光合菌農業共學行動的公共化路徑

A Learning Collaboration Campaign Publicizing Photosynthetic Bacteria

本文跟尋科學家與農民的腳步，探索一場自2018年啟動的微生物公共化行動試驗。文中主角——光合菌——塵封於國家菌種保存庫數十年，重新踏上由微生物科學家、社區營造協作者、大學的研究者與農友搭建的共學網絡，走入數千名農友田中，甚至讓農友開始減用合成化學資材。
光合菌能走上異於一般微生物技轉的路徑、得以另闢蹊徑的條件是什麼？我們嘗試從物的特性出發，跟隨「物」進入生產技術環節，發現其生物的物質性限制其踏上技轉－商品路徑，卻也成為踏上公共化路徑的起點；而回應行動者的不同需求，光合菌也發展出多樣社會的物質性，引發科學家與部分農民、社造協作者透過組裝跨界應用知識與編排在地性社會資源，發展讓光合菌嵌入農民日常勞動的適當科技，農友更因為彼此分享應用心得，建立起共學網絡，快速拓展光合菌應用知識的前沿，進而照見現今臺灣社會、行政體系對「公共性」的認知框架與侷限，藉由這場光合菌農業共學行動之論述與反思，得以讓我們打開臺灣對微生物的另一種社會科技想像，並創造出一個新的農業社群模式與價值。

The purpose of this article is to explore a microbiology publicity action experiment launched in 2018. It’s the story of how microbial scientists, community building collaborators, university researchers, and farmers built a learning network to bring to the public photosynthetic bacteria that had been dust-sealed in the Bioresource Collection and Research Center (BCRC) for decades. This action has enabled thousands of farmers to start reducing their use of synthetic chemical materials.
How can photosynthetic bacteria take a path different from that of ordinary microorganisms, and what conditions allowed them to find another way? Our starting point was the characteristics of objects, and, following these“objects”into the production technology link, we found that their biological materiality restricted them from embarking on a path of commercialization but also became the starting point for embarking on a path of publicization.
Due to the different needs of actors, photosynthetic bacteria have also developed a variety of social materialities, which have led scientists, some farmers, and social construction collaborators to develop appropriate technologies by which photosynthetic bacteria could embed themselves in farmers’daily labor. Farmers have also shared their application experiences with each other by establishing a learning network that has quickly expanded the frontier of photosynthetic bacteria application knowledge. Through our exploration of this photosynthetic bacteria agricultural colearning action, we can open up another social and technological imaginary of microorganisms in Taiwan and create a new agricultural community model and set of values.