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The Politics of Hunger How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis

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Abstract

The food crisis could have dire effects on the poor. Politicians have it in their power to bring food prices down. But doing so will require ending the bias against big commercial farms and genetically modified crops and doing away with damaging subsidies-the giants of romantic populism, bolstered by both illusion and greed.

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... The empirical debate on lowering violent conflicts through climate change mitigation is not decisive. Some theories suggest that eradicating the underlying problems (poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and water scarcity) that climate change increases permit to lower the violence (Barlow 2013, Brown 2012, Collier 2008, Klare 2002, Sachs 2015. Other theories propose to look at history, geographic position, and politics (Collier 2007, Benjaminsen 2016. ...
... "Violence and conflict often break out in hungry regions" (Sachs 2015 321). Some authors, such as Barlow (2013), Baro and Deubel (2006), Brown (2012), Collier (2007), Collier (2008), Crush (2013), Klare (2002), and ...
... Nevertheless, the same poor ecological conditions make the GAT produce more GA (CRAD & RECA 2012, Kalilou 2021). Barlow (2013), Brown (2012), Collier (2008), Klare (2002), and Sachs (2015) are among the experts who believe that the rise in food prices creates violence. Climate change (along with population growth, food waste, and increased demand for commodities for biofuels), creating unstable food production, raise food price. ...
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Environmental stress contributes to food insecurity, poverty, forced migration and violent conflict in the Sahel, with climate change aggravating the situation. The production of gum arabic from the acacia tree increasingly aligns with the community stakeholders’ efforts to promote climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience. Based on expert interviews and field observations in Niger, and a reading of relevant documents, I found that gum arabic production is valuable for conflict mitigation because it helps tackle the root causes of violent conflicts. The acacia gum tree is a natural soil fixer and multinational companies have coveted the resin from the tree, which is a rising commodity and a promising source of revenue for the local inhabitants. As different communities work together and cooperate with outside actors (government agencies, international partners, NGOs and businesses), the opportunities to build social cohesion around the tree increase. By facilitating ecological improvement, social inclusion and poverty alleviation, the promotion of gum arabic production, despite other issues such as bad natural resource governance, is a critical environmental peacebuilding strategy. Hence, suitable funding of massive afforestation with the acacia tree fits with community-based natural climate solutions to global humanitarian issues by protecting and restoring the local environment. Subject: Sub-Saharan Africa
... An exporting country such as Brazil can respond quickly to increases in prices and can self-finance production increases under those conditions." Private Sector Representative, North America Stakeholders, such as the United States Department of Agriculture (and some authors [8,34]), acknowledge that increases in United States ethanol production, and associated structural changes in the national maize market, have impacted the world's supply and demand balance for total coarse grains [14]. Importantly, some authors attributed increased demand for coarse grains for biofuel production in the EU and United States as a prominent differentiating factor between the 2007/08 world food crisis and earlier events [35]. ...
... Some authors [34] call for major reforms around financial subsidies for crops for energy, specifically ethanol in the United States. Additionally, many commentators call for reductions of subsidies for locally-produced crops in regions such as the EU that prevent more efficient crop production from alternative potential exporting nations in regions such as Africa. ...
... For example, malnutrition among pre-schoolers rose during the 2007/08 world food crisis, forcing some children to drop out of school early and rendering the damage long lasting [22]. Additionally, by November 2008, food riots had occurred in some 30 countries as a result of the 2007/08 world food crisis [34]. ...
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Food production shocks can lead to food crises where access to appropriate quantities and quality of food become inadequate, unaffordable, or unreliable on a major scale. While the physical causes of food production shocks are well researched, the dynamics of responses to them are less well understood. This paper reviews those dynamics and includes evidence gathered via interviews of 44 expert practitioners sourced globally from academia, government, industry, think-tanks, and development/relief organizations. The paper confirms that policy interventions are often prioritised for national interests and poorly coordinated at regional and global scales. The paper acknowledges future compounding trends such as climate change and demographic shifts and suggests that while there are signs of incremental progress in better managing the impacts of shock events, coordinated responses at scale will require a paradigm shift involving major policy, market, and technological advancements, and a wide range of public and private sector stakeholders.
... Promoting locally sourced foods as better than imported foods as part of a larger nationalist objective is called "food nationalism." Food nationalism can result in a lack of diversity in the food supply, limited access to international markets, and a higher risk of food shortages during times of crisis, despite the benefits of encouraging locally sourced foods, such as lower transportation costs and support for local farmers (Collier 2008). ...
... Due to a lack of trust, standards, and laws governing food safety may suffer, which could increase food-borne illnesses and diseases. Additionally, it might result in a lack of coordination among various food business sectors, impeding attempts to solve pressing issues like climate change, food insecurity, and hunger (Collier 2008). ...
Article
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The rise of new populism has had significant implications for the food industry. Populism, which is characterized by a focus on the concerns of ordinary people, has led to a renewed interest in local, traditional, and organic food.
... The literature links these challenges to the agricultural development pathway that current global institutions follow, in particular, their adherence to neoliberal economic principles such as privatisation, deregulation of markets and prioritisation of profit (Collier 2008;Jarosz 2014;Schanbacher 2010) that, in turn jeopardise other social dimensions such as food culture, human health, rural livelihoods, especially in the global south. The current 'corporate food regime' is modelled on agribusiness, where a handful of powerful corporations exercise an extraordinary degree of control over all nodes of the food chain (McMichael 2014). ...
... The current 'corporate food regime' is modelled on agribusiness, where a handful of powerful corporations exercise an extraordinary degree of control over all nodes of the food chain (McMichael 2014). This food regime has been criticised for fueling deepening global inequalities between North and South (Jarosz 2014;Martínez-Torres and Rosset 2010;Tittonell 2013), food price volatility and unsustainability (Collier 2008;Rosset 2008;Shuquan 2018). As a result, there are increasing calls for transforming the neoliberal global food system to ensure a sustainable and equitable food supply (Holt- Giménez et al. 2012;Tripathi and Kaini 2023;Van der Ploeg 2014). ...
Article
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The concept of food sovereignty is primarily taken as an alternative to the prevailing neoliberal food security model. However, the approach has hitherto not received adequate attention from policy makers. This could be because the discourse is marked by controversies and contradictions, particularly regarding its ability to address the challenges of feeding a rapidly growing global population. In response to these criticisms, this paper argues that the principles of food sovereignty, such as democratic and transparent food systems, agroecology, and local market prioritization, should be fundamental pillars for achieving sustainable food security. It acknowledges that neither food sovereignty nor food security models alone can guarantee long-term food security, thus advocating for a blended approach that integrates these perspectives into a complex and interconnected system. This paper makes three significant contributions to the existing literature. Firstly, it emphasizes that food sovereignty should be seen as an integral component of transforming food systems towards sustainability, rather than a complete departure from neoliberal food systems. Secondly, it highlights the importance of adopting a multi-scalar approach, where decisions and policies for transforming food systems are context-specific and tailored to local circumstances. Lastly, the paper recognizes the necessity of institutional transformations that involve nation-states, social movements, and civil society organizations as key actors in the process of food system transformation. By reframing the discussion on food sovereignty and its relationship with food security, this paper provides insights into how these concepts can be mutually reinforcing, leading to more sustainable and equitable food systems.
... Over the past decades, while large-scale land acquisition across Africa has come under sharp scrutiny (Cotula, 2012;Boamah, 2014), consensus among analysts has been absent. On the one hand there is the view that such large-scale land deals may constitute an essential (and beneficial) catalyst for transforming livelihoods (Collier, 2008). As Collier (2008) argues, commercial agriculture, which often requires large tracts of land, can play critical roles in increasing global food supply and ending hunger. ...
... On the one hand there is the view that such large-scale land deals may constitute an essential (and beneficial) catalyst for transforming livelihoods (Collier, 2008). As Collier (2008) argues, commercial agriculture, which often requires large tracts of land, can play critical roles in increasing global food supply and ending hunger. At the other end of the spectrum is the view that such large-scale land acquisition adversely affects livelihoods and involves multiple forms of dispossession (Van Noorloos and Kloosterboer, 2018). ...
Article
The rapid expansion of African cities has created both housing deficits and a pluralization of urban orders, including the growth of slum settlements. With an ever‐increasing middle class, urban sub‐Saharan Africa is now also characterized by large‐scale land acquisition processes linked to the construction of wholly private and increasingly enclaved cities. This article maps the impacts of the Appolonia City of Light project—a privately built enclaved city catering to the housing needs of a rapidly growing middle class in Ghana. Building on field research and exploring various dimensions of the development marketed as ‘The City of Light’, we highlight how the project has dramatically altered social relations and resulted in dispossession rippling through nearby local communities. We therefore argue that, instead of merely focusing on the actual physical spaces of private developments or turning attention to often phantasmagoric and utopic visions of the future, research should be directed at changes in the immediate surroundings of urban developments. We highlight the problematic land acquisition inherent to such enclaved developments and demonstrate how these intrinsically constitute assemblages of livelihoods and exemplify dynamics of appropriation, dispossession and commodification.
... The discussion about the role of farm size to ensure agricultural commercialisation and growth in Africa has received plenty of attention over the years specifically questioning whether Africa should promote largescale farms or smallholder farming to spur agricultural commercialisation and growth (Collier, 2008;Chapoto, Mabiso and Bonsu, 2013). The existing literature presents diverse views. ...
... The existing literature presents diverse views. Some authors argue that priority should be given to large-scale commercial farming and to the promotion of land consolidation if Africa is to spur agricultural commercialisation and growth (Collier, 2008;del Prete et al., 2018). Others support the traditional claim that "small is beautiful" based on the evidence that small farms present higher productivity compared to large farms (Fan and Chan-Kang, 2005) and others present the relationship between farm size and agricultural productivity as a U-shaped trend, where up to certain level there is an inverse relationship followed by a positive relationship (Das and Ganesh-Kumar, 2017;Muyanga and Jayne, 2019). ...
Article
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The introduction of rice into Ethiopia provided a solution to food insecurity. More recently, national policy has emphasised the positive relationship between rice specialisation and commercialisation and, thus, higher incomes. In retrospect, this initiative has been hugely successful as the regions where rice has been introduced have been transformed from heavily relying on food aid to becoming a thriving commercial centre. This transformation owes much to the increase in the production, consumption and commercial value of rice. However, the relationship between specialisation and commercialisation is far from straightforward and is mediated by poverty, as proxied by farm size in this paper. Using a novel cross-sectional dataset of rice farmers from the Fogera Plain in Ethiopia, collected in 2018, in this paper we look at the relationship between rice specialisation and commercialisation and how specialisation and commercialisation decisions and outcomes are mediated by farm size. Specifically, we characterise farmers by the extent of rice specialisation and commercialisation and explore the role of landholding size. We explain a seeming paradox: that farmers with very small amounts of farm land devote high proportions of their land to rice production (that is, they are high specialisers), yet, display low levels of commercialisation. We argue that this negative relationship between specialisation and rice commercialisation is being driven by small holders who are, on average, poorer. They have little choice but to cultivate a larger share of the land to rice due to economies of scale and farming economies with respect to rice. Yet, the majority of that rice production is to satisfy domestic consumption and household food security, with only a small surplus being sold. The high commercialisers have bigger land sizes and farm a relatively small proportion of their land with rice (yet, in absolute terms this can be larger than the amount sown by smaller farms). These bigger farms cultivate rice for commercial, profit purposes. This suggests that there are distinctly different stories and behaviours driving the rice cultivation and commercialisation trajectories of smaller, poorer landowners, and larger, more wealthy ones. This has implications for how to promote equitable access to gains from commercialisation strategies. Policy options for the smallholders include facilitating access to irrigation and the land rental market, provision of credit, and rice intensification support.
... The opposing perspective is that the commercialization of agriculture that fueled economic growth in western economies can have the same impact on emerging economies (Collier and Dercon 2014) and that support of smallholder agriculture reflects a misguided "romantic populism" regarding the virtues of small-scale farming (Collier 2008, p. 71). Policies and public resources designed to support small-scale farming and impede commercialization can diminish local food production, raise food prices, and, thus, have a significant adverse impact on the welfare of the urban poor (Collier 2008). Others argue that the rapid evolution of the supply chain including liberalized international trade, aggressive entry, and expansion of supermarkets in LMICs seriously challenges the viability of small-scale farming (Hazell et al. 2010), requiring that smallholders either transition to commercial-sized operations or be supported in exiting agriculture (Fan et al. 2013). ...
... Collier (2008) also argues that focusing on smallholder income instead of utility is too narrow and ignores evidence that smallholder farmers seek out off-farm opportunities and that rural youth often prefer to migrate to urban areas than to engage in a life of farming.3 The closed-economy assumption is reasonable for many of the countries and commodities relevant to this study, because the self-sufficiency ratio for staple foods is generally high in developing economies. ...
Article
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Promoting smallholder production systems as a growth and poverty‐reduction strategy versus supporting an institutional framework that enables endogenous and voluntary consolidation of smallholder farms into larger operations is a central debate for economic development and food security in low‐ and middle‐income countries. We propose an integrated conceptual framework to compare the two alternative farming systems for producing a domestic staple commodity, focusing on key economic factors that differentiate them, including labor inefficiency of larger farms, credit constraints for smallholders, and differences in farm–retail price spreads. We derive equilibrium expressions for economic welfare for smallholder farmers and urban consumers under the two farming systems, and parameterize the model based on publicly available data and recent empirical literature. An extensive simulation analysis reveals several key results from transforming to a large‐farm equilibrium: (a) rural household welfare almost always declines; (b) total production of the staple almost always increases; (c) the sum of urban and rural household welfare almost always increases, often by substantial amounts; and (d) rural employment does not decrease, even with modest increases in capital intensity on large farms. Policies to promote farm consolidation, while protecting rural households from welfare losses, for example through income transfers, can achieve Pareto improvements for nearly all of the comparative equilibria studied.
... Land grab, advocates claim, will lead to agricultural modernisation, mechanisation, and hence development in Africa. For neo-liberals, it is a win-win situation where more food will be produced, more jobs will be created, more investment will flow, and more mechanisation will take place (Collier 2009). ...
... In practice, farmers with higher income generation potential are more likely to receive assistance and aid from governmental extension offices, subsidy schemes and credit opportunities than farmers with lower income generation potential. Yet, doubts upon the logic that food security in rural areas and among smallholders can be addressed by the focus on commercialization of the smallholder production are now casted (Collier, 2008). ...
Article
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In contrast to a large body of literature linking agroecology to food security through sustainable agronomic practices, research on how agroecology enhances smallholder farmers’ access to productive resources, yet necessary for food security and nutrition, is sparse in Africa. Literature does not consider the fact that agroecology practices are often adopted via entering a group that provides corresponding knowledge, network and possibly markets. We investigate the case of an agroecology group operating parallel to the dominant agri-industrial food system in Southeast Nigeria. We ask: who are the agroecology farmers? Do they improve their food status in comparison to conventional smallholders operating in the commodity oriented agro-industrial system? Who appears to benefit most among agroecology farmers? To provide answers to these questions, we collected data from 334 smallholder farmers (comprising 111 agroecology farmers and 223 non-agroecology farmers) through a stratified cluster sampling process. Descriptive statistics of our data showed that women make up 89% of the agroecology farmers in the group. We found that in both the agroecology and the conventional groups, women farmers had little access to land, even lower ownership of land, little exposure to extension services, and no access to financial credits. Thus, the sample of female farmers we addressed consists of marginal persons who operate at the margins of the capital and input-based networks and agricultural production. In contrast to the expectation of conventional hypotheses, we show that on average, agroecology farmers had lower food insecurity experiences and higher observed dietary diversity scores. Exploring more detail within the agroecology group via a quantile semi-parametric propensity score matching, we further show that women left out of conventional extension services benefit more from being in the agroecology group. Similarly, the increase in food security and nutrition was highest among those farmers who balance self-provisioning and market as food sources compared to strategies pursued mainly by one of these two sources. To these farmers, mostly women, the agroecology group provides alternative to access important resources and knowledge that they ordinarily would not have accessed being in the capitalistic food system, and which enables them to reach their nutrition goals. Our study supports a conceptualization of agroecology as an interdependency between agroecological agronomic practices, reciprocity and autonomy-fostering social innovations.
... In Africa, Asia, Latin America and other third world countries, a deterioration in technology or ecology, which lower outputs from given input has long been identified as one of the reasons for poor agricultural production performance (Collier, 2008). It is equally important to note that indigenous techniques like crop rotation and other cultural farming practices that have been used to preserve the soil structure and its fecundity do not seem to be adequate or even relevant in the present efforts to boast food production in most developing countries. ...
Chapter
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Food is the most important of the three basic needs (food, shelter and clothes) for human existence and development. The process (agriculture) that brings about food is the bedrock of every nation’s development. One fundamental instrument for its growth is technology. Africa has an opportunity to play a bigger role in the world economy, but first, it must tackle the obstacles of deficit in scientific knowledge as well as technological backwardness. In contemporary Africa, there still exists the challenge of food insecurity, which gives room for endemic, vulnerability of rural poverty and human capital underdevelopment. Popper’s philosophy contains ideas that are capable of stimulating the needed knowledge relevant to Africa’s quest for development in the 21st century. Therefore, in unison with Popper’s philosophy on the above, and bearing in mind that the 21st century is an age where development is largely determined, not by natural resources any longer, but by knowledge economy and technological revolution -this paper focused on achieving food security through agricultural development, using relevant technologies in advancing agricultural output. In this paper, I also examined the problems militating against agriculture in Africa, as well as how investment in the agriculture and technology can be indispensable tool achieving food security and development. The result from review of related literatures showed that in Africa, there is a high level of food insecurity because of low attention on food production occasioned by the use of crude implements and inconsistency in government’s agricultural development policies and programmes, as well astheCovid-19crisis that is affecting global economies. Conclusively, in Africa, both the citizens and government despise agriculture. Deterioration in technology has long been identified as one of the reasons for poor agricultural production performance and food scarcity in Africa. Workable recommendations are outlined; among others, the researchers recommend that African leaders should mechanize agriculture; also, social protection policies should be channeled to agricultural sector to protect farmers who are vulnerable to threat of life and avert risks associated with farming.
... This is a very good idea. However, in so doing, Africa must avoid aping the already existed green revolution out of Africa that heavily depended on the use of chemicals whose menaces to environment are clear (Collier, 2008). The idea for Africa to embark on green revolution appeals to everybody. ...
... This is a very good idea. However, in so doing, Africa must avoid aping the already existed green revolution out of Africa that heavily depended on the use of chemicals whose menaces to environment are clear (Collier, 2008). The idea for Africa to embark on green revolution appeals to everybody. ...
Book
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This book aims to shed light on land grabbing, which corrupt politicians disguisedly call land leasing that many African countries are now involved in under the guise of investment. The major argument I make in this volume is that rich countries and companies are now committing a sacrilegious crime against poor Africans, which is likely to backfire soon than later after its adverse ramifications surface. To put it in context, such a crime is not only detrimental but self-inflicted wounds if not a suicidal act for Africa whose greedy and myopic rulers give a good name of investment. This sort of investment is not a panacea for Africa’s problem. Instead, it is a catalyst of land colonisation, which soon will exacerbate the problem. There are ways of solving Africa’s economic tanking. The book poses a few simple questions: Instead of leasing out the land, why can’t such countries enter agreements with those they are leasing land to and produce food or whatever produce and supply them? Does Africa have any plan B in case things go skewwhiff in this agricultural geopolitics and land grabbing? Where did Africa study the entire project to assess its performance before swallowing it hook, line, and sinker for its peril. Also, the book considers landlessness in many African countries as a ticking bomb, especially when victims evidence how the land they call theirs is decadently and recklessly dished out by corrupt and irresponsible rulers or official in their countries while they are not only landless but also starving simply because those they wrongly trust have openly betrayed and sold them. Africa has always suffered from food insecurity. Land grabbing soon will become a food and national security issue.
... The World Health Organization (WHO) (2014) estimates that about seven million people die each year from indoor air pollution. The majority of these deaths occurred in LDCs Least Developing Countries (Collier, 2008). Global warming is one of the main challenges as well as the biggest threat to natural life, prosperity, and security (Mundial, 2018). ...
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What is the impact of the adoption of the carbon tax on climate change, carbon dioxide emissions, and other impacts on the Indonesian economy? is the research question raised in this paper. This study is crucial because although the Indonesian economy hasn't fully recovered, the government has announced plans to impose additional taxes that will burden businesses and industries and may lead to an increase in unemployment as a result of layoffs. This study was inspired by a number of studies on climate change and carbon dioxide emissions that show that, by 2050, the world will become hotter and more people would die from breathing poor air as a result of rising carbon dioxide emissions. The author tries to determine what effect a carbon price might have on Indonesia's economy. Data on the adoption of carbon taxes in 15 countries that have already done so was gathered by the authors between 1990 and 2019. This study adopted a descriptive qualitative methodology. The implementation of carbon taxes in several countries such as Finland and Sweden has proven successful in reducing carbon emissions and does not have a negative impact on their country's economy.
... Instead of rigidly following a traditional "phase-approach" procedure (Braun & 153 Clarke, 2012), we believe that "quality reflexive thematic analysis is not about following (Table 1), then defines each theme and outlines the workshop 167 submissions that exemplify that theme. (Collier, 2008) ...
Article
There is an increasing interest in food within the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field with emerging interactive prototypes that augment, extend, and challenge the various ways in which people engage with food. The emerging subfield is defined as “Human-Food Interaction” (HFI). Given the rapid advancement of interactive technology that converges with a wide range of food settings, this article seeks a continuous scrutiny towards the field to ensure it advances in fruitful directions. In this article, we identify nine emerging themes building on the submissions presented by 19 researchers at an HFI workshop recently held at an international conference. Furthermore, we brought to light three potential design and research directions to inspire HFI futures, and, simultaneously, to build a foundation upon which HFI, gastronomy and food science communities can work together.
... For rightist economists such as Paul Collier, peasant agriculture is not well-suited for investment and innovation (Nally, 2014, p. 14). Collier (2008) argues that "…preserving peasant agriculture is a 'retreat into romanticism' since commercial agriculture is what the world needs going forward" (n.p.). Arguments by those who favour the land takeovers by large-scale commercial farmers trace their roots to the Victorian era, during which, Victorian elites saw the African peasants and the Irish cottier tenants as not hardworking and as primitive. ...
Article
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The paper analyses the socio-economic implications of land grabbing among the Nuer people in the Gambella region of Ethiopia. To achieve its goals, the study is underpinned by two interrelated questions. The first question is: what are the socio-economic implications of land grabs in the Gambella Region of Ethiopia? The second question reads: what are the contestations and perceptions of the Nuer peoples in terms of gains and losses from the land grabs? The study was carried out among a Nilo-Saharan group known as the Nuer which traces its roots from Sudan within the qualitative research methodology. Findings from the study shows that land grabbing, which comes through large scale land takeovers in the Gambella region of Ethiopia, contradicts a state-remaking project under a dispossessive political economy. It was noted that the land grabs destruct the Nuer people’s identity, strip them of their dignity, disturb their ancestral philosophies, and negatively affect their livelihoods.
... Further, the general marginalization characteristic of smallholder farmers results from a lack of access to resources, capital, assets, and technical information (Murphy 2010). From a globalisation perspective, smallholders appear inadequate to cope with production challenges due to inadequate investment capacity, economies of scale, and a lack of technical knowledge, which will likely contribute to their decline over time (Collier 2008). ...
Chapter
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Despite the significance of climate change on household food security, little has been done to assess its effects on crop production and food consumption in South African rural communities. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the impact of climate change on household food availability in rural communities of Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. A cross-sectional survey utilising a structured survey was used to gather data from 117 households in the Raymond Mhlaba Municipality. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Household Food Consumption Score (HFCS) and binary logistic regression. On the HFCS, about 23.9% of the respondents had low food availability, and 76.1% had high food availability. Furthermore, food availability is negatively impacted by climate change. Households perceived that their vegetable production and participation in gardening is negatively affected by climate change due to increasing aridity, therefore compromising their coping strategies. The chapter concludes that climate change education is essential to reduce food insecurity by empowering households with knowledge on enhancing food availability.
... Further, the general marginalization characteristic of smallholder farmers results from a lack of access to resources, capital, assets, and technical information (Murphy 2010). From a globalisation perspective, smallholders appear inadequate to cope with production challenges due to inadequate investment capacity, economies of scale, and a lack of technical knowledge, which will likely contribute to their decline over time (Collier 2008). ...
Chapter
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The development for sustainable smallholder farming is not a transparent and replicable procedure because the agricultural sector focuses primarily on productivity with minimum attention on lean management as a sustainability strategy. Currently, the requirement of achieving a 70% increase in production often ignores the complementary factor of reducing wastage and loss to achieve sustainable food security and nutrition. This paper examines integrating lean management concepts in smallholder farming as a catalyst for sustainable agriculture, food, and nutrition security. Several sources indicate that approximately 500 million smallholder farms worldwide cultivate on under 2 ha farm size without adequate land tenure. These farms are primarily in difficult soil conditions and environmentally risk-prone areas, reducing their resilience to changes in weather conditions. Although smallholders comprise 84% of all farms with approximately 30% of global food production, the participants and their dependents constitute almost 75% of the underprivileged, hungry, and undernourished people worldwide. These conditions are exacerbated by smallholder farms experiencing more post-harvest loss due to inadequate market and access to cold storage facilities. Additionally, smallholders have limited adaptive capacity in coping with changing environments due to inadequate scientific knowledge, low income, small farm size, limited technical assistance, and marketing opportunities. Despite these challenges, smallholders are touted as potentially the backbone to implement the United Nations’ Goal #2 for Sustainable Development in achieving zero-hunger by at least 2030. This research presents Ro-Crops Agrotec, a 1.5-ha agroecology family farm in central Trinidad, as a case study with over 26 years of successfully integrating strategic lean management. The management of Ro-Crops demonstrates that sustainable agriculture and food security are achievable through strategic planning, farm management, and innovative waste removal without the measures becoming an obsession. While lean management is associated initially with auto manufacturing, the concept is equally essential in agriculture due to losses in production, post-harvest, and food processing. At the retailing and consumer stages, the annual global wastage consists of almost one-third of consumer food, estimated at approximately 1.3 billion tons. Lean management reduces waste, maximizes efficiency, and increases economic value due to productivity, quality, and flexibility as the primary performance indicators. The lean concepts help in effectively reducing wastage by developing standardised processes and continuously improving the operations.
... Further, the general marginalization characteristic of smallholder farmers results from a lack of access to resources, capital, assets, and technical information (Murphy 2010). From a globalisation perspective, smallholders appear inadequate to cope with production challenges due to inadequate investment capacity, economies of scale, and a lack of technical knowledge, which will likely contribute to their decline over time (Collier 2008). ...
Chapter
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Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (abating hunger) involves various role players. However, the focus has been at the macro and meso-scales, neglecting the micro-household scale. Even at that household level, there is neglect of the household food security status and role-playing. The study assessed household role-playing in achieving food security through food utilisation, in a cross-sectional survey of 116 households in Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality, South Africa. The study hypothesised that there are differences in role-playing regarding food utilization. Descriptive statistics were utilised in data analysis. Intra-household members’ differentiated roles were established, and association with food utilisation was determined. The study revealed that females were responsible for food preparation, buying and home garden responsibilities. Furthermore, in terms of the household role, most female members indicated they preferred purchasing fruit and milk products, while males said they preferred to buy tubers and meat. Regarding the food buying roles, females stated they preferred purchasing vegetables while males preferred producing cereal-based foods. Female respondents engaged in home gardening indicated they preferred to purchase vegetables while males responsible for gardens stated they preferred producing cereal foods. The chapter concludes that, based on role-playing, differentiated food utilisation exists within households. In terms of the different roles such as food preparation, purchasing and home gardening, there is need for the conscientisation of household members on the various nutritional sources.
... A core argument has been that large-size commercial farms, due to their capacity to mobilize capital and technology, can be the drivers of a productive modernization that small-scale farms cannot achieve ( Collier, 2008). Scholars suggest that capital-intensive farms have greater capacity to adopt new crops, adapt to changing demand, generate higher yields and therefore have better access to global markets and value chains than most small landholders ( Byres, 2012). ...
... The outcome of ethanol subsidies, which represent an efficient way to reduce emissions and the consumption of fossil fuels, appears to be quite bleak (Pimentel 2003;Hahn and Cecot 2009). While the evidence is mixed, it is likely that subsidies related to ethanol have increased food prices and, therefore, contributed to a substantial reduction in welfare in developing countries, where food prices are of great importance, by diverting agricultural resources from food production to producing crops for ethanol (Collier 2008). Thus, it is quite possible that the implementation of ethanol subsidies was driven by lobbying and rent-seeking by special interest groups rather than the desire for an efficient reduction in carbon emissions 7 (Anthoff and Hahn 2010;Helm 2010). ...
Article
Within the field of innovation studies, researchers have identified systematic failures that hamper investment in R&D, innovation, and growth. Accordingly, researchers in this field often seek to provide policy recommendations on how to alleviate these failures. However, previous discussions have often been lacking considerations to the risks of political failures, meaning that policies fail to achieve their stated goals in a systematic manner. In response to this gap, this article aims to illustrate the concept of political failure and its relevance for innovation research. This is done by both discussing how political failure can impact innovation policy and by reviewing the prevalence of any discussions of political failure among top-ranked journals on innovation for the period 2010–2019, a total of 7161 articles. The results show that consideration of political failure is scarce, with a small number of papers that have a substantial analysis of political failures. If the awareness of political failures could be increased, this could lead to better policy recommendations with a more nuanced discussion of the risks and limitations of public policy.
... The strategy has been used to deal with financial issues, banking issues, immigrant issues and even housing issues and affirmed the role of government in calming down the public when the crisis becomes massive (Stearns, 1988). With a bigger crisis, a firm may need to set up a network of corporate political strategies or even hunt for political influence to change the situation or take some coercive actions from the government (Collier, 2008). The firm, as a public relation practitioner, together with the government who agrees to join the strategy will communicate with media to convey specific messages which are mutually defined to get the attention of target audience of crisis communication campaign (González, 2018;Farnel, 1994). ...
Chapter
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The Covid-19 pandemic highlights the disinformation as a risk for European Union integration. False or deceptive news have always existed, but in recent years they tend to impact on public debate and democratic participation alarmingly for the connection with the professionalization of communication strategies by political-institutional actors for consensus purposes and the characteristics of social media platforms and online and digital media consumption habits. So, The Covid-19 crisis and the linked infodemic are extraordinary cases to test the European Union capability to manage the disinformation disorder, especially towards young people. The paper aims to analyse the impact of the communicative strategies and actions promoted by European institutions regarding disinformation about Covid-19 on trust of young people. The research presents an exploratory and quantitative study based on a web survey administered to 1000 Italian and Spanish students. The results show that trust can be very well the resource on which EU communicative actions may positively impact.
... The strategy has been used to deal with financial issues, banking issues, immigrant issues and even housing issues and affirmed the role of government in calming down the public when the crisis becomes massive (Stearns, 1988). With a bigger crisis, a firm may need to set up a network of corporate political strategies or even hunt for political influence to change the situation or take some coercive actions from the government (Collier, 2008). The firm, as a public relation practitioner, together with the government who agrees to join the strategy will communicate with media to convey specific messages which are mutually defined to get the attention of target audience of crisis communication campaign (González, 2018;Farnel, 1994). ...
... Hunger is one of those issues. Scholars from fields as varied as medicine (Casey, de Cuba, Cook, & Frank, 2010), nutrition (Weaver & Hadley, 2009), public health (Widome, Neumark-Sztainer, Hannan, Haines, & Story, 2009), anthropology (Cormier, 2006), political science (Collier, 2008), economics (Logan, 2009) Hunger and poverty are tightly linked but not all people who experience hunger are poor, according the official poverty guidelines. About 15 percent (46.2 million people) of the total population in the United States including 16.1 million children experienced poverty in 2011 (Carmen, Proctor, & Lee, 2011). ...
Article
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Engaged scholarship combines the work of universities with that of community partners. The results can be powerful examples of the synergy that arises between theory and practice. By examining engaged scholarship and reflecting on the nuances that exist between it and engaged research, this paper follows the ways that research questions can be explored in a practical application versus in a controlled environment. I examine the benefits of community-engaged scholarship relative to service recipients, scholars, organizations, and communities at large. The academic benefits extend far beyond the universities; engaged scholarship allows for university programs to provide realistic training to students as an example of future work-related duties and assignments and to collaborate with community partners in service delivery. Results of collective collaboration and community-engaged scholarship can lead to a strengthened sense of community in lasting partnerships that increase dialogue surrounding challenging issues.
... In Africa, Asia, Latin America and other third world countries, a deterioration in technology or ecology, which lower outputs from given input has long been identified as one of the reasons for poor agricultural production performance (Collier, 2008). It is equally important to note that indigenous techniques like crop rotation and other cultural farming practices that have been used to preserve the soil structure and its fecundity do not seem to be adequate or even relevant in the present efforts to boast food production in most developing countries. ...
Chapter
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Reviving African Culture through the planting if trees especially the spiritual trees that aid the African man in solving his numerous problems and finite nature.
... In Africa, Asia, Latin America and other third world countries, a deterioration in technology or ecology, which lower outputs from given input has long been identified as one of the reasons for poor agricultural production performance (Collier, 2008). It is equally important to note that indigenous techniques like crop rotation and other cultural farming practices that have been used to preserve the soil structure and its fecundity do not seem to be adequate or even relevant in the present efforts to boast food production in most developing countries. ...
Poster
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AFRICAN ECO-SPIRITUALITY
... The potential for LSLAs to foster local rural economic development -in particular through creating employment and raising agricultural productivity (Collier 2008 2), in general, complete compensations of the initial loss of access to land seem to be rare (Aisbett & Barbanente, 2016;Anseeuw et al., 2012;German et al., 2013). This then raises an important question: under which circumstances -and to what extent -are the negative effects of LSLAs on land access counterbalanced by positive effects, such as employment generation, knowledge spillovers to smallholder farmers, and infrastructure development? ...
Book
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More than 10 years after the surge in large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) in developing countries following the spike in agricultural commodity prices in the late 2000s, the Land Matrix Initiative has taken stock of the “global land rush” and its socio-economic and environmental impacts. Our findings draw on evidence from the Land Matrix database as well as a literature review in order to analyse and better understand the wide-ranging effects of LSLAs.
... Organisasi Kesehatan Dunia (WHO) (2014) memperkirakan bahwa sekitar tujuh juta orang meninggal setiap tahun akibat polusi udara dalam ruangan. Mayoritas kematian ini terjadi di LDCs Least Developing Countries (Collier, 2008). ...
Article
The study aims to elaborate on carbon taxes as a potential source of state revenue. This study also provides an overview of the imposition of excise rates that can be applied in Indonesia. Besides, this study tries to look deeper into the procedures for reporting and monitoring excise tax paid by taxpayers. This research uses descriptive qualitative research methods. A review of documents and regulations related to carbon emissions in Indonesia and other countries is an important source. The study was conducted by comparing best practices in several countries with Indonesia regarding government policies regarding carbon tax policies. The study results show that there is potential for state revenue from carbon taxes. On the other hand, the collection of carbon taxes requires a system-integrated procedure between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Therefore, digitizing the system and establishing a data warehouse is important to support the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DGCE) as the excise collection authority. An important finding in this study's conclusion is the urgent need for regulations to implement a carbon tax in Indonesia. In the future, this research is expected to trigger further research on carbon taxes and their effects on national economic growth.
... Poor management of water on large-scale irrigation schemes, can lead to negative consequences, including wasteful and inefficient water use, early degradation of infrastructure and environmental damage (Deininger, 2011a and2011b;Djire et al., 2012;Sindayigaya, 2012;German et al., 2013). Nonetheless, it is equally recognized that large scale investments (foreign or domestic) in agricultural land can make positive contributions to the economy of many African countries that are still largely dependent on agriculture (Lavers, 2012;Collier, 2008;Cotula et al., 2009). Through the infusion of capital, new technology and knowledge, such investments can increase agricultural production and improve national food security, while contributing to government tax revenues and water supply cost recovery. ...
... En los últimos años la reivindicación de que los cultivos transgénicos son una necesidad para alimentar al mundo y una ayuda para el desarrollo del Sur global es cada vez más omnipresente y pronunciada. Uno de los argumentos más convincentes esgrimidos por los defensores del cultivo de semillas GM puntualiza que el modo de producción de los campesinos y agricultores de pequeña escala es inadecuado para la innovación y la inversión (Collier, 2008), y que el aumento de la demanda mundial de alimentos -impulsado en gran parte por lo que Weis (2007) describe como «carnivorización» de las dietas-sólo puede satisfacerse a través de un modelo de «grandes y tecnológicamente sofisticadas empresas agrícolas» (Collier, 2008: 73). Según se ha resaltado, esta particular visión es maltusiana en carácter, pues el problema se enmarca como una cuestión de suministro; a fin de solucionarlo se ofrece la innovación tecnológica, en particular la biotecnología agrícola para intensificar la producción (Brooks, 2005;Alessandrini, 2010;Nally, 2011). ...
Article
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En este trabajo se cuestiona la reciente reivindicación de la biotecnología agrícola como panacea para combatir la inseguridad alimentaria y la pobreza rural en los países del Sur global. Con base en una investigación empírica del régimen sojero neoliberal en Paraguay, se expone cómo la profunda transformación del modo agrícola de producción en ese país en las últimas dos décadas, impulsada por una «biorevolución» y la reestructuración neoliberal de la agricultura, ha puesto en peligro los medios de subsistencia rurales. En particular, se demuestra cómo la «sojización transgénica» de la agricultura paraguaya ha llevado a un aumento de la concentración de tierras productoras, así como al desplazamiento y debilitamiento de los campesinos y trabajadores rurales, quienes han quedado prescindibles por las exigencias del capital del agronegocio. Al mismo tiempo, la consolidación de ese nuevo modelo agroindustrial ha fomentado una creciente dependencia de productos agroquímicos que dañan la calidad del medio ambiente y la salud humana. Se concluye que una política de desarrollo cimentada en el monocultivo industrial de soja genéticamente modificada (GM) es inadecuada, insostenible e inmoral.
... O projeto de apoio ao agronegócio (agribusiness) se insere, de maneira geral, num perspectiva de crescimento agrícola com base na modernização e no pensamento econômico liberal (COLLIER, 2008;COLLIER e DERCON, 2013). O termo, de origem no pensamento americano (DAVIS e GOLDBERG, 1957)e que posteriormente seria adotado pela academia e círculos políticos brasileirospressupõe a articulação de subsistemas (insumos, produção, processamento e distribuição) operando num ambiente de mercado. ...
Article
A política brasileira de cooperação para o desenvolvimento com países africanos vem se fortalecendo na última década, e Moçambique representa o principal parceiro do Brasil neste âmbito. Tal estratégia se baseia na ideia de que as experiências implementadas no Brasil, em particular àquelas dirigidas ao setor rural, têm o potencial de serem compartilhadas com outros países do Sul. No entanto, é necessário observar que as políticas rurais brasileiras se inserem numa contexto marcado por uma dualidade institucional que tem como estratégia a acomodação de diferentes agendas de desenvolvimento e interesses políticos e econômicos. Dessa forma, tanto esta dualidade institucional influencia a formulação da cooperação técnica com Moçambique, como o compartilhamento de tais experiências enfrenta uma série de desafios no seu processo de recepção e implementação por atores moçambicanos. O artigo visa, portanto, discutir alguns destes desafios da cooperação brasileira para o desenvolvimento no setor rural.
... Proponents of capitalist agriculture, and agro-industry in particular, point to its ability to produce high yields cheaply to feed the world's expanding population (Collier 2008;World Bank 2015). At the aggregate level, such arguments appear reasonable. ...
Article
Covid-19 has highlighted the destructiveness of modern agro-industry upon biosphere and humanity. Its contribution to environmental degradation intertwines with socio-economic inequality and labour exploitation. There are increasing calls for a green new deal (GND) to counter these dangers. This article argues that a GND for agriculture must combat environmental degradation, social inequality and labour exploitation, rather than aim to re-boot capitalist economies. This article identifies a number of areas for discussion and political action - reorientation of state subsidies, workers' rights, agrarian reform, the decommodification of food, agroecology, possibilities for urban agriculture, the application of new technologies, and rewilding.
... AGRA, for example, argues that "no region in the world has built a modern economy without first strengthening its agricultural sector" and that the "youth represent an enormous opportunity" for agriculture transformation. 1 In contrast, off-farm-led paradigms see fewer opportunities for rural development through smallholder farming and argue for the need to industrialize and focus on the non-agricultural sector-which may then lead to positive spill-overs for agriculture (Cantore et al. 2017;Lewis 1954, Gardner 2000Matsuyama 1992;Murphy et al. 1989;Söderbom and Teal 2003). Collier (2008) popularized this view arguing that smallholder farming is often romanticized ("peasants, like pandas, are to be preserved") and should be replaced by large-scale commercial farming and industrialization. Similarly, Morris and Fessehaie (2014) argue that "Africa needs to provide job opportunities to millions of young people. ...
Article
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While there is a consensus that rural poverty has to be reduced, there are two opposing views on the role that agriculture can play in this regard: a “farm-based” and an “off-farm led” development paradigm where the respective other sector is merely a complementary income source during a transition period. The latter paradigm is supported by studies finding that rural youth in sub-Saharan Africa are not particularly interested in agriculture. However, policy discourse on youth in agriculture often situates their aspirations as either full-time farming or non-farming, thus either supporting or opposing one or the other of the two paradigms, while neglecting the shades of grey between these two extremes. Using a mixed-methods approach—a household survey and a narrative-based tool called SenseMaker—to collect data from both adults and youth in 261 households in rural Kenya, this study suggests that this categorical understanding needs to be revisited to inform rural development strategies based on the actual aspirations of rural youth.
... As already mentioned, the modernist thesis imputes "irreversibility to the process of centralization and concentration of agricultural capitalism" (Petras and Veltmeyer 2001, p. 96), and leads to the conclusion that peasants will eventually become either wage workers or entrepreneurial farmers. Accordingly, Collier (2008) argues that since "large organizations are better suited to cope with investment, marketing chains, and regulations […] the remedy for high food prices is to increase supply […] [by replicating] the Brazilian model of large, technologically sophisticated agro-companies that supply the world market". Likewise, Bernstein (2014Bernstein ( , p. 1056Bernstein ( , 1057 contends that it is utopic to believe that low-input and labor-intensive peasant agriculture can feed current and projected world population; and that small family farming is incompatible with the increase of agriculture productivity since it "denies the advan-tages of economies of scale, development of the productive forces, and the technical division of labor" (Bernstein 2001, p. 26). ...
Thesis
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This thesis examines the process and the implications of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) for local livelihoods, especially the livelihoods of those who make a living from farming. These individuals were historically known as peasants and are now more commonly referred to as smallholders, small-scale farmers or family farmers. What happens to their livelihoods as land under their control is allocated to investors? Promoters of LSLAs stress that when land acquisitions are preceded by community consultations, there may be synergism between investors’ activities and local livelihoods. Accordingly, local farmers are expected to gain from, for example, closer ties to the market and new livelihood alternatives such as formal employment. Differently, critical voices contend that despite sound legislation on the matter, in practice LSLAs constitute drivers of dispossession, being therefore disguised land grabs. This research seeks to fill a knowledge gap on the immediate local livelihood implications of LSLAs. By employing a case study design in Mozambique (one of the countries targeted by recent LSLAs), this thesis adds empirical evidence that is crucial to the above-named theoretical debate involving LSLAs. The analyzed case is pivoted by a Chinese company that in 2012 was granted 20,000 hectares in the lower Limpopo region. Despite legislation that asserts the legality of customary land occupation, in practice, land was seized without adequate consultation and compensation. Consequently, local farmers lost the most fertile areas. Nonetheless, farmers were able to regain or maintain access to farmland that was more peripheral and of worse quality. Concomitantly, the company generated a small number of jobs and created a contract farming scheme that, despite bottlenecks, benefited farmers who were able to handle risk. In general, families who lost land and those who entered the contract farming scheme strive to keep a foothold on farmland – a strategy that is partly explained by the economic rationale of seeking to meet the consumption needs of current and future generations. Additionally, family land is embedded with symbolic value (illustrated, for example, by individuals’ relations with ancestors buried in family land). The existence of symbolic and thus immaterial values that land embodies poses insurmountable challenges to the idea that it is possible to achieve fair compensation for the loss of land and the environment in general. This study shows the renewed pressure (now through the hands of private actors backed by public efforts) placed on family farmers, derived livelihood trends (i.e., the overall precarization of family farming, the widening of economic inequality, and the feminization of poverty), and family farmers’ continuous endurance. Ultimately, this study illustrates local processes and livelihood implications of LSLAs in Mozambique, and likely also in contexts marked by similar democratic deficits and renewed incursions over valuable land that is intensively used.
... The food crisis sparked a flurry of debate that gave biotechnology advocates an opportunity to argue that increased yields were needed. They could then argue that opponents of GMOs were callously keeping food out of the mouths of hungry people, (Collier 2008;see Schurman and Munro 2010, p. 180 for further documentation). Viewed from an ethical perspective, it is important to recognize that helping hungry people in cities might actually harm the rural poor, especially when the help comes in the form of food aid from the fields of better-off farmers in food-exporting countries. ...
Chapter
This chapter examines the ethical significance of gene technology on the health and well-being of livestock, poultry and any other animal species kept for agricultural purposes. Agricultural biotechnologies include drugs and feeds developed for use on livestock, as well as genetic transformations and cloning. Key applications are reviewed and examples are given. Bernard Rollin’s early work on this topic is summarized and used as a basis for further analysis. Philosophical alternatives to Rollin’s approach to understanding the basis of human obligations to other animals are discussed, including the welfarist approach of Peter Singer and the rights approach of Tom Regan. Though not a welfarist in general, Rollin argues that impact on the welfare of the transformed animal is the sole criterion for evaluating the ethics of genetically engineered animals. Additional literature on the ethics of using genetic engineering tools on animals is reviewed, with emphasis on views laying stress on the inherent wrongness of transforming an animal’s nature, irrespective of the impact on pain, suffering or disease. Although many arguments against any and all applications of animal biotechnology are philosophically flawed, they cannot simply be dismissed. Only a more extensive philosophical debate can clarify when a genetic change in an agricultural animal’s nature is inappropriate.
... The food crisis sparked a flurry of debate that gave biotechnology advocates an opportunity to argue that increased yields were needed. They could then argue that opponents of GMOs were callously keeping food out of the mouths of hungry people, (Collier 2008;see Schurman and Munro 2010, p. 180 for further documentation). Viewed from an ethical perspective, it is important to recognize that helping hungry people in cities might actually harm the rural poor, especially when the help comes in the form of food aid from the fields of better-off farmers in food-exporting countries. ...
Book
This 3rd edition of Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective updates Thompson’s analysis to reflect the next generation of biotechnology, including synthetic biology, gene editing and gene drives. The first two editions of this book, published as Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective in 1997 and 2007, were the first comprehensive philosophical studies of genetic engineering applied to food systems. The book is structured with chapter length treatments of risk in four categories: food safety, to animals, to the environment and socio-economic risks. These chapters are preceded by two chapters providing orientation to the uses of gene technology in food and agriculture, and to the goals, methods and background assumptions of technological ethics. There is also a chapter covering all four types of risk as applied to the first US technology, recombinant bovine somatotropin. The last four chapters take up 1) intellectual property debates, 2) religious, metaphysical and “intrinsic” objections to biotechnology, 3) issues in risk and trust and 4) a review of ethical issues in synthetic biology, gene editing and gene drives, the three key technologies that have emerged since the book was last revised.
... The food crisis sparked a flurry of debate that gave biotechnology advocates an opportunity to argue that increased yields were needed. They could then argue that opponents of GMOs were callously keeping food out of the mouths of hungry people, (Collier 2008;see Schurman and Munro 2010, p. 180 for further documentation). Viewed from an ethical perspective, it is important to recognize that helping hungry people in cities might actually harm the rural poor, especially when the help comes in the form of food aid from the fields of better-off farmers in food-exporting countries. ...
Chapter
In its most common form, environmental risk assessment is an adaptation of consequentialist ethical theory. Hazards are identified as significant through careful articulation of the values (axiology) that determine why outcomes are considered to be bad, harmful or adverse, and exposure quantification is used to characterize risk as an expected value. Several leading examples of how this framework is operationalized in the characterization of environmental risks from agrifood biotechnology are discussed, including risks to biodiversity, weediness and acquired resistance to the effectiveness of pesticides. Epistemological uncertainties plague the quantification of expected values, however, and feed both public doubts and deeper controversy. As risk communication strives to assuage those doubts, an ironic cycle of mistrust emerges, even among those who apply rigorous standards of risk analysis: Assuming that others are less careful, they regard their contrary findings as evidence of error, rather than prompting a further check on the initial assessment. For anyone inclined to see the technology as risky, the alleged carelessness of analysts amplifies the evidence for risk.
... The food crisis sparked a flurry of debate that gave biotechnology advocates an opportunity to argue that increased yields were needed. They could then argue that opponents of GMOs were callously keeping food out of the mouths of hungry people, (Collier 2008;see Schurman and Munro 2010, p. 180 for further documentation). Viewed from an ethical perspective, it is important to recognize that helping hungry people in cities might actually harm the rural poor, especially when the help comes in the form of food aid from the fields of better-off farmers in food-exporting countries. ...
Chapter
The chapter provides an analytic framework for applying classic philosophical theories of property and the distribution of property rights in the context of emerging technology. Instrumental theories of property view property as a convention that should be evaluated according to the purposes it serves. Ontological theories of property claim that holding and exchanging items of property is a natural or intrinsic feature of the human condition. The early debate over so-called Terminator seeds is used to link key philosophical questions to real disputes in policy and practice. The Terminator case illustrates distinctions between property in tangible goods (such as seeds) and intellectual property, as well as the relationship between these forms of property and the risk-based approach that is the focus of earlier chapters. The chapter reviews a sample of the literature on contested property claims in products of gene technology, and discusses how authors draw selectively on concepts from different philosophical traditions. The chapter also identifies logical flaws in many arguments, both for and against the application of intellectual property rights to GMOs and other products of gene technology. In the end, I argue that philosophical theories of property can be enlisted both to support and to criticize current practices. The chapter does not provide a conclusive standard for deciding the legitimacy of property claims in genes, sequences and gene products.
... The food crisis sparked a flurry of debate that gave biotechnology advocates an opportunity to argue that increased yields were needed. They could then argue that opponents of GMOs were callously keeping food out of the mouths of hungry people, (Collier 2008;see Schurman and Munro 2010, p. 180 for further documentation). Viewed from an ethical perspective, it is important to recognize that helping hungry people in cities might actually harm the rural poor, especially when the help comes in the form of food aid from the fields of better-off farmers in food-exporting countries. ...
Chapter
This concluding chapter from previous editions makes recommendations that follow from the previous eleven chapters analyzing food safety, animal health, environmental and socioeconomic risks associated with agricultural and food biotechnology, as well as discussions of intellectual property rights and religious objections. Scientists and the biotechnology industry have failed to meet reasonable and justifiable expectations for an explanation and defense of their objectives in developing gene technologies for crops, livestock and food processing. Although a rationale for these applications of biotechnology exists, it has not been put forward in a manner that promotes a democratic and respectful dialog. Articulated in 1997, the chapter was a set of ethical recommendations for agricultural insiders. In retrospect, it serves as an indictment that may explain why the technology was resisted and early hopes for agrifood biotechnology remain unrealized. Looking forward, it is a contribution to the literature on public engagement with science.
Chapter
Kolonialismus ist ein historisches Thema, ein Gegenwartsthema und ein geographisches Thema. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes verbinden diese drei Perspektiven und zeigen die Relevanz räumlicher und sozialer Machtverhältnisse des Kolonialismus in der Gegenwart auf. Diese »Kolonialität« genannte Kontinuität zeigt sich in der Wissensproduktion, in öffentlichen Debatten, in der Gestalt europäischer Städte, in lokalen Kämpfen sowie internationalen Politikfeldern. Der Sammelband vereint Beiträge aus der Geographie und Stadtforschung, die sich auf Forschungsansätze der Black Studies, Postcolonial Studies und Decolonial Studies beziehen.
Chapter
The food that we consume everyday becomes part of our identity and existence. As we move and relocate, we bring our traditional food with us, which undergoes numerous transformations in the new land. Traditional cuisines symbolize racial and ethnic distinctiveness and add flavors to the childhood memories. Traditional food not only provides necessary nourishment to the body, but also helps communities stay together and create transnational bonds. One such example of gastronomical legacy is Pakhala, an Odia cuisine prepared from cooked rice that is soaked in fermented water or fresh water. This chapter will engage in decoding the journey of this humble summer food from the coastal state of Odisha (India) to being the poster child of Odia identity on social media and beyond. The evolution of intangible heritage as Pakhala is a great example of how cultures change their form and create new discourses on tradition while bridging the gap between past and future.
Chapter
This chapter addresses the challenges of developing students’ academic writing skills in an ICLHE module on colour theory, meaning and practices, offered as part of the writing programme at the National University of Singapore. An aim of the module is to develop students’ literacy and critical thinking through the analysis of the role of colour in the functionality and meanings constructed by various designed works (Kress and Leeuwen in Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge, 2006). This chapter will describe the module, and will focus on a lens paper, an assignment which requires students to analyse a given designed work (for example, a cover from a magazine, a film poster, a printed advertisement) using a social semiotics framework to describe and interpret colour meaning within its social and cultural context (Kress and Leeuwen in Visual Communication 1:343–368, 2002; Van Leeuwen in The language of colour: An introduction. Routledge, pp. 55–70, 2011). The task requires students to use technical descriptive language, with a focus on colour, and to explain whether the designer has achieved the intended purpose of the work, leaning on relevant literature. Students may also argue that colour communicates more implicit meanings on a range of social issues, or consolidates stereotypes related to, for example, gender (Koller in Visual Communication 7:395–423, 2008), or race (Hunter in Sociological Inquiry 68:517–535, 1998). Drawing on the Legitimation Code Theory concept of gaze, and analysis of students’ assignments, the chapter maps different ways students engage with the artefacts, and the theoretical lens.
Chapter
This chapter examines the possibilities and challenges of using critical pedagogy (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Giroux, 2011) to promote student engagement with academic conversations about the modern food system. It specifically focuses on the first unit of an academic writing module on food politics which introduces students to key concepts and debates surrounding mass production, international trade and food (in)security. As they work through different ideas and viewpoints, students are encouraged to think about knowledge production as necessarily contextual, ideological and contestable and to make connections between academic arguments and issues of power, structural inequality and social justice in the real world (Canagarajah, 2002; Giroux, 2004, 2011). In the context of the Singapore classroom, this also involves initiating difficult conversations about “systemic privilege” and the discourses and identities that maintain it as a first step toward developing a critical perspective (Allen & Rossatto, 2009). The chapter illustrates how source selection, scaffolded reading strategies and classroom interactions generate both consensus and conflict (Trimbur, 1989) as students make the transition from reading primarily for information to reading in order to make politically and ethically informed judgments about critical issues in preparation to draft their first writing assignment—a reflective summary. It also engages with questions of authority in the classroom. The author argues that for critical pedagogy to be effective, the teacher must be attentive to the ways her own positions influence classroom interactions and be willing to subject them to rigorous discussion and scrutiny even as students are invited to do the same.
Article
Random growing demand for high-quality agri-products raises a pseudo pressure on mass-producing Asian tropical regions and lowers Asian smallholders’ profit. Literature indicates that the Buffer stock operations (BSO) policy performs well in maintaining sustainable profit for smallholder farmers and retailers. However, with the changing market and growing demand, the conventional BSO lacks efficiency in policymaking and incorporates market distortion. The outburst of COVID-19, random market intervention, growing e-commerce portals, and increasing price declination in the physical market have significantly reduced the smallholders’ profit. Thus, this paper modifies the conventional model and proposes a B2B contractual supply chain framework to integrate the BSO model. The supply chain framework considers two different channel leadership strategies, Government Leadership and Farmer Leadership. Following the leadership strategies, this study is concerned with the equilibrium state of the supply chain drivers (the farmer, the retailer, and the government). The proposed framework formulates the model through Stackelberg game modelling and solves using sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium. The theoretical results (Lemmas) ensure that the government leadership strategy facilitates an equilibrium state and sets an optimal profit for farmers and retailers and an optimal social welfare function. Although the farmer’s leadership strategy ensures an equilibrium state between the farmer and the retailer, it neither guarantees an equilibrium and optimal state between farmers and government nor an optimal social welfare function. The numerical case illustration considers a wide variety of the market’s price sensitivity coefficients. It guides the policy-maker and the supply chain drivers to understand strategy selection better.
Article
In the last half‐century, development economics has gone from being a fringe field of economics to being at the very centre of the discipline, and the field’s foremost proponents have been elevated to the highest levels of the discipline. At the same time, development economists have gone from being economists who study situations wherein multiple market failures lead to persistent poverty to being ‘development‐and‐x’ economists, where x is any of agricultural, demographic, environmental, health, labour, economics etc. Yet few economists, if any, would label themselves development‐and‐industrial organisation (IO) economists. In this keynote, I first speculate as to why that is. I then explain how the time is ripe to celebrate the marriage of development and IO, and why the study of agricultural value chains provides the ideal inception point for that marriage to be consummated.
Article
The pervasive and persistent impact of agricultural de-development is a common thread through the agrarian south. Until about two generations ago, Yemen had been agriculturally self-sufficient owing to its fabled systems of agriculture. However, bad policy, bad evidence, bad governance, and constant warfare have each played their respective part in forging the country's food crisis, rural impoverishment, and ecological distress. To address these root causes of Yemen's social dislocation and dismantling of its indigenous agroecological practices and self-sufficient food economy, I bring into focus the fundamental question of Yemen's national development by way of posing the agrarian question in Yemen as a question of independence and autonomy. I argue for sensible, inward-looking, and pro-production policy action that not only promotes durable growth but also progressively restores Yemenis' sovereignty as well as security.
Article
Full-text available
The economic development of rural economies across the global south is often related to access to water and the development of water infrastructure. It has been argued that the construction of new dams would unleash the agricultural potential of African nations that are exposed to seasonal water scarcity, strong interannual rainfall variability, and associated uncertainties in water availability. While water security is often presented as the pathway to poverty alleviation and invoked to justify large dam projects for irrigation, it is still unclear to what extent small holders will benefit from them. Are large dams built to the benefit of subsistence farmers or of large-scale commercial agriculture? Here we use remote sensing imagery in conjunction with advanced machine learning algorithms to map the irrigated areas (or ‘command areas’) that have appeared in the surroundings of 18 major dams built across the African continent between 2000 and 2015. We quantify the expansion of irrigation afforded by those dams, the associated changes in population density, forest cover, and farm size. We find that, while in the case of nine dams in the year 2000 there were no detectable farming patterns, in 2015 a substantial fraction of the command area (ranging between 8.5% and 96.7%) was taken by large-scale farms (i.e., parcels >200 ha). Seven of the remaining 9 dams showed a significant increase in average farm size and number of farms between 2000 and 2015, with large-scale farming accounting for anywhere between 5.2% and 76.7% of the command area. Collectively, these results indicate that many recent dam projects in Africa are associated either with the establishment of large-scale farming or a transition from small-scale to mid-to-large scale agriculture.
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Odusola articulates various theoretical perspectives on the agriculture-poverty-inequality interconnections (including classical, Orthodox Marxian, neoclassical, and structuralist approaches), the associated transmission mechanisms, and empirical findings from existing studies—providing an analytical basis for subsequent chapters. He argues that both theory and evidence illuminate factors that propagate the existence of small farm holders and seasonal unemployment, and how to organize production and distribution mechanisms to propel efficient allocation of resources across sectors. Theoretical and empirical expositions show that agricultural productivity, especially from small-scale farmers, is a potent factor in driving a virtuous relationship between agriculture, resource allocation, poverty, and inequality—and the resulting effects cut across agriculture-non-farm rural activities and the rural-urban continuum.
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This chapter completes the review of socioeconomic risks from food and agricultural gene technologies begun in Chap. 8. Here, the focus is on challenges to the claim that gene technologies make or will make substantial contributions to the welfare of poor and marginalized people, especially in the less industrialized regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The institutional organization of science is central to the debate. Public laboratories and experiment stations contributed important critics allege that past innovations but patents, changes in funding patterns and other features of gene technology limit the future prospects of non-for-profit innovations in the food system. As such, an ethical analysis of biotechnology’s ability to help the poor must engage issues in the organization and incentives driving the research. These include the capacity and willingness of commercial enterprises to serve needs of the poor.
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