19 research outputs found
Farming cattle in the tropics: Transnational science and industrializing pastures in Brazil
No full textSocietal Impact Statement
Society is increasingly concerned over the environmental impact of diets. Much of this concern is over the environmentally destructive nature of meat production, especially beef and especially in the Amazon. This article aims to understand the production of beef in Brazil through the understudied perspective of forage grasses. In doing so, the article traces who was involved in the importation and improvement of forage grasses in Brazil, why they were involved, and what the consequences of their actions were. By centering forage grasses, we can better understand the potential consequences of seemingly unimportant plant breeding efforts.
Summary
Beef is viewed by many as one of the more environmentally destructive foods today. Whether it is deforestation in the Amazon or concentrated feedlots, the rancher and the cow have come to epitomize the dangers of a global industrial food system. This article looks at the industrialization of beef cattle from another angle, a bit closer to the ground. It looks at the role and circulation of plants and plant breeders in the expansion of beef cattle in the Brazilian tropics.
The article draws on documents collected from the institutional archives of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, known by its Portuguese acronym Embrapa and the Rockefeller Archive Center. Additional archival documents were acquired by a personal contact. Embrapa was established in 1973, but its archives contain documents from Brazilian agricultural research agencies from as far back as 1952. Documents from the Rockefeller Archive Center include research bulletins and reports from Nelson Rockefeller's IBEC Research Institute (IRI), which conducted research on forage grasses from the 1950s until the 1970s.
The article puts forth the argument that imported and improved forage grasses made large-scale cattle ranching environmentally viable and economically profitable in Brazil. One type of grass in particular, Brachiaria, was central in propelling Brazil as the world's largest producer of beef and underpinning perhaps the most environmentally and socially destructive cattle ranching system in the world. Brachiaria was a key biological and technological input to further entrench longstanding structural inequalities of land ownership.
One of the key conclusions of this article is that perspectives from the margins can be illustrative of how seemingly unimportant research (forage grass breeding) can have massive consequences as part of a broader socio-environmental system.PRIFPRI3; ISI; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural EconomiesNatural Resources and Resilience (NRR); Transformation Strategie
A conceptual framework of living labs for people for sustainable food systems
No full textInnovation spaces are often dominated by linear, top-down approaches, with the transfer of technology being seen as the solution to many problems rather than trying to understand which innovation processes people are engaging with themselves. In other words, barriers to progress are typically viewed as issues of technology adoption, not as part of the innovation process itself. This study contributes to changing the paradigm by proposing a living lab approach, which considers innovation as an adaptive process where stakeholders co-produce knowledge and collaborate based on inclusivity and empowerment. Our specific concept for this approach is called a Living Lab for People (LL4P). This conceptual paper outlines a framework to guide the development of a LL4P that remains flexible to be adapted for specific sites. While we seek to identify common denominators, we recognize the necessity for such a framework to remain open enough to be adaptable for varied contexts. Consequently, the framework draws on the living lab literature but tailors existing approaches for sustainable food system transformation and puts people (men, women, and marginalized groups among key food system actors) at the center of innovation processes with a clear intention to address power and social inequity. We draw on specific cases in China, Colombia, Kenya and Vietnam as learning grounds for formulating LL4Ps through locally led innovation processes. Based on our learnings and consultations, we define a LL4P as an inclusive and diverse space for people to advance their socio-technical innovation processes and associated modes of governance within a facilitated organizational structure. The principles of LL4Ps include co-production, gender equality and social inclusion, governance and institutional sustainability to advance existing and novel innovation processes. The practical experiences from applying this framework in the four case studies indicate alternative pathways for transforming the food system toward a sustainable and socially equitable trajectory through the establishment of a LL4P.Non-PRIFPRI1; DCA; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; G Cross-cutting gender themeNatural Resources and Resilience (NRR); Transformation Strategie
Techno-tropicalismo: Public Agricultural Research and the Brazilian Green Revolution
No full text262 pagesThis dissertation analyzes the social formation and political development behind the production of scientific knowledge at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, known by its Portuguese acronym Embrapa (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária). Embrapa was established as a public company under Brazil’s authoritarian military regime in 1973 with the goal of modernizing Brazilian agriculture and is credited as the technological engine behind the emergence of “the world’s first tropical agricultural giant.” However, in recent years, Embrapa has endured political uncertainty, internal conflict and a reduction in its budget, leading to an institutional crisis. The technocrats who helped design and manage Embrapa were convinced of the need to send scientists abroad for postgraduate education and apply scientific expertise to industrial commodity production in the countryside. It was during these early decades when Embrapa gained currency as an effective institutional model for public agricultural research. I use the concept Techno-tropicalismo to show how the institutional and scientific hybridization of Western and Brazilian agronomic knowledge at Embrapa subsumed tropical ecologies into a vision of industrial order and progress in Brazil. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, I argue that the effectiveness of public research isn’t due to the institutional model, but rather the alignment between state development goals, a continuity in financial support and internal social cohesion. The chapters in this dissertation provide a detailed ethnographic and historical analysis of public agricultural research in Brazil. Each of them focus on different scales around the development and deployment of agricultural research in Brazil, from the transnational and national, and from the institutional and local. They also address distinct moments and components of Embrapa. While the chapters are not presented chronologically, they do follow a general timeline that weaves from the past and up to the present. Taken together, the chapters utilize Embrapa as a productive lens to understand how and why national agricultural research systems produce particular forms of knowledge and technologies. In the case of Embrapa, I show how the transmission of generalized and embedded knowledge from the global to the local is uneven, contested and shaped by economic, political, cultural, and environmental interests
Digitising biopiracy? The global governance of plant genetic resources in the age of digital sequencing information
Full text linkHistorical concerns over the exploitation of the Global South’s genetic biodiversity framed the importance of creating global governance mechanisms to ensure fair access to and benefit-sharing of genetic resources worldwide. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Plant Treaty) came into existence over the past three decades to redress the centuries of genetic exploitation of the Global South. Both of the treaties explicitly regulate and facilitate the exchange of physical genetic material. The recent emergence of relevant digital technologies, such as digital sequencing information (DSI), could make both treaties irrelevant. This article analyses the current state of the CBD and Plant Treaty as it relates to global agricultural research in light of DSI. I argue that DSI presents less of a threat to exacerbating historical gene flows than it does to the further displacement of public sector research by the private sector. The article then suggests looking at the lessons from open-source approaches to counter the privatisation of DSI and related gene flows. I draw on 11 key informant interviews with country negotiators involved with the CBD and Plant Treaty as well as a review of official reports from both frameworks
Multifunctional Agriculture and Domestic/International Policy Choice
Full text linkThe concept of multifunctionality, in which agriculture is viewed as a source of both commodity and non-commodity outputs, has stimulated debate on the desirability of further trade liberalization. We explore the economics of multifunctionality and its policy implications. We argue for a new policy approach in which land and natural resource managers are remunerated for positive non-commodity outputs and penalized for negative outputs. This would require devolution in policy implementation from the centre to the local level. Such an approach would permit countries to achieve broader social objectives, while at the same time continuing to pursue trade liberalization.agriculture, domestic policy, multifunctionality, trade policy, WTO, Agricultural and Food Policy,
No-till agriculture and the deception of sustainability in Brazil
No full textAgronomists and policy makers have proposed no-tillage practice and advocacy in the tropical savannah (Cerrado) of Brazil as a model for agriculture elsewhere. Building from intensive research with Embrapa and ethnographic research with two communities of transnational soy farmers, this paper explores the origins of no-tillage farming in the state of Paraná and the adoption and exploitation of no-tillage by large-scale farmers in the Cerrado of Brazil’s center-west. The spread of no-till was made possible by farmer innovation in Paraná, scientific research adapting the practice to the tropics, and and heavy application of chemical herbicides to control weeds without manual cultivation and intense soil fertility amendments in order to make the Cerrado productive for industrial agriculture. Small-scale Mennonites in the state of Goiás adopted it as an emergency measure to save their land base and compete with neighboring Brazilian farmers; large-scale family farmers from the U.S. adopted no-till to save on labor expense and reduce their liability in the face of labor laws. This indicates that while no-till in Brazil reduces soil erosion and is not a problem in itself, it emerges from a context of socio-technical fixes and its implementation supports farm profitability and agricultural expansion in the Cerrado
The history of crop science and the future of food
No full textHistorical memory is often short, and perhaps nowhere more so than in scientific research. As scientists chase new insights and novel tools, they are rarely rewarded for possessing deep knowledge of their disciplines' past trajectories. Textbook sidebars spotlight singular individuals or celebrated experiments, and institutional accounts highlight founders and funders. Such highlights introduce a tiny—and unrepresentative—fraction of scientific work. Yet, the possibilities and pitfalls of today's research are conditioned by the past
Formação institucional da inovação agrícola dos EUA
No full textO objetivo deste artigo é examinar os fatores institucionais e políticos que ampararam o crescimento e a industrialização da agricultura norte-americana. Os EUA passaram a ser referência, por autoridade ou evidência, para a pesquisa agropecuária mundial desde os relatórios estatísticos do Departamento de Agricultura na segunda metade do século 19. O aprendizado acumulado resultou no papel chave de indutor na Revolução Verde da década de 1960 nos países em desenvolvimento, como o Brasil. Dados históricos mostram instituições, organizações e estruturas hierárquicas múltiplas e atualizadas que proporcionam mudanças tecnológicas e novos produtos, impulsionando o país à hegemonia científica global em diversos setores correlatos. Este artigo contribui, do ponto de vista brasileiro, para a literatura que analisa as mudanças da agricultura nos EUA e a respectiva relevância do avanço científico e tecnológico para países com escala na produção de alimentos, energia e afins.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Formação institucional da inovação agrícola dos EUA
No full textO objetivo deste artigo é examinar os fatores institucionais e políticos que ampararam o crescimento e a industrialização da agricultura norte-americana. Os EUA passaram a ser referência, por autoridade ou evidência, para a pesquisa agropecuária mundial desde os relatórios estatísticos do Departamento de Agricultura na segunda metade do século 19. O aprendizado acumulado resultou no papel chave de indutor na Revolução Verde da década de 1960 nos países em desenvolvimento, como o Brasil. Dados históricos mostram instituições, organizações e estruturas hierárquicas múltiplas e atualizadas que proporcionam mudanças tecnológicas e novos produtos, impulsionando o país à hegemonia científica global em diversos setores correlatos. Este artigo contribui, do ponto de vista brasileiro, para a literatura que analisa as mudanças da agricultura nos EUA e a respectiva relevância do avanço científico e tecnológico para países com escala na produção de alimentos, energia e afins.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Why do multistakeholder processes emerge and flourish? Identifying and operationalizing the leading hypotheses
No full textThe literature on Multistakeholder Processes (MSPs) includes several studies that seek to specify the conditions under which MSPs perform well and deliver tangible governance improvements that would otherwise not happen. This is important research as MSPs are gaining popularity as an alternative to more traditional governance strategies, such as centralized, government-led activities. MSPs are often proposed in institutional settings where formal governance institutions are perceived to be ineffective or inequitable. In principle, studies that explain variation in MSP outcomes have the potential to inform MSP organizers and their decisions about how to organize their future MSPs in ways that save resources and improve outcomes. However, the existing MSP research programs demonstrate at least three limitations: First, the literature is characterized by the production of long lists of potential determinants of MSP performance, which makes it challenging for researchers to offer practical advice as to which of these factors is most important for MSP organizers to address first, and under which contextual conditions. Second, there is little agreement among scholars about what the core elements of a well-functioning MSP are, which elements affect mostly the emergence vis-à-vis effectiveness, and it is rare that studies specify which conditions or factors are essential and which may be helpful but not critical ingredients of success. Third, there is a dearth of theory-driven research that uses causal inference methods to test the theoretical propositions, which means that it is difficult to assess the quality of evidence in literature’s existing, mostly descriptive analyses. To advance knowledge about the emergence and flourishing of MSPs, and move beyond the production of long lists of associative success factors, there is an urgent need for researchers to come together in a community of practice to address the noted shortcomings. The Community of Practice will also promote the development of new and innovative ways of conducting MSP work, which will enable researchers to improve outcomes in terms of both cost-effectiveness and equity. In this paper, we review and synthesize the leading hypotheses on MSP emergence and effectiveness, develop a theoretical framework that captures the leading hypotheses, and discuss the viability of employing causal inference methods to test new hypotheses related to the emergence and flourishing of MSPs. We conclude by outlining the contours of a community of practice and how it can help advance MSP scholarship
