Trade between Japan and Europe and the World Trade Development in the 16th-17th Century

Trade between Japan and the Europe lasted for about a century in the 16th-17th Century and the trade between the two promoted the commodity exchange between the East and the West, the packaging technological progress of commodities, the spread of crops and the formation of the world trade circle. In summary, the trade between Japan and the Europe, as part of the world trade development, constitutes an important part of the exchange history between the East and the West.     

Peace-Making Amidst an Unfinished Social Contract: The Case of Colombia

ABSTRACT

After more than fifty years of conflict, in 2016 a peace agreement was signed by the Colombian government and the leftist group FARC. The agreement created important opportunities for addressing historical inequalities. However, some of the aspirations of the peace agreement may be too ambitious and generate expectations that exceed the capacities of existing state institutions. In addition, there has been opposition by political and social actors. This article examines the challenges to building a comprehensive and inclusive social contract through the lens of two ‘core conflict issues’: land, and illicit crops and the drug trade.     

论新桂系民团制度

民团制度,是新桂系治桂时期最重要的一项基本制度。它对巩固新桂系的统治具有重要的意义,彰显新桂系治国安邦的理念、路向和方案。在特定的历史条件下,民团制度对维持地方治安,稳定社会,动员民众反对外来侵略,曾起过一定的积极作用。但其本质是军事专制,是反现代化的,体现了新桂系统治的军事专制性质。     

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.     

Biotechnology and bio-hegemony in Uganda: unraveling the social relations underpinning the promotion of genetically modified crops into new African markets

This paper aims to uncover the social relations used to promote genetically modified (GM) crops into new African markets. It unravels the network of corporate actors, development agencies, policy officials, and research scientists that support the unquestioned dominance of GM in Uganda, which houses one of the largest experimental program dedicated to agricultural biotechnology on the continent. Gramscian insights reveal how these constellations of power align to support biotechnology at the expense of other technological possibilities, and how this consensus maintains its position of dominance while remaining largely unquestioned and unchallenged.     

Flexible for whom? Flex crops,crises, fixes and the politics of exchanging use values in US corn production

Flexible allocation of crops among food and non-food uses is a key driver of global agri-food system change. Focusing on United States corn production, I explore the dynamics of flex crops, scrutinizing agri-industrial relationships and the distribution of agri-food system value and control. I situate crop flexing as exchanging use value, as opposed to converting use into exchange value without altering the commodity's use. Asking ‘Flexible for whom?' in the context of agri-food system crises, I find: (1) flex crops exacerbate contradictory food security and over supply crises, and that the distribution of flexibility and benefit in the agri-food system they provide depends on the organization of labor; (2) crises of accumulation tie flex crops to agri-food system financialization, which subordinates use to exchange value, obfuscating their relationship and distancing agricultural products and uses from their basis in nature and labor; and (3) debates over US corn flexing illustrate the utility of focusing on power and politics in crop flexing decisions and demonstrate US corn flexing to be a fix for climate and accumulation crises. Findings suggest that examining the distribution of value and control and the positions of labor and nature in the agri-food system may be productive for global flex crop research and advocacy in the future.     

Debating Agrarian Capitalism: A Rejoinder to Albritton

Despite the multiple usages of star anise, a spice harvested from trees native to northeast Vietnam and southeast China, and notwithstanding its potential as a ‘flex crop’ due to being a key component in the pharmaceutical production of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu, little is known about who cultivates this spice and how it reaches consumers around the world. Putting commodity chain analysis literature into conversation with recent ‘flex crop’ debates, we analyse the roles of actors along star anise commodity chains originating in rural, upland northern Vietnam. Our qualitative fieldwork reveals the intricate and idiosyncratic nature of these commodity chains upon which ethnic minority cultivator livelihoods depend, and which connect uplands and lowlands through manifold linkages. Cultivators, intermediaries, wholesalers, exporters and marketplace traders are constantly having to renegotiate their positions along these chains to maintain viable livelihoods due to uncertain financial returns and shifting demands. Adding to livelihood insecurities, financial gains have fluctuated wildly over time. The segmented knowledge individuals have of these commodity chains keep many in a vulnerable position, while the Vietnamese state's approach to promoting this commodity as a way to improve local livelihoods is questionable.     

Inquiring into the political economy of oil palm as a global flex crop

Oil palm production and consumption, and the trade of its multiple commodities, have expanded exponentially in recent decades. This paper argues that this expansion will continue due to, and along with, the rise of ‘flexing’ among its increasing multiple uses, especially for more industrial and energy purposes. Oil palm has been extensively analysed in the context of land grabs and agrarian change, land conversion and deforestation. However, its nature as a flex crop remains unexplored, especially with respects to the convergence of global food, fuel and environmental crises. This paper provides a preliminary discussion of how oil palm fits in the flex-crop framework to analyse its enabling material and ideational bases, as well as who informs, decides and controls the nature of flexing. This is done through an analysis of the different roles played by state, corporate (private) and social actors in the flexing of oil palm across the globe. We conclude by drawing some implications for further research.     

The discursive flexibility of ‘flex crops’: comparing oil palm and jatropha

‘Flex crops’ such as corn, oil palm and soy are understood to have multiple, interchangeable uses; they have material flexibility. We propose that discursive flexibility – the ability to strategically switch between discourses to promote an objective – equally shapes the political economy of flex crops, and thereby patterns of agrarian and environmental change. Comparing oil palm and Jatropha curcas, we find that actors who cast oil palm as a multi-scale solution to food and energy insecurity, climate change and (rural) poverty successfully reinforce its high material flexibility. Jatropha's proponents compensate for low material flexibility by positioning the crop as a ‘sustainable’ energy source that achieves both global and local goals. While this paper focuses on discourses that reinforce the oil palm and jatropha projects, understanding the power of discursive maneuvering can also inform efforts to contest them.     

Land,development and contract farming on the Guatemalan oil palm frontier

Integration of smallholder agriculture into oil palm production schemes has been advocated as a strategy for rural poverty reduction in the global South, including Guatemala, where the crop had been promoted through a contentious government programme. This study, set in Guatemala’s northern lowlands, challenges the official narrative that smallholder oil palm cultivation catalyses rural development and deters peasant land sales. Results indicate that oil palm expansion is accelerating land sales and provides minimal benefits, namely non-inclusive and precarious jobs. The host community is becoming increasingly susceptible to global market volatility, as oil palm puts pressure on subsistence farming and eliminates other livelihood options.