The political economy of agriculture in Southern Africa

Agriculture remains the primary source of employment and income for most of the rural populations of Southern Africa (Hachigonta et al. 2013). When focusing on the political economy of agriculture and food in the region, Europe and European legislation have played a dominant role in both the past and the present. All the countries under discussion were impacted by colonial rule, and at present there is a significant disparity between commercial and smallholder agriculture. While the disparity is one of the consequences of colonialism and South African apartheid policies in the region, this disparity is exacerbated by current European Union (EU) trade policies. With future challenges related to climate change, combined with declining EU market access and struggles to better integrate smallholders into income generating activities, the Southern African region is in need of a new map with which to navigate towards a future that ensures a vibrant agricultural sector

The Rise of Agricultural Animal Welfare Standards as Understood through a Neo-Institutional Lens

In recent years agricultural animal welfare standards have increasingly been placed on the agenda of international, regional, and national governance bodies, as well as private agrifood organizations. Standards, long the domain of economists, are now recognized as one of the most significant emerging practices for governing food, and as such, a growing number of scholars have focused on the role that powerful actors have in setting standards and the distributional benefits of standards implementation. However, much of the existing literature relies on consumer-demand arguments for explaining the rise of animal welfare standards. This article uses sociological neo-institutionalism, specifically institutional isomorphism, to reveal that agrifood organizations are either forced by large food retailers, or by the demands of interacting with other complex organizations, to adopt animal welfare standards in an effort to maintain access to markets, political power and legitimacy. Further, due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the definition of agricultural animal welfare and the standards and techniques used to ensure compliance, the evidence supports the theory that organizations will model themselves after similar organizations in their field that they perceive to be more legitimate or successful

Wind Energy Development on the United States Outer Continental Shelf: Balancing Efficient Development and Environmental Risks in the Shadow of OCSLA

Calls for United States energy independence and concerns about dwindling fossil fuel reserves have drawn national attention to the search for viable sources of alternative energy. One such source is offshore wind power generation. Offshore wind farms have already proven successful in Europe and Australia, but none yet exist off the coasts of the United States. A private proposal to build such a facility off the coast of Massachusetts has faced strong opposition. Debate exists as to whether the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act permits the federal government to lease areas of the Outer Continental Shelf for alternative energy development. Oil and gas extraction developments authorized under the Act have allowed accelerated development at the expense of the environment. This Note argues that a current proposal to amend the Act to include wind power generation facilities does not address the problems encountered by oil and gas developments, and calls for entirely new legislation

The Power of the Mind : the Relationship between Mindfulness, Quality of Life and Anxiety for Older Adults with Chronic Illness

This dissertation examines the relationship between mindfulness training and older adults with chronic illness and a documented clinical anxiety diagnosis. Six subjects (mean age = 69 years) who met criteria for a DSM-IV-TR anxiety condition and who endorsed one or more chronic illnesses participated in an 8-week customized mindfulness training program. The research evaluated the impact of mindfulness training and practice on depression, quality of life, health satisfaction and anxiety. This dissertation\u27s findings suggest that of these variables, state and trait anxiety were significantly reduced at the conclusion of the program. Given these findings, this research proposes that anxiety in older adults with chronic illness can be reduced by utilizing a mindfulness-based therapy program specifically tailored for the older adult

Awareness and the Perceived Effects of the New Livestock and Meat Industries Act of 2006: A Case Study of Kgatleng and Kweneng Districts, Botswana

The objective of this study was to determine whether butchery owners in rural Botswana are aware of the New Livestock and Meat Industries Act of 2006 and their perceptions as to how it will affect their businesses. The study further sought to determine whether the present slaughter facilities were compliant with the New Act. A structured questionnaire was administered to butcheries in selected villages of Kgatleng (n=9) and Kweneng (n=4) districts to get butchery owners’ views about the New Act and how it will affect their businesses. Data was analysed using frequencies. The study found that the majority (77%) of butcheries in the study area were aware of the New Act and were in fact in agreement with it. However, all the butchers doubted the ability of the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) to implement and enforce the new regulations because of lack of personnel. The study also found that all the slaughter facilities owned by the butchers interviewed were not compliant with the new regulations. As a result, butchers felt that the New Act will increase their costs as they will be required to either build new abattoirs that are complaint with the new regulations or hire the abattoirs approved by DVS

Consumers and Citizens in the Global Agrifood System: The Cases of New Zealand and South Africa in the Global Red Meat Chain

This chapter aims to show that the process of changing rules within the capitalist market system, specifically meat safety governance reform in New Zealand and South Africa, raises profound obstacles for human agency, yet opens new spaces for conceptualizing who participates in promoting change. Agency and structure are complex concepts with dueling tensions that alter the form and substance (as Wright and Middendorf argue in their Introduction to this volume) of individual and collective action in the red meat commodity chains of these two countries. We show that, far from being monolithic, the ways in which capitalism and a changing agrifood structure affect actors in a commodity chain, and the ways in which these actors respond, vary across time and space. We hope to make clear the ways in which structures affect agency, but we also aim to show how structural changes open new opportunities for agency

Agricultural Science and Technology: Tensions and Contradictions

Agricultural science and farm-based technologies have been important forces behind the dramatic rise in agricultural production in the industrial world during the 20th century, as well as in large portions of the developing world (Stanton, 1998). In the United States, mechanisation, improved seeds and breeds, chemical inputs, and other scientifically inspired production technologies and techniques are often credited with productivity gains (Dimitri, Effland & Concklin, 2005). In past decades, agricultural science and technology have contributed to the productivist goals of maximising production while seeking the greatest efficiency from inputs. However, there have always been tensions and contradictions because the distribution of risks and benefits has not been even. Despite these insights, recent shifts in the political economy of agricultural science and technology indicate a trend that favours the private sector and global markets, a 241 Leland Glenna and Elizabeth P. Ransom move that tends to exacerbate some of those underlying and persistent tensions and contradictions. We explore these issues by examining how these political-economic shifts are affecting agricultural science and technology in industrialised and developing nations

Private Agri-food Standards: Supply Chains and the Governance of Standards

The articles in this second special issue of the International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food on private agri-food standards consider key issues involved in the shift from government to governance within agri-food systems. The first special issue, published in February 2013, focused on ‘the contestation, hybridity and the politics of standards’ (Bain et al., 2013, p. 1). The articles in the first issue complicated our understanding of the relationship between public and private standards by examining the politics associated with their formation, implementation, and outcomes. At the same time, the first special issue drew attention to the diversity of private standards, and the spaces that exist – or get created – for actors to contest the values, content or outcomes of such standards. These are important themes, revisited in the second special issue. However, the concern with the politics of standards is extended through more systematic attention to the relationship between standards, certification, and the governance of agri-food supply chains

Private Agri-food Standards: Contestation, Hybridity and the Politics of Standards

Standards are an omnipresent yet generally taken-for-granted part of our everyday life (Higgins and Larner, 2010a; Timmermans and Epstein, 2010; Busch, 2011). Until recently, standards within the agri-food sector were typically dismissed (if thought of at all) by social scientists as rather benign, technical tools, primarily of interest to specialists concerned with facilitating markets and trade. Over the past decade, however, this assessment has changed considerably and many agri-food scholars now view standards as a useful entry point for analysing and understanding our social and material world. The degree of interest today is reflected in the fact that our call for papers on private agri-food standards attracted so many high-quality submissions that we are publishing this special issues in two parts. In part, this shift in interest reflects the influence of science studies and its concern with studying ‘mundane’ and taken-for-granted objects and practices (Higgins and Larner, 2010b). Here scholars take inanimate objects seriously, to understand, for example, how non-human actors such as standards allow humans to ‘act at a distance’ (Latour, 1987), thereby ordering relations across time and space. Many agri-food researchers are also concerned with the rise of private food standards developed by global retailers and non-government organizations, including understanding the role that these standards might play in coordinating and governing production and consumption relations within the context of globalization (Giovannucci and Ponte, 2005; Hatanaka et al., 2005; Mutersbaugh, 2005; Tallontire et al., 2011)

Rural America in a Globalizing World

This fourth Rural Sociological Society decennial volume provides advanced policy scholarship on rural North America during the 2010’s, closely reflecting upon the increasingly global nature of social, cultural, and economic forces and the impact of neoliberal ideology upon policy, politics, and power in rural areas. The chapters in this volume represent the expertise of an influential group of scholars in rural sociology and related social sciences. Its five sections address the changing structure of North American agriculture, natural resources and the environment, demographics, diversity, and quality of life in rural communities.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1103/thumbnail.jp