The political economy of sugarcane flexing: initial insights from Brazil,Southern Africa and Cambodia

In the context of rising resource demand, agricultural crops such as sugarcane are being promoted for their multiple uses in different commodity markets and as alternatives to fossil fuel equivalents (i.e. as a source of biofuel, bioelectricity and bioplastic). These commodities are also produced on an increasingly flexible basis, as sugarcane mills respond to price signals and switch between different crop uses. This paper offers a preliminary exploration into the politics of this latest development in the capitalist industrialization of agriculture. It does so by focusing primarily on flexing in Brazil and highlighting the role of the state in both creating markets for non-food products that sugarcane mills can now switch between and managing the tensions that arise from this. These tensions have concerned consumer prices for fuel, control of distribution infrastructure and conditions of land conversion, each prompting political interventions by the state. The paper then suggests how this same process is taking place, albeit shaped by different contexts, in Southern Africa and Cambodia. It concludes with some key questions for further research: is flexing eroding the distinction between crop regimes? How do primary processors decide what their product mix will be? And on what basis do state actors support flexing between agricultural products and investments in so-called bio-refineries?     

Understanding food security and international security links in the context of climate change

Food production has been changing significantly in recent years as a result of climate change and of growing demand for food. This article aims to understand the link between food security and international security in the context of climate change, applying a systematic and qualitative analysis of the literature using the bibliometric method. This research observes that climate change tends to affect agricultural productivity, exposing societies to risk and the need for migration. However, good governance, together with international cooperation, can reduce the hazards of food insecurity, strengthening ties between countries and stimulating a fairer and more inclusive form of international trade.     

Shifting linkages in ethnic mobilization: the case of RMDSZ and the Hungarians in Transylvania

The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) has been the most stable actor in the Romanian party system over the past two decades. However, in this article, we argue that beyond this apparent stability, the linkages between RMDSZ and its voters have undergone a gradual, yet significant shift. The ethnic block voting of Transylvanian Hungarians was closely connected to the concept of a self-standing and parallel “Minority Society,” and to the practices of institution building that the minority elites engaged in in the early 1990s. However, since its first participation in the Romanian government in 1996, RMDSZ has gradually departed from this strategy, a phenomenon that was also closely connected to a process of elite change within the organization. The present RMDSZ leadership puts less and less emphasis on policy programs that could reinforce the institutional system of the minority; consequently, it is unable (and unwilling) to organizationally integrate the community activists of the minority society who previously had played a key role in the process of (electoral) mobilization. At the rhetorical level, RMDSZ did not abandon the goal of building a parallel Hungarian minority society, but in its linkages to the Hungarian electorate, clientelistic exchanges have become predominant.     

Farm-Level Pathways to Improved Nutritional Status: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Global, national and local policies and programmes for agricultural development are recurrently justified based on their alleged role in improving food and nutrition security. However, strikingly little evidence is available to prove that a direct, household-level link between agricultural production and improved nutrition exists. The objective of this special issue is to systematically and empirically test, using data from Africa and South Asia, whether a relationship between household agricultural production and nutrition can be found. Overall, the studies in this special issue support the hypothesis that household agricultural production has direct and important linkages with dietary patterns and nutrition.     

The heritage of autonomy in Carpathian Rus’ and Ukraine's Transcarpathian region

As the Soviet Union disintegrated and eventually dissolved in 1991, many of its peoples, both so-called titular nationalities and national minorities, put forth demands for independence or, at the very least, self-rule for territories that were said to represent the national patrimony. Among the many peoples who put forward such demands were Carpatho-Rusyns, who, together with fellow citizens of other national backgrounds, demanded autonomy or self-rule for the region (oblast) of Transcarpathia in far western Ukraine. This essay examines from a historical perspective the question of autonomy or self-rule for Carpatho-Rusyns and for all or part of the territory they inhabit, historic Carpathian Rus’. The autonomy question in Carpathian Rus’ is hardly new, but one that goes as far back as 1848.     

Fair Trade and justice: a comment on Walton and Deneulin

In this article we first point out that the different conceptualisations of Fair Trade, which are sometimes analytically contradictory, actually form a coordinated set. Understanding the Fair Trade project is impossible without taking these interlinked conceptualisations into consideration. Second, this set basically forms a mechanism of structural, institutional and moral reforms that guide actions. In this way Fair Trade sets out to produce less injustice than is usually the case with the structures and institutions that govern conventional trade. Nevertheless, it does not try to define what a just society is or even to perfectly define ‘fair trade’. This implies the adoption of a comparative justice angle. It is precisely by linking comparative individual situations with the structures that produce these situations that relative justice can find its strength and purpose.     

Rural unions and the struggle for land in Brazil

Studies of Brazil's agricultural labor movement have generally neglected its relationship to the struggle for land, but this is neither fair nor accurate. Analyzing the rural labor movement's historical contributions to the land struggle in Brazil, this contribution has been organized into three main periods, emphasizing social relations, institutional activism and policy changes. It argues that despite the peculiarities of different historical contexts, rural labor consistently provoked protest against policies that privileged large landholders, whose concentration of power over land and labor resources continually worsened Brazil's ranking as one of the most unequal of nations. For more than half a century, the most constant opponent of this situation among the peasantry has been the National Confederation of Workers in Agriculture (CONTAG), a corporatist organization of rural labor unions founded in 1963.