Troubling notions of farmer choice: hybrid Bt cotton seed production in western India

The debate over agricultural biotechnology is increasingly being centered on the question of farmer choice. Advocates for biotechnology argue that farmers should be able to choose the seeds and technologies they use, and therefore these new technologies should be legalized and made available immediately. Who would deny farmers of the global South their right to choose? But these discourses of choice and freedom are being deployed to market a particular kind of development. This neoliberal development of agriculture is leading to the individualization of risk, the shifting of risk to marginalized contract farming households, and greater control for wealthier farmers, seed companies and agents. The state of Gujarat, India, is seen as a success story of hybrid Bt cotton, in which farmers have their choice of hundreds of varieties of seeds. As cotton seed production is taking off in the neighboring state of Rajasthan, however, choosing Bt cotton has different implications and meanings altogether. Drawing on eight months of qualitative research with adivasi households in Dungarpur District, Rajasthan, I offer narrative accounts from farmers and seed agents that both explore and trouble neoliberal notions of farmer choice. The use of these discourses by biotech advocates is just one example of the ways that choice and freedom are being utilized to further neoliberal development.     

Natural capital must be defended: green growth as neoliberal biopolitics

ABSTRACT

This contribution addresses the growing global trend to promote ‘natural capital accounting’ (NCA) in support of environmental conservation. NCA seeks to harness the economic value of conserved nature to incentivize local resource users to forgo the opportunity costs of extractive activities. We suggest that this represents a form of neoliberal biopower/biopolitics seeking to defend life by demonstrating its ‘profitability’ and hence right to exist. While little finance actually reaches communities through this strategy, substantial funding still flows into the idea of ‘natural capital’ as the basis of improving rural livelihoods. Drawing on two cases in Southeast Asia, we show that NCA initiatives may compel some local people to value ecosystem services in financial terms, yet in most cases this perspective remains partial and fragmented in communities where such initiatives produce a range of unintended outcomes. When the envisioned environmental markets fail to develop and benefits remain largely intangible, NCA fails to meet the growing material aspirations of farmers while also offering little if any bulwark against their using forests more intensively and/or enrolling in lucrative extractive enterprise. We thus conclude that NCA in practice may become the antithesis of conservation by actually encouraging the resource extraction it intends to combat.     

Infrastructure projects and rural politics in northern Kenya: the use of divergent expertise to negotiate the terms of land deals for transport infrastructure

In 2012, construction began on the Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor in northern Kenya. Once complete, LAPSSET will connect Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia with a new transport infrastructure, including a highway, railway and pipeline. Authorities promise that LAPSSET will drive economic growth by improving trade and attracting investors while also stimulating development in rural areas surrounding transport routes. Despite this promise, many rural land users remain concerned about how LAPSSET stands to alter their access to and control over land. This contribution reflects on how these rural groups are attempting to negotiate proposed land-use changes for LAPSSET by creating and deploying expertise that challenges authorities’ claims about the costs and benefits of the corridor for rural landscapes and communities. The analysis shows that just as expertise can be constructed and circulated ‘from above’ to legitimise land deals for transport infrastructure, counter-claims can be produced and mobilised by rural land users to unsettle these land deals. This paper contributes to recent research that examines the specific strategies used by rural actors to influence proposed land-use changes, as well as research that considers how power inequalities shape and constrain the ability of different rural groups to negotiate the terms of land deals to their own advantage.     

资源节约型社会构建的生态伦理基础

当代全球性的生态环境问题,从根本上说是由于人类在谋求社会发展的过程中,没能正确地处理好人类活动与自然生态的关系问题而导致的。因此,人类需要创建一种新的文明方式,即构建资源节约型社会来促进人与自然的和谐统一,其内动力是生态伦理制约。     

节约型社会视角下的循环经济立法

发展循环经济,加快建设资源节约型、环境友好型、经济循环型社会,促进经济发展与人口、资源、环境相协调成为今后我国经济发展的一项重大任务。而这一任务的完成以相关法律法规的制定为基础。加快我国循环经济法制建设需要联系我国的实际情况,对我国循环经济法制建设的实践及其存在的问题进行系统研究,同时借鉴发达国家的循环经济立法经验,有针对性地提出符合我国实际的循环经济立法的建议和主张。     

海南农村生态建设调研与思考

限制开发区因其特殊的功能定位,在发展方式和途径方面受较多限制,生态保护地区保护与发展的矛盾日益突出。该文在分析了琼中、五指山等海南省中部地区在内的限制开发区普遍存在的问题之后,提出了为加快实现限制开发区生态保护和农民收入提高同步发展应实施的政策建议。     

Conservation and Development of the Grand Canal Shandong Section

正The Shandong section of the Grand Canal’s successful application for World Heritage listing augurs an immense conservation project that will construct eco-cities and beautiful villages,hence promoting rural tourism and bringing inestimable benei ts to local residents.     

对经济发展方式转变总目标的思考

经济发展方式的转变不能脱离当今世界文明形态演进这个大背景,仅以走新型工业化道路为经济发展方式转变总目标是不够的。中国的基本国情、国际环境、国内外的发展态势,都说明在工业文明框架内转变经济发展方式无法应对挑战,从工业文明走向生态文明应当成为经济发展方式转变的总目标。为此,要将走新型工业化道路作为经济发展方式转变的初级阶段,并在处理好生态建设与经济建设的关系、城镇化与建设新农村的关系、发展低碳经济、尽早开始“消费转型”等方面形成与经济发展方式转变总目标相配套的战略思路。     

The post‐Stalinist present and the Australian past

Abstract

Since 1979, housing reforms in China have been seen as successive state efforts to improve urban governance. The idea is that the state has all along failed to deliver housing efficiently and equitably through the work units and that it is believed that only through the recommodification of housing could the housing problem be ultimately resolved. The housing monetarization policy (HMP) was thus launched in 1998 to replace the long-standing in-kind housing subsidy under the old welfare housing system. The policy aims at providing workers with cash subsidies as part of their wage package to enable them to buy or rent their homes from the market. The purpose of this paper is to explain the implications of the HMP through a neoliberal urbanization perspective. Through the case study of Guiyang, it is argued that while the HMP is successful in improving certain historical housing inequalities, it does not primarily aim at eradicating housing inequalities. HMP has in fact led to more rather than less horizontal inequities. In addition, it is argued here that a market housing system is leading towards increasing urban poverty, greater social polarization and spatial segregation. To improve governance, China needs to keep neoliberal urbanization in check and pay serious attention to its adverse consequences during economic transformation.     

Local plant use and traditional conservation practices in Nhema communal area,Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article is based on a study that was carried out in Nhema communal area in Midlands Province, Zimbabwe, with the main objective of documenting local plant use and traditional conservation practices. Data collected through household semi-structured and open interviews showed that 46 plant species in 40 genera and 24 families were mainly used for firewood, construction wood, food and traditional medicine. Other minor uses included using plant species for making mats, rope and shading. Firewood and construction wood ranked as the most important tree products used. The preferred plant species included: Julbernardia globiflora (Mutondo); Brachystegia spiciformis (Musasa); Terminalia sericea (Mususu); Brachystegia boehmii (Mupfuti); Combretum imberbe (Mutsviri); Combretum molle (Mubondo) and Burkea africana (Mukarati). Some of the highly preferred species, considered to be declining in the local environment, included Adenium obesum (Chisvosve); Azanza garckeana (Mutohwe); Brachystegia boehmii (Mupfuti); Brachystegia spiciformis (Musasa); Burkea africana (Mukarati); Combretum imberbe (Mutsviri); Combretum molle (Mubondo); Dalbergia melanoxylon (Mukonashanhu); Diospyros mespiliformis (Musuma); Elephantorrhiza goetzei (Ntorani); Julbernardia globiflora (Mutondo); Phragmites australis (Shanga; Poulzozia hypoleuca (Munanzwa); Pterocarpus angolensis (Mubvamaropa); Terminalia sericea (Mususu) and Uapaca kirkiana (Muzhanje). Highly preferred and declining species were characteristically large trees and shrubs. Local people are aware of the need to conserve plant resources in order to protect the environment and avoid the extinction of these rare species.Traditional conservation practices have substantially contributed to the conservation of plant species in Nhema communal area. The protection of indigenous timber, fruit trees, trees with social and cultural significance, the use of deadwood for firewood, the use of eucalyptus trees as construction wood and the occurrence of sacred woodland areas represented some of the traditional conservation techniques employed in Nhema communal area. These local practices demonstrate the dynamism and significance of African indigenous knowledge systems.