In this chapter, the problematization of agricultural pesticides and the categorization of their alternatives in Argentina, Brazil and France are examined in the context of public policies aimed at facilitating the emergence of alternative technologies, often defined by the term ‘biological control’. In each case, the authors focus symmetrically on the nature of the problems that define the technologies and are considered legitimate or illegitimate by public actors. In the first part, it is shown that the withdrawal logics of varying degrees of intensity leading to different degrees of withdrawal in the three countries are translated into contrasted categories of technologies that are considered legitimate. This investigation invites examination of the way in which public policies, in particular in interaction with an industrial sector in movement, produce these categories of technology that are legitimate. The contribution recommends taking into accountthe mechanisms that accompany the contestation and decline of technologies. The irruption of solutions presented as replacements cannot be understood without considering the history of the sociotechnical systems they intend to transform. While the challenges facing industrial societies awaken, on the one hand, fear of collapse and, on the other, the most grandiose technological promises, the study of the conditions of emergence of alternative technologies invites us to be attentive to recompositions, to continuities, rather than to clear or hypothetical ruptures.Read less <