Climate-ready Crops and Bio-capitalism: Towards a New Food Regime?
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##
Abstract
The relationship between climate change (CC) and the potential for transition to a new food regime can be analyzed through the development of Climate Ready crops, which aim to provide a solution to the problems facing food production in the future. Using a bio-capitalist approach, this analysis focuses on the ways in which corporate actors and others map out and frame the challenges posed by CC in technoscientific and biophysical terms and potentially impact agri-food systems. Thus, the debates surrounding the future of food production and the challenges of CC, for this article, are analysed through the lens of bio-capitalism and the concept of food regimes to assess the limitations and potential consequences of biotechnological adaptation strategies for agricultural sustainability. This approach views biotechnology as one of the productive forces of capitalism, which attempts to produce surplus value from living systems in ways that ensure the continued accumulation of wealth through not only commodity forms but also their legal appropriation and control through Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), mostly through the reproductive control of plants and animals used in agricultural production. The practical limitations of this adaptation strategy are explored from a bio-capitalist perspective to analyse how technoscientific interventions in the context of CC are organizing local and global forms of social and biological exclusion and inclusion, and how these exclusions challenge the global food economy. The difficulties and unevenness presented by global climate change reinforce the idea that new regimes of food production, which aim to work within the complexity and resilience of specific ecosystems, are needed. This stands in opposition to the current productivist paradigm. This article considers how global climate change exposes the weakness of biotechnological solutions, which in turn are creating the conditions for the emergence of a neo-productivist regime.
How to Cite
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
R. MacRae and K. Bronson (eds) Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Food Studies, Toronto: McGraw-Hill
Ryerson, pp. 121–127.
Battacharyya, G. (2005) Traffick: The Illicit Movement of People and Things. London: Pluto Press.
Burch, D. and Lawrence, G. (2007) Supermarket own brands, supply chains, and the transformation of the
agri-food system, International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 13(1), pp. 1–18
Burch, D. and Lawrence, G. (2009) Towards a third food regime: behind the transformation, Agriculture
and Human Values, 26, pp. 267–279
CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) (2009) Adapting Agricultural Systems
to Climate Change. Montpellier: CGIAR.
Cooper, M. (2008) Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era. Seattle: University of
Washington Press.
Cotter, J. and Tirado, R. (2008) Food Security and Climate Change: The answer Is Biodiversity. Exeter: Greenpeace
Research Laboratories.
EPSO (European Plant Science Organization) (2005) European plant science: a field of opportunities,
Journal of Experimental Botany, 56(417), pp. 1699–1709.
Escobar, A. (1999) After nature: steps to an anti-essentialist political ecology, Current Anthropology, 40(1),
pp. 1–30.
ETC Group (2008) Patenting the ‘Climate Genes’… And Capturing the Climate Agenda. Ottawa: ETC Group.
ETC Group (2009) Who Will Feed Us?. Ottawa: ETC Group.
ETC Group (2010) Gene Giants Stockpile Patents on ‘Climate-ready’ Crops in Bid to Become ‘Biomasters’. Published
online
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) (2008) The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008. Rome: FAO.
Friedmann, H. (2005) From colonialism to green capitalism: social movements and emergence of food
regimes, in: F. Buttel and P. McMichael (eds) New Directions in the Sociology of Global Development, Amsterdam:
Elsevier, pp. 227–264.
Greenpeace International (2009) Agriculture at a Crossoroads: Food for Survival. Amsterdam: Greenpeace
International.
Gurian-Sherman, D. (2009) Failure to Yield. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists.
Harvey, D. (2005) The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, M. and Pilgrim, S. (2011) The new competition for land: food, energy, and climate change, Food
Policy, 36, pp. 540–551.
Heap, I.M. (2010) International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds. Published online
Herwitch, E. and Peters, G. (2009) Carbon footprints of nations: a global, trade-linked analysis, Environmental
Science and Technology, 43, pp. 6414–6420.
Kaskey , J. and Ligi, A. (2010) Monsanto, DuPont race to win $2.7 billion drought-corn market, Business
Week, 21 April.
Luke, T. (2005) Collective action and the eco-subpolitical: revisiting bill mckibben and the end of nature,
Organization and Environment, 18(2), pp. 202–206.
Margulis, C. (2009) Biotechnology and the Emerging Climate Market. Published online
McIntyre, BD., Herren, H.R., Wakhungu, J. and Watson, R.T. (eds) (2009) International Assessment of Agricultural
Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development: Synthesis Report. Washington, DC: IAASTD.
McMichael, P. (2009) A food regime analysis of the ‘world food crisis’, Agriculture and Human Values, 26,
pp. 281–295.
Monsanto (2010) Climate Change Challenges. Published online
Pechlaner, G. and Otero, G. (2008) The third food regime: neoliberal gobalism and agricultural biotechnology
in North America, Sociologia Ruralis, 48(4), pp. 351–371.
Pfeiffer, D.A. (2003) Eating Fossil Fuels. Published online
Ponti, L. and Gutierrez, A.P. (2009) Overview of biofuels from a European perspective, Bulletin of Science,
Technology and Society, 29(6), pp. 493–504.
Potter, C. and Tilzey, M. (2005) Agricultural policy discourses in the European post-Fordist transition: neoliberalism,
neomercantilism and multifunctionality, Progress in Human Geography, 29(5), pp. 581–600.
Rajan, K.S. (2003) Genomic capital: public cultures and market logics of corporate biotechnology, Science
as Culture, 12(1), pp. 87–121.
Royal Society (2009) Reaping the Benefits: Science and Sustainable Intensification of Global Agriculture. London:
Royal Society.
Sarewitz, D. (2004) How science makes environmental controversies worse, Science and Public Policy, 7,
pp. 385–403.
Smith, G. (2010, Spring). A Harvest of Heat: Agribusiness and Climate Change. Berkeley, CA: Agribusiness
Action Initiatives.
Uzunidis, D. (2003). Les facteurs qui font de la Science une force productive au service du capital, Innovations,
17(1), pp. 51–78.
Van Beek, C.L., Meerburg, B.G., Schils, R.L., Verhagen, J. and Kuikman, P.J. (2010) Feeding the World’s
increasing population while limiting climate change impacts: linking N2O and CH4 emissions from
agriculture to populatin growth, Environmental Science and Policy, 13, pp. 89–96.
Waldby, C. (2002) Stem cells, tissue cultures and the production of biovalue, Health, 6(3), pp. 305–323.
CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.