Developing the meat grab

‘Meat grabbing’ describes actually existing land deals undertaken for industrial meat production, either directly in the form of animal housing and stocking (confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs), or indirectly in the form of monocrop grain and oilseed production for livestock feed. Meat grabbing is also a concept for analyzing the relationships between industrial meat regimes, food security politics and the global land rush, relationships which have not yet been sufficiently considered in research or in policy. Using China's reform-era meat revolution as an analytical case, this paper proposes meat grabbing as a concept with three broad goals: (1) to show how industrial meat complicates notions of food security and of food security land grabs, (2) to incorporate social inequalities and environmental injustices into the conceptualization and measurement of land deals and (3) to expand dispossession's domain to include relationships between people and agroecosystems. This is an initial exploration of the content and framing of meat grabs, intended to synthesize its core features and raise questions for further study.     

Food and finance: the financial transformation of agro-food supply chains

This article draws upon existing literature to document and describe the rise of finance in food provisioning. It queries the role of financialization in the contemporary food crisis and analyzes its impacts upon the distribution of power and wealth within and along the generalized agro-food supply chain. A systematic treatment of key nodes in the supply chain reveals four key insights: (1) the line between finance and food provisioning has become increasingly blurred in recent decades, with financial actors taking a growing interest in food and agriculture and agro-food enterprises becoming increasingly involved in financial activities; (2) financialization has reinforced the position of food retailers as the dominant actors within the agro-food system, though they are largely subject to the dictates of finance capital and face renewed competition from financialized commodity traders; (3) financialization has intensified the exploitation of food workers, increasing their workload while pushing down their real wages and heightening the precarity of their positions, and (4) small-scale farmers have been especially hard hit by financialization, as their livelihoods have become even more uncertain due to increasing volatility in agricultural markets, they have become weaker vis-à-vis other actors in the agro-food supply chain, and they face growing competition for their farmland. The paper concludes by identifying themes for future research and asking readers to reimagine the role of finance in food provisioning.     

Contested Resource Extraction,Anti-Corporate Protests and the Politics of Movement Alliance in Bangladesh

Why do activist groups form alliances and why do some alliances later fall apart? This article asks these questions in the context of a popular mobilisation against resource extraction in Bangladesh. It focuses on the dynamics of a strategic alliance between a locally organised community mobilisation against a British mining company and an urban radical activist group, known for its anti-capitalist activism, to explore the subsequent collapse of the alliance and the demobilisation of one group. Based on the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with activists and organisational documents, the article probes the underlying causes of rupture. Although several individual and organisational factors are identified, it is argued that Bangladesh’s confrontational political culture and its authoritarian party system played a critical role, with local activists vulnerable to co-optation or being silenced by powerful political actors. The article contributes to social movement scholarship by emphasising that specific political cultures can undermine efforts to build strategic alliances between diverse social movement organisations.     

浅谈保安业突破发展的几点构想

中国保安业已走过22年的风雨历程,取得了可喜的成绩和迅速的发展,但仍存在着职业化水平低,经营业务范围狭窄,经营者管理理念落后,职业稳定性差,从业人员教育训练不到位等诸多问题。寻求保安业的突破与进一步发展,其核心问题：一是政府对保安的社会职能如何规定,对保安职业怎样定位;二是社会公众对保安的理解问题。     

基于系统变量改进的产业结构成长对策研究——发达国家的经验借鉴

产业结构的成长是每个发展阶段的国家都会遇到的问题。各种影响因素之间的博弈决定了产业结构成长的未来走向。该文基于系统科学的思想方法,认为产业结构的成长是多要素共同作用的过程,并且是一个快慢变量共同作用的过程,科技进步是产业结构系统中的快变量,而心智模式则是产业机构系统中的慢变量。通过对发达国家的产业结构成长的经验总结发现,以科技进步促进产业转型的同时,还要持续改进产业系统中的序参量,才能够持续推动中国产业结构的健康成长。     

食品安全地方立法的重大疑难问题解析——以起草《重庆市食品安全条例》为视角

《中华人民共和国食品安全法》以及《中华人民共和国食品安全法实施条例》的颁布实施,为完善我国食品安全监管体制,改善我国食品安全现状,充分保障公众身体健康和生命安全翻开了新的篇章。笔者于2008年8月受托主持起草并参研重庆市人民政府法制办公室委托起草项目《重庆市食品安全条例》,课题组历时1年,通过深入考察调研、广泛征求意见、经过8次修改,终于完成该《条例》起草工作。该项目已于2009年9月通过立法评审并结题。根据在《条例》起草过程中遇到的重大疑难问题,在食品安全监管模式方面,建议在坚持现有的多部门分段监管的基础上,建立并完善食品安全监管部门之间的协调机制、加大机构之间的协调力度;在食品安全监管部门的职责划分方面,建议对食品安全监管部门的职责划分作出明确、清晰的细化规定;对食品安全风险监测作出了突出监管重点的制度设计,规定风险评估的情形及安全隐患的处理机制;此外应明确各监管部门对"五小"食品的监管职责,构建食品检验结果信息共享机制。     

“东亚文化之都”泉州发展文化产业的路径探索

东亚文化之都”泉州发展文化产业的优势是文化资源丰富,劣势是文化企业小与散;泉州发展文化产业面临的外在挑战是文化资源被共享和文化产业激烈竞争,内在挑战是泉州许多市民逐渐淡忘泉州文化的人文价值;泉州发展文化产业的机会得益于实施文化强国建设战略和当选中国首个“东亚文化之都”,市政府出台鼓励发展文化产业的政策;泉州要加快发展文化产业,需要政府、企业、社会分工协作,不断把文化资源转化为文化产业。     

第三产业与城市化互动关系探析

城市化是工业化的空间聚集表现,工业化推动第三产业的发展,决定了第三产业崛起与城市化都是工业化的产物。城市化是第三产业发展的需求基础,第三产业是城市化重要的经济源泉和后续动力,第三产业与城市化具有互相促进的互动关系。要在工业化进程中推动城市化和第三产业的发展,促进第三产业与城市化的互动关系。     

评析中世纪晚期英国济贫法

英国从封建主义向资本主义过渡时期曾出现过历史上最严重的贫困问题,贫困和流浪普遍存在,社会不安定因素急剧增加,这引起统治者的关注,为了维持统治,稳定社会秩序,统治者颁布了一系列的法令法规,确立了济贫原则,通过法律的形式将早期的社会保障活动固定下来.英国是世界上最早建立济贫法的国家,其立法精神一直对世界各国和地区的社会救济立法产生了重要影响.     

我国食品安全法律制度研析

频发的食品安全事件使食品安全问题成为我国当今社会关注的焦点.《食品安全法》在这样的环境下应运而生,但却没能有效解决我国的食品安全问题.从我国食品安全法律规制的现状起笔,分析日前国内食品安全法律规制的不足,并从道德建设、行政处罚制度、民事赔偿制度、食品安全标准体系、平衡城乡执法力度等角度努力探寻解决问题的方法.