Suchergebnisse

Robust intellectual property protection for GE technologies stimulated a shift in agricultural chemical companies toward "an integrated pesticide and seed sector" that over a relatively short time has concentrated the seed industry into a few large companies. This evolution in the biotech industry has, in part, contributed to a polarized dialogue around technological changes in the food system, especially in the US. Proponents and opponents of the technology each have common viewpoints that frame the issues in support of their perspective. Concerns of GE critics include the lack of safety data for the consumer, insufficient government regulation, and potential ecological impacts. GE advocates, including policy makers, focus on the contributions of the technology to food security and environmental sustainability. The conflicting strategies of the two sides are not contributing to greater social consensus on GE technology in the food system.

Abstract According to a number of observers of the U.S. economy, large publicly traded corporations can be viewed as a social problem primarily because of their association with the concentration of wealth and power. In agriculture, nine states have laws which restrict or proscribe public corporations from engaging in farming. Also, groups and individuals have attempted to preserve non‐corporate production enterprises in agriculture through the establishment of direct markets such as farmers' markets. Proponents of such efforts believe public corporations have negative economic impacts; opponents of such efforts, especially efforts to establish and retain anti‐corporate farming laws, argue that corporations can provide economic benefits to rural areas.These debates beg the question of whether ownership and direct marketing arrangements have important influences on economic outcomes such as levels of cash returns from farming and increases in the number of farms realizing cash gains. Using multi‐year, county‐level data from the Census of Agriculture, this study finds that, even when holding a number of important variables constant, ownership arrangements, as well as the (interaction between the percentage of total sales which are direct sales and the percentage of farms selling directly, are important determinants of both net cash returns and the percentage of farms realizing cash gains.

Abstract Structural change in U.S. agriculture in part has been characterized by shifts in control over agricultural production decisions from the farm‐level to off‐farm firms. In the past decade, this process has accelerated as increasing concentration in production and processing has led to increased vertical integration and contract production. To retain control, some farmers have formed bargaining units, have created production and marketing networks, and have petitioned subnational state governments for regulation of production contracts. Concurrently, there has been an impressive increase in alternative marketing outlets linked with smaller‐scale production based on farm‐level control over production decisions. Structural change and producer collective response has a long history in U.S. agriculture. Using Mooney's and Hunt's (1996) recent contribution on recurrent ideologies of agrarian social movements, this paper outlines recent structural changes and collective responses to those changes with reference to the shifting locus of control over agricultural production decisions.

Private sector firms have dominated the research, development, and commercialization processes for transgenic crops. This has led to a narrow focus on a few commercially important crops and engineered traits, while minor crops and traits remain largely ignored. Analysts have decried this situation and called for more public-centered research regimes, such as research on minor crops and traits. Universities are often identified as places where research on the more minor crops and traits should occur. The burgeoning literature on the changing structure of the university toward an institution more aligned with private for-profit sector interests and orientations calls these arguments into question. Using time series data from 1993-2002 obtained from the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, we find that over time, university research on transgenic crops has increasingly mirrored the research profile of for-profit firms.

The effect on rural communities of shifts in US agriculture toward a system dominated by large-scale industrial production is a central problematic in the sociology of agriculture. Despite the importance of agriculture structure and practice to US society, most research on this topic has been confined to specialized journals. And though research in this area has found negative effects on rural communities from agricultural industrialization, there is a dearth of inquiry into public policy remedies. Using data on 433 agriculture-dependent counties in the USA, we find that counties in states with laws that limit nonfamily corporate entry into farming score higher on important welfare indicators, and that the laws mitigate negative impacts on rural communities from industrial farming.

Abstract Issues raised by the feminist epistemic critique of social science are used to examine what is meant by local knowledge and its contribution to analyses of agricultural sustainability. Employing the concepts of partial perspective, lived experience, and the complexity of social context, this paper focuses attention on the juxtaposition of local and scientific knowledge and challenges those interpretations of local knowledge production that ignore the various people, relations, and interests constituting the rural economy. An examination of local as a contested, complex, and heterogeneous domain refines the work of Kloppenburg (1991) and his commitment to the significance of local knowledge in constructing opportunities for sustainable agriculture. Attention to the on‐farm gender division of labor helps to identify gender differences as critical in constituting the family farm and to elaborate how the different experiences of women and men may offer alternative visions of what constitutes sustainable agricultural production.

Abstract Organizational assumptions embedded in the production function of neoclassical economics have served to structure production agriculture in the United States for the past 100 years. The narrow focus of the production function on the inputs of land, labor, capital, and management and the use of on‐farm profitability as the primary definition of sustainability have come under attack from sustainable agriculturalists, who argue that the social and environmental consequences of production are as important as the economic outcomes. Using diversity of crops harvested as an indicator of sustainability, the production function is operationalized to inform the debate between the conventional, neoclassical model of production and the alternative, sustainable model. Census of agriculture data from 1978, 1982, and 1987 are used in both cross‐sectional and temporal models. Results show that increases in expenditures for equipment and machinery, prevalence of corporate farms, higher rates of tenancy, and the prevalence of large farms are associated with lower levels of diversity at the county level. Conversely, higher levels of diversity are found in counties with greater farm labor expenses, where there are more medium‐size farms, and where farmers are more likely to farm full‐time.

The commercialization of transgenic crops has engendered significant resistance from environmental groups and defensive responses from industry. A part of this struggle entails the politicization of science as groups gather evidence from the scholarly literature to defend a supportive or opposing position to transgenic crop commercialization. The authors argue that novel technology development and associated scientific uncertainty have led to two competing approaches to risk management: precaution and ex post trial and error. In this paper we use the controversies over currently commercialized transgenic crops to analyze the debate over these competing approaches. We also suggest a hybrid approach that incorporates a precautionary selection process, but also relies on ex post trial and error after commercialization. This approach is labeled precaution through experience since the development of a technology's characteristics would ideally take into account previous experience with similar technologies, or rather technologies with similar applications. The authors argue that substantial public participation and dialogue is needed to identify socially desirable crop traits to guide research and development. Policy tools are also recommended that provide incentives to private-sector firms to engineer the identified traits into crops.

Discussing strategies for reviving an 'agriculture in the middle' and creating a food system that works for midsize farms and ranches, this book considers the ways midsize farms can regain vitality by scaling up aspects of small farms' operations to connect with consumers and develop food supply chains that preserve farmer identity.

The US swine industry has dramatically reorganized over the last two decades. Economic concentration in the slaughter sector has increased and hog production has consolidated economically and geographically. Increases in the geographic concentration of hog production have led to water pollution through spills and leakage from high numbers of very large manure storage lagoons centered within limited areas, such as a few counties. The global restructuring of agro-food systems has promoted the development of intensive and concentrated livestock production. However, national, state and local institutions, and dynamics have also influenced the structure of geographic concentration of hog production. Using state-level and national-level time series data from 1975–1996, we find that national-level increases in concentration in the hog-processing sector are positively associated with geographic concentration of production within states. However, we also find that state, and even local, government policy can mitigate, or worsen, the geographic concentration of hog production.

AbstractBeginning in 1980, and due to a number of significant court decisions, legislative initiatives and international economic agreements, there has been an increase in the importance and use of intellectual property mechanisms, such as patents, in protecting biological materials, including seeds and engineered crop traits. The trend originated in the U.S. but has since diffused to OECD and non‐OECD nations. A parallel but related set of policies designed to promote the patenting of university and federally funded research discoveries has also become evident in the U.S. and globally. In this paper, we discuss the trend toward more restrictive IP protections in agriculture through national‐level policies and international economic agreements especially for new plant varieties. We then present the case of plant science research in Taiwan, including interviews with 15 plant scientists, to illustrate how transnational trends can impact and interact with national level policies and practices. And, how research scientists can play critical roles in furthering or retarding the progression of the proprietary research model in plant science.