirmish with the City.
“I noticed there’s a politics that we’re not quite exploring. People are beginning to rethink this norm in the U.S. that we have to have a perfect lawn,” he explains.
Presently, Greenwood-Sanchez is working on a series of nationally representative surveys that aim to capture the practices and motivations of front yard gardeners. He wants to know where the line is between plants that are acceptable and unacceptable so he can inform change.
As a researcher affiliate at the Center for Social Science Innovation (CSSI), he’s able to take advantage of networking opportunities, survey research infrastructure, and workshops to advance his research.
Deep-rooted research inspired by an Indigenous tuber
Of Peruvian descent and raised in Minnesota, Greenwood-Sanchez first became interested in the politics of crops while an undergraduate at Whitman College in Washington, where he earned a degree in economics. Through one of his classes, he began exploring why Andean farmers resisted genetically modified potatoes.
As the center of origin for the potato, Peru has a 10,000 -year history of its domestication. Over this time, our human ancestors transformed wild potatoes into the over 4,500 native potato varieties that are currently grown in Peru. “An entire way of life has been based around the potato,” explains Greenwood-Sanchez.
He returned to this topic during his graduate studies at the University of Minnesota’s public policy program when he received a human rights summer fellowship, allowing him to intern with Peru’s “Potato Park.”
He continued exploring the politics of Latin American agriculture as part of his PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During this time, Peru had a choice: do they genetically modify potatoes and other crops to boost their productivity and gain competitiveness in global markets? Their answer was a resolute no.
Instead, Peru pursued a non-GMO route focused on promoting high-value and niche products, supported with a moratorium on the production of genetically modified crops, including potatoes, through the year 2036.
“The central theme of my research is trying to make the connection between biodiversity and different articulations of national identity,” he explains.
He’s since turned his attention north to Mexico, where there is a local slogan: “Without corn, there is no country.” This year, like Peru, the country put a pause on genetically modified maize through a constitutional amendment designed to protect the nation’s biocultural heritage.
Currently, Greenwood-Sanchez is analyzing a survey of Mexican citizens’ attitudes towards genetically modified crops. The survey was census-style, meaning surveyors went door-to-door to field questions.
“I have always been inspired by the idea of having research that connects directly to policy and to current events. The questions of genetically modified crops and front yard gardens are active and being addressed right now,” he reflects.
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