The Politics of Industrial Agriculture

The Politics of Industrial Agriculture PDF Author: Tracey Clunies-Ross
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134063938
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the last forty years, agriculture in the industrialised countries has undergone a revolution. That has dramatically increased yields, but it has also led to extensive rural depopulation; widespread degradation of the environment; contamination of food with agrochemicals and bacteria; more routine maltreatment of farm animals; and the undermining of Third World economies and livelihoods through unfair trading systems. Confronted by mounting evidence of environmental harm and social impacts, mainstream agronomistis and policy-makers have debatedly recognized the need for change. 'Sustainable agricultutre' has become the buzz phrase. But that can mean different things to different people. We have to ask: sustainable agriculture for whom? Whose interests are benefiting? And whose are suffering? At issue is the question of power – of who controls the land and what it produces. Most of the changes currently under discussion will actually strengthen the status quo and the underlying causes of the damage. The result will be greater intensification of farming, environmental destruction and inequality. There are no simple off-the-shelf alternatives to industrial agriculture. There are, however, groups throughout the world, who have contributed to this report and who are working together on a new approach. An agriculture that, in Wendell Berry's words, 'depletes neither soil nor people'. Originally published in 1992

The Politics of Industrial Agriculture

The Politics of Industrial Agriculture PDF Author: Tracey Clunies-Ross
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134063938
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the last forty years, agriculture in the industrialised countries has undergone a revolution. That has dramatically increased yields, but it has also led to extensive rural depopulation; widespread degradation of the environment; contamination of food with agrochemicals and bacteria; more routine maltreatment of farm animals; and the undermining of Third World economies and livelihoods through unfair trading systems. Confronted by mounting evidence of environmental harm and social impacts, mainstream agronomistis and policy-makers have debatedly recognized the need for change. 'Sustainable agricultutre' has become the buzz phrase. But that can mean different things to different people. We have to ask: sustainable agriculture for whom? Whose interests are benefiting? And whose are suffering? At issue is the question of power – of who controls the land and what it produces. Most of the changes currently under discussion will actually strengthen the status quo and the underlying causes of the damage. The result will be greater intensification of farming, environmental destruction and inequality. There are no simple off-the-shelf alternatives to industrial agriculture. There are, however, groups throughout the world, who have contributed to this report and who are working together on a new approach. An agriculture that, in Wendell Berry's words, 'depletes neither soil nor people'. Originally published in 1992

Industrial Agriculture in the Peripheral South: State, Race, and the Politics of Migrant Labor in Texas, 1890--1930

Industrial Agriculture in the Peripheral South: State, Race, and the Politics of Migrant Labor in Texas, 1890--1930 PDF Author: José Guillermo Pastrano
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780542795480
Category : Mexican American agricultural laborers
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book Here

Book Description
This examination of state policies and practices encourages Chicano scholars to further explore how the government, in response to direct and indirect political pressure from commercial agriculture, devised agricultural and labor policies that shaped the experiences of Mexican workers. Likewise, this focus on industrial farming invites U.S. labor historians to examine the role of transnational farm workers in the peripheral South.

The Agrarian Seeds of Empire

The Agrarian Seeds of Empire PDF Author: Brad Bauerly
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004314148
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Agrarian Seeds of Empire outlines the influence of agrarian movements on the process of US institutional capacity building between 1840- 1980. Out of the mix of the developing new Nation and the expanding capitalist system emerged strong farmer’s movements that produced state building processes central to American political development. It will show how the forces of state building and social movements converged to produce agro-industrialization. This agro-industrial developmental project was instrumental in both the development of the industrial food system and US Empire as the institutional capacities were later used to impose the same project outside of the US. These findings link together and augment existing approaches to capitalist development, International Relations, and theories of the state and the food system.

The Political Economy of Agricultural and Food Policies

The Political Economy of Agricultural and Food Policies PDF Author: Johan Swinnen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137501022
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book Here

Book Description
Food and agriculture have been subject to heavy-handed government interventions throughout much of history and across the globe, both in developing and in developed countries. Today, more than half a trillion US dollars are spent by some governments to support farmers, while other governments impose regulations and taxes that hurt farmers. Some policies, such as price regulations and tariffs, distribute income but reduce total welfare by introducing economic distortions. Other policies, such as public investments in research, food standards, or land reforms, may increase total welfare, but these policies come also with distributional effects. These distributional effects influence the preferences of interest groups and in turn influence policy decisions. Political considerations are therefore crucial to understand how agricultural and food policies are determined, to identify the constraints within which welfare-enhancing reforms are possible (or not), and finally to understand how coalitions can be created to stimulate growth and reduce poverty.

Beyond the Green Revolution

Beyond the Green Revolution PDF Author: Kenneth Dahlberg
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461329108
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book, which is the result of an intellectual odyssey, began as an attempt to explore and map the environmental and cross-cultural dimensions of the continuing spread of the green revolution-that package of high-yielding varieties of grain, fertilizers, irrigation, and pesticides that constitutes the core of modern industrial agriculture. In the process of traversing the terrain of several intellectual traditions and cutting through various disciplinary forests and thickets, a number of striking observations were made-all leading to two sober ing conclusions. First, most intellectual maps dealing with agriculture fail to recognize it as the basic interface between human societies and their environment. Because of this, they are little better than the "flat earth" maps of earlier centuries in helping to understand global realities. Second, when agriculture is analyzed from a global perspec tive that takes evolution seriously, one sees that the ecological risks as well as the energy and social costs of modern industrial agriculture make it largely inappropriate for developing countries. Beyond that, one can see a great need within industrialized countries to develop less costly, less risky, and more sustainable agricultural alternatives. Early in the journey it became clear that conventional disciplinary approaches were inadequate to comprehend the scope and diversity of global agriculture and that a new multilevel approach was needed. It also became clear that any new approach would have to try to correct certain Western biases and blind spots.

Farming for Our Future

Farming for Our Future PDF Author: PETER H.. ROSENBERG LEHNER (NATHAN A.)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781585762378
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
Farming for Our Future examines the policies and legal reforms necessary to accelerate the adoption of practices that can make agriculture in the United States climate-neutral or better. These proven practices will also make our food system more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture's contribution to climate change is substantial--much more so than official figures suggest--and we will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Fortunately, farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. The importance of agricultural climate solutions can not be underestimated; it is a critical element both in ensuring our food security and limiting climate change. This book provides essential solutions to address the greatest crises of our time.

Sweet Tyranny

Sweet Tyranny PDF Author: Kathleen Mapes
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252091809
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this innovative grassroots to global study, Kathleen Mapes explores how the sugar beet industry transformed the rural Midwest by introducing large factories, contract farming, and foreign migrant labor. Identifying rural areas as centers for modern American industrialism, Mapes contributes to an ongoing reorientation of labor history from urban factory workers to rural migrant workers. She engages with a full range of individuals, including Midwestern family farmers, industrialists, Eastern European and Mexican immigrants, child laborers, rural reformers, Washington politicos, and colonial interests. Engagingly written, Sweet Tyranny demonstrates that capitalism was not solely a force from above but was influenced by the people below who defended their interests in an ever-expanding imperialist market.

Citizenship, Gender, and Work

Citizenship, Gender, and Work PDF Author: Robert J. Thomas
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520080409
Category : Lettuce industry
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A convincing and original study of a system of social inequality embodied in the relationship between class, citizenship, and gender."--William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged

The Political Economy of Food

The Political Economy of Food PDF Author: Vilho Harle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the John Holmes Library collection.

Fighting for the Farm

Fighting for the Farm PDF Author: Jane Adams
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812201035
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book Here

Book Description
In North America industrial agriculture has now virtually displaced diversified family farming. The prevailing system depends heavily on labor supplied by migrants and immigrants, and its reliance on monoculture raises environmental concerns. In this book Jane Adams and contributors—anthropologists and political scientists among them—analyze the political dynamics that have transformed agriculture in the United States and Canada since the 1920s. The contributors demonstrate that people become politically active in arenas that range from the state to public discourse to relations between growers and their contractors or laborers, and that politics is a process that is intimately local as well as global. The farm financial crisis of the 1980s precipitated rapid consolidation of farms and a sharp decline in rural populations. It brought new actors into the political process, including organic farmers and environmentalists. Fighting for the Farm: Rural America Transformed considers the politics of farm policy and the consequences of the increasing alignment of agricultural interests with the global economy. The first section of the book places North American agriculture in the context of the world system; the second, a series of case studies, examines the foundations of current U.S. policy; subsequent sections deal with the political implications for daily life and the politics of the environment. Recognizing the influence of an array of political constituencies and arenas, Fighting for the Farm charts a decisive shift since the early part of the twentieth century from a discursive regime rooted in economics to one that now incorporates a variety of environmental and quality-of-life concerns.