The rise of flex crops and commodities: implications for research

As a concept and phenomenon, ‘flex crops and commodities’ feature ‘multiple-ness’ and ‘flexible-ness’ as two distinct but intertwined dimensions. These key crops and commodities are shaped by the changing global context that is itself remoulded by the convergence of multiple crises and various responses. The greater multiple-ness of crops and commodity uses has altered the patterns of their production, circulation and consumption, as novel dimensions of their political economy. These new patterns change the power relations between landholders, agricultural labourers, crop exporters, processors and traders; in particular, they intensify market competition among producers and incentivize changes in land-tenure arrangements. Crop and commodity flexing have three main types – namely, real flexing, anticipated/speculative flexing and imagined flexing; these have many intersections and interactions. Their political-economic dynamics involve numerous factors that variously incentivize, facilitate or hinder the ‘multiple-ness' and/or ‘flexible-ness' of particular crops and commodities. These dynamics include ‘flex narratives' by corporate and state institutions to justify promotion of a flex agenda through support policies. In particular, a bioeconomy narrative envisages a future ‘value web’ developing more flexible value chains through more interdependent, interchangeable products and uses. A future research agenda should investigate questions about material bases, real-life changes, flex narratives and political mobilization.     

The challenge of locating land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation politics within a social justice perspective: towards an idea of agrarian climate justice

Abstract

The global land rush and mainstream climate change narratives have broadened the ranks of state and social actors concerned about land issues, while strengthening those opposed to social justice-oriented land policies. This emerging configuration of social forces makes the need for deep social reforms through redistribution, recognition, restitution, regeneration and resistance – book-ended by the twin principles of ‘maximum land size’ (‘size ceiling’) and a ‘guaranteed minimum land access’ (‘size floor’) – both more compelling and urgent, and, at the same time, more difficult than ever before. The five deep social reforms of socially just land policy are necessarily intertwined. But the global land rush amidst deepening climate change calls attention to the linkages, especially between the pursuit of agrarian justice on the one hand and climate justice on the other. Here, the relationship is not without contradictions, and warrants increased attention as both unit of analysis and object of political action. Understanding and deepening agrarian justice imperatives in climate politics, and understanding and deepening climate justice imperatives in agrarian politics, is needed more than ever in the ongoing pursuit of alternatives.     

Why wait for the state? Using the CFS Tenure Guidelines to recalibrate political-legal struggles for democratic land control

Abstract

In 2012, with the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (or TGs), the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) established a new international standard on natural resource governance. After adoption, the challenge is for these guidelines to be implemented and used. However, no law is self-interpreting or self-implementing, and so how states will interpret and implement these new guidelines cannot be taken for granted. This is especially true in the current global context of land grabbing driven, in many cases, by alliances of state and capital. Consequently, subaltern people, for whom rights in relation to the natural resources on which they depend remain out of reach, face the challenge and potential opportunity of making use of the TGs to recalibrate the political-legal terrain in favour of human rights and democratic control of land and other natural resources.     

The role of firm and national level factors in fostering R&D cooperation: a cross country comparison

This paper explores the factors that affect firms’ propensity to engage in R&D cooperation using a CIS-3 sample of innovative firms located in seven European countries. It performs the analysis separately for the manufacturing and the service sectors in order to examine whether there are specific features that shape the service firms’ R&D cooperative behaviour in particular ways. Differences between the manufacturing and the service sectors in the cooperative behaviour of firms become much more evident once an appropriate structure of endogeneity is determined. We compare different countries because, so far, the empirical evidence produced comes from single countries or countries that are all quite homogeneous in terms of industrial structure. Instead, we consider also countries, such as transition economies, that have not been analyzed so far. We find that public subsidies positively affect firms’ propensity to engage in R&D cooperation in all countries, but they seem particularly important to enhance firms’ cooperativeness in the service sector. Implications for innovation policy are examined.     

The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy–40 years later

Journal of Indian Philosophy -