Investing in food security? Philanthrocapitalism, biotechnology and development

This paper traces the evolution of philanthropic involvement in developing country agriculture from the ‘scientific philanthropy’ of the Rockefeller Foundation during and after the Green Revolution era to the ‘philathrocapitalism’ of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, by examining two cases of ‘pro-poor’ agricultural biotechnology research: pro-Vitamin A-enriched ‘Golden Rice’ and drought tolerant maize. In each case, novel institutions developed for technology transfer have created conditions conducive to future capitalist accumulation in ways that are not immediately obvious. These initiatives can be understood as institutional experiments that are shifting debates about the governance and regulation of genetically modified (‘GM’) crops. Meanwhile an emphasis on silver bullet solutions and institutions that ‘connect to the market’ diverts attention from more context-responsive approaches. This trend is likely to intensify with the announcement at the recent G8 summit backing a ‘New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition’ in which agri-business corporations are to play a key role

Enabling Adaptation? : Lessons from the new 'Green Revolution' in Malawi and Kenya

This article explores the extent to which efforts to improve productivity of smallholder agriculture through a new ‘Green Revolution’ in Sub Saharan Africa are likely to enhance the capacity of smallholder farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Drawing on empirical material from Malawi and Kenya, the paper finds more conflicts than synergies between the pursuit of higher productivity through the promotion of hybrid maize adoption and crop diversification as a strategy for climate change adaptation. This is despite an oft-assumed causal link between escape from the ‘low maize productivity trap’ and progression towards crop diversification as an adaptive strategy. In both countries, a convergence of interests between governments, donors and seed companies, combined with a historical preference for, and dependence on maize as the primary staple, has led to a narrowing of options for smallholder farmers, undermining the development of adaptive capacities in the longer term. This dynamic is linked to the conflation of market-based variety of agricultural technologies, as viewed ‘from the top down’, with diversity-in-context, as represented by site-specific and locally derived and adapted technologies and institutions that can only be developed ‘from the bottom up’

Inducing food insecurity : financialisation and development in the post-2015 era

The G7 ‘New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition’ follows an established approach of ‘connecting smallholder farmers to markets’, while extending the role and influence of corporate agri-business in new ways. This paper explores the implications of the ‘New Alliance’ model’s incorporation into the Sustainable Development Goals framework for smallholder producers already facing greater uncertainty in financialised agri-food chains, and in light of a consensus around the primacy of private finance in the post-2015 era. The question for alternative food and development movements is how to confront the ‘value chain challenge’ in an increasingly financialised global agri-food system

Living with Materiality or Confronting Asian Diversity? : The Case of Iron-Biofortified Rice Research in the Philippines

This article draws on findings from a multi-sited study of international science policy processes in rice biofortification. It focuses on the ten-year period between the discovery of a “high-iron” elite line named IR68144-3B-2-2-3 and the publication, in 2005, of the findings of a bioefficacy study that proved crucial to securing the support necessary to scale up biofortification research as a global Challenge Program. During this time, IR68144 took on many guises, defined and redefined in relation to different disciplinary, institutional, and sociocultural perspectives. This article highlights the ways in which different actors responded to the material agency of IR68144, drawing implications for reflexive practice and context responsiveness in a research effort increasingly distant from its projected beneficiaries. The case of iron rice research shows that while attempts to shape rice (in whatever form) to suit a particular research or policy agenda may be successful within carefully tailored and time-bound settings, once these conditions are removed, the reality of rice, in all its complexity and heterogeneity, inevitably bites back. Today, the center of gravity of rice biofortification research is located in a more mobile global science community. This article shows how an instinctive appreciation of the materiality of rice, in interaction with humans (researchers and their subjects) and other material elements, was a key factor that differentiated the early research practice from that of a new generation of scientists attempting to achieve a set of global research targets

Study of the teaching of the speech arts in the secondary schools

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1931. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

The digital revolution in financial inclusion: international development in the fintech era

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper examines the growing importance of digital-based financial inclusion as a form of organising development interventions through networks of state institutions, international development organisations, philanthropic investment and fintech companies. The fintech–philanthropy–development complex generates digital ecosystems that map, expand and monetise digital footprints. Its ‘know thy (irrational) customer’ vision combines behavioural economics with predictive algorithms to accelerate access to, and monitor engagement with, finance. The digital revolution adds new layers to the material cultures of financial(ised) inclusion, offering the state new ways of expanding the inclusion of the ‘legible’, and global finance new forms of ‘profiling’ poor households into generators of financial assets

Reforming the Global Food and Agriculture System: Towards a Questioning Agenda for the New Manifesto

In the face of the pressing challenges posed by hunger, malnutrition and the vulnerability of our food system, it is imperative that radical reforms to the food system are articulated and implemented. Questions about the governance of the current food system need to be posed and answered. Key issues that need to be addressed include the direction of innovation and technological choices, the distribution of costs and benefits amongst producers, consumers and our environment, and the diversity and characteristics of possible socio-technical pathways that could be lead to more sustainable and socially just food futures. This paper presents some ideas on what a comprehensive strategy for reforming the global food and agriculture system might look like, in light of those questions about directionality, distribution and diversity.ESR