INNOVATION IN AGRIBUSINESS

The productivity of industrial capitalist agriculture is central to dominant development narratives. It is also highly unstable, with intractable biophysical problems created in the substitution of labour, skill and knowledge with technology, and overridden with unsustainable 'technological fixes' and masked by a host of externalized costs. Relatively cheap oil is central to this, effectively subsidizing the low-priced industrial grains and oilseeds on which global food security has come to hinge. However, the chronic biophysical contradictions of industrial capitalist agriculture are accelerating, at the same time as the surge in biofuels has augmented the still-rising demand of livestock feed to embolden industrial producers. A period of acute and ominously regressive food price volatility looms in the short term, with more ruinous outcomes ahead. But this might also widen openings for rebuilding biodiverse food systems and remaking and valorizing agricultural work, which will involve rethinking agriculture's place in conceptions of development and modernity.

This introduction suggests an inherited weakness of 'orthodox' materialist conceptions of the development of the productive forces in capitalist agriculture, and the intellectual deficit of an uncritical and ahistorical stance that embraces such development as forever 'progressive'. The best recent work in political ecology presents agrarian political economy with a challenge to address that intellectual deficit by interrogating and problematizing its inherited conceptions of the productive forces, both theoretically and historically. This is illustrated with reference to notions of the 'biophysical contradictions of industrial capitalist agriculture', a global agricultural or food 'crisis', and suggested alternatives, drawing on the analyses and arguments of the six papers that follow.

Productive Forces in Capitalist Agriculture: Political Economy and Political Ecology

Hubris and hybrids: a cultural history of technology and science Mikael Hård, Andrew Jamison 0 Resenhas Routledge, 2005 - 335 páginas Human societies have not always taken on new technology in appropriate ways. Innovations are double-edged swords that transform relationships among people, as well as between human societies and the natural world. Only through successful cultural appropriation can we manage to control the hubris that is fundamental to the innovative, enterprising human spirit; and only by becoming hybrids, combining the human and the technological, will we be able to make effective use of our scientific and technological achievements. This broad cultural history of technology and science provides a range of stories and reflections about the past, discussing areas such as film, industrial design, and alternative environmental technologies, and including not only European and North American, but also Asian examples, to help resolve the contradictions of contemporary high-tech civilization. Cover image and detail: Colin Clive, as Dr. Frankenstein, and Dwight Frye, as his assistant Fritz, prepare to bring theirmonster to life in a scene from the 1931 movie version of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." "Highly Recommended" -Choice Magazine

Starting around 1900, technology became a lively subject for debate among intellectuals, writers, and other opinion leaders. The expansion of the machine into ever more areas of social and economic life had led to a need to interpret its meanings in a more comprehensive way than in the past. World War I and its aftermath shifted the terms of this ongoing debate by underlining both the potential dangers of technology and its centrality to modern life. This book examines the broad range of social and intellectual responses to technology in the first four decades of this century, and suggests that these responses set the terms that continue to govern contemporary debates. Focusing on the broader contexts within which intellectual positions are formed, the book highlights the ways in which attitudes toward technology were shaped in a wide variety of national and organizational settings. A common theme is that, in debating technology, people drew on their distinctive national symbols and cultural traditions. By emphasizing the interplay between debates on technology and the making of modernity, the book challenges standard historical accounts of the early twentieth century. Contributors: Ketil G. Andersen, Aant Elzinga, Tor Halvorsen, Mikael Hard, Kjetil Jakobsen, Andrew Jamison, Catharina Landstrom, Conny Mithander, Sissel Myklebust, Dick van Lente, Peter Wagner.

Michael Fumento discusses the miracle drugs and treatment in the pipeline--innovations that will change medicine over the next decades, eliminating diseases such as diabete

Globalization has reshaped the nature of regulation within developed nations. This book draws upon the expertise of some of the most prominent names in rural sociology, geography, and anthropology to show how globalization has opened up a new regulatory politics in which increasingly, non-political sites, spaces, and agents play an increasingly influential role in shaping agricultural production and consumption.

Three leading scholars in the field explain why place and provenance are assuming more importance in the food chain to producers, consumers, and regulators. They examine how these concerns influence debates on the future of food and farming, exploring the implications for three very different regions: California, Tuscany, and Wales.

This book analyses the gradual shift in the distribution of power in agri-food supply chains, away from the manufacturers of branded food products to the global supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart and Tesco. This transformation has had a profound effect on the food we eat, together with the ways in which food is produced, processed and marketed. The authors assess the causes and consequences of this transformation, and evaluate theimpacts along the whole supply chain. The book considers a variety of theoretical and cultural approaches to the analysis of change in the organization and management of the agri-food supply chain, and presents a series of studies focusing upon the effects of changes in Europe, North America and less developed countries. The impacts on farmers and workers, and implications for the environment, are also considered. The contested nature of these changes suggests a number of possible future scenarios for the global agri-food system, which are also analysed and evaluated.This book will be of great interest to postgraduate and undergraduate students in business studies, sociology, politics, geography, and cultural studies. Academic researchers and teachers, and policy makers and researchers in business, government and industry will also find much of interest.

The emergence of a world economy depends on the reorganization of agriculture and food systems to provision the work force and the industries associated with the division of labor. This work emphasizes the central role played by food and agriculture in the world economy. The book includes a historical dimension along with the formulation of the challenges that face the world today. Social scientists of all kinds, but especially economists, sociologists, environmentalists, and political scientists, should be interested in this volume.

How can starving people also be obese? Why does everything have soy in it? How do petrochemicals and biofuels control the price of food? It's a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before (800 million) while there are also more people overweight (1 billion). To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India's wrecked paddy-fields and Africa's bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soy beans and dodged flying objects in the protestor-packed streets of South Korea. What he found was shocking, from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides, and real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa. Yet he also found great cause for hope-in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.

Ce livre retrace l'histoire des transformations conjointes de la génétique et de la société depuis cent cinquante ans. Trois grands régimes de production des savoirs et des innovations émergent. Au régime de la semence domestique succède après la seconde guerre mondiale le régime du progrès génétique planifié ; chercheurs et fonctionnaires, en lien avec la profession, produisent et régulent l'innovation variétale pour moderniser la « ferme France ». Ces régulations cèdent ensuite la place au régime contemporain de profit génétique mondialisé, creuset des OGM.Cet ouvrage s'adresse à ceux que l'avenir des semences, de l'alimentation et de la biodiversité préoccupent.

Des spécialistes d'histoire des sciences et de l'agriculture analysent les interactions entre connaissances scientifiques et innovations techniques, nous transportant de l'Institut des recherches agronomiques de 1921 à l'Inra de 1946, de Pasteur aux OGM

Agriculture has always attracted attention from governments, policy makers & planners. As a globalized industry any policy that has agriculture at its core must also be globalized. This book examines the policy & planning of agriculture, in the wake of the global crisis in capitalism, using this framework to examine the regulatory processes that intersect with agriculture while giving analytical emphasis to the capitalist accumulation process & the institutions of social regulation. Its three main obejectives are: to outline a theoretical framework & approach for analysing developmnents in capitalist agriculture in advanced industrial economices; the explore policy & planning issues & problems emanating from agriculture at the end of the twentieth century; & to review policy & planning processes & practice appropriate to the new structural conditions facing agriculture. The book concludes with an overview of policy & planning processes & addresses the political choices that are revealed as being required

Big Macs, chickens and cut flowers are commodities beginning to dominate the global agro-food system. Using case studies from the US, Britain, India, South Africa, New Zealand and Latin America,Globalising Foodaddresses the key themes that are transforming the character of the traditional agricultural communities, ranging from multinational food corporations and World Bank policies, to regulation of pollution and labor relations.

ombining theory, research and policy Consuming Interests provides a topical interdisciplinary exploration into the nature of food provision, policy and regulation. The book provides a detailed examination of corporate retailers, state agencies and consumer organisations involved in the food sector. The analysis explores questions including: * what can the public expect from the state * what limits are there on state action * what are the most appropriate balances between public and private interests in the provision of 'quality' foods.

Globalization has reshaped the nature of regulation within developed nations. This book draws upon the expertise of some of the most prominent names in rural sociology, geography, and anthropology to show how globalization has opened up a new regulatory politics in which increasingly, non-political sites, spaces, and agents play an increasingly influential role in shaping agricultural production and consumption