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Swidden
• Swidden : from “burned clearing”
• Intercropping
• Shifting cultivation
• Female labor
• Little use of ranching
• Has been used for millennia
Rice paddy irrigation
• Terraces adapted to hilly terrain.– Increase productive
land– Reduce erosion
• Intensive agriculture.• Usually small (3 ac
often sufficient for a family)
Pastoral nomadism
• Migratory lifestyle– Uncertain environment– Rainfall irregular– Highly adaptable
• Wealth is often measured by herd size.
• Sedentary cultivation has been promoted in many places by governments.
Key points
• Traditional farming methods are usually • Sustainable under traditional
circumstances.• Ill-suited for machinery.• Highly adapted to the environment.
Globalizing agriculture
• Longer supply chains. • Increased product differentiation.• More market niches.• Concentrating ownership in input and
processing sectors.
Global Corn
• Responds well to fertilizer– 20 bushels/acre to 160 in last 100 years
• 55% animal feed, 19% export,14% ethanol, 7% HFCS and other sweeteners.
• 10% of our calories from corn sweeteners.• As much as 40% of a US corn farmers
income may come from subsidies.• Of the 10,000 things in your grocery store,
2500 use corn.
Environmental impact
• Intensive use of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer.
• Water pollution: algal bloom and fish die-off– “dead zone” in Gulf of Mexico
• GMOs: unknown, but possible impacts include bioaccumulation of pesticide in soil, the emergence of pesticide resistant pests, and decreasing biodiversity.
Social impact in LDCs
• In Mexico• Corn prices have dropped.
– Good for livestock and processed foods– Tortilla prices have not dropped because of
monopolies– Small farmers have lost their farms.
• Massive rural unemployment in Mexico.• Africa
– Reluctant to accept “food aid” in the form of GMO crops
The global chicken• Since WWII, 5->70 lbs per
person/year.• Low-fat diets led to increased
consumption of chicken.• US South is the world’s largest
supplier of broilers.• 1980-2000, 500% increase in
broiler trade, with US share from 22-46%. (But China’s share is increasing also)
• 40% of exports are leg quarters.
• We know more about chicken nutrition than human nutrition.
Global Shrimp
• Between 2000 and 2003, – dockside prices fell 40-60%– ½ gulf fleet stopped business, including ice
houses, processing plants and docks.– Deckhands were replaced with unpaid family
members.
• US consumption has tripled since 1980.• US shrimp production was stable.• Why did prices fall?
Production changes
• “Blue Revolution”– Investment in Latin America and Asia– Aquaculture was the solution to
overpopulation.
• Top exporters are Thailand, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Mexico.
• Trade volume increased by 240% in 20 years, value increased by 70%.
Economic changes
• Strong US economy in late 1990s.• Some countries relied on shrimp exports
to repay foreign debt.• Economic slump in 2001…
– Demand dropped, inventories grew.– US only major importer without significant
tariffs.
Other changes
• Cultural Changes– Low-carb and low-fat diets.– Restaurants promoted shrimp as healthy alternative, especially
as prices fell
• Political Changes– Chloramphenicol scare in Europe.– Lower standards in US.
• Ecological changes– Intensification allowed diseases to spread, causing unstable
supply in late 1990s.– Temporary high prices spurred production increases.
• In 2001: disease outbreaks declined, new exporters entered the market, and price collapsed.
Actor-network theory
• Initial supposition: traditional dichotomies (nature/culture, traditional/modern, tangible/intangible) are not useful.
• The world is made of connections (or heterogeneous associations)– Commodity network, not commodity chain.– It is the links, not the nodes which are important.– The activity of non-humans may be just as important.– It is the connections that cause things to happen, not the actors
themselves.
• Immutable mobiles: technologies, types of peoples, money, coffee beans, etc (i.e. What is being circulated)
• Stresses the importance of intermediaries (those that tie the networks together)
ANT and shrimp
• Immutable mobiles: shrimp, chloramphenicol, money, technology
• Heterogeneous associations: – Relation of industry to state and private
investment.– Relation of European and American publics,
states and medias to chloramphenicol.– Changing relation between Americans and
food/diet, and the repositioning of shrimp.
Standards• Standards are necessary for creating commodities.• What can be standardized?
1. Things (Tomatoes: shape, color, seed depth, ripening time, spacing of rows and plants, etc)
2. Workers (labor is mechanical, workers are replaceable)3. Consumers (expectations, fashions)4. Markets (prices (think Big Mac vs a car), ebay)5. Capitalists (through loan expectations, what may be
produced)6. Environment (standardized landscape, allowable
pollution)7. Standards themselves (improving precision, reducing
subjectivity)– Ask yourself: Who creates them? What is not allowed?
Would I have done the same?
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