Political Ecology of Industrial Crops

Edited By

Alexandros Gasparatos

Available for pre-order. Item will ship after August 19, 2021

ISBN 9780367356705

August 19, 2021 Forthcoming by Routledge

312 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations

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Book Description

This book employs a political ecology lens to unravel how industrial crops catalyse ecological, agrarian, socioeconomic and institutional transformation.

Using the conceptual tools and perspectives of political ecology, namely multi-scalar analysis, and attention to marginalization, social difference, and discourses and narratives, this volume provides a critical and comprehensive assessment of the transformative power of industrial cropping systems. It presents a truly international overview by drawing on a range of case studies from the Global South, including soybeans in South America, cashew nuts in Guinea Bissau, cotton in India, maize in China, jatropha in Ghana, sugarcane in Peru and Eswatini, and oil palm in Ghana and Peru. The unique case studies are put into perspective with chapters introducing concepts of political ecology and critical dimensions of industrial cropping systems related to large-scale land acquisitions, land grabbing, and marginal land. The individual chapters employ different approaches all rooted in political ecology, thus providing a rich overview of how the field engages with these cropping systems. Overall, this volume offers valuable propositions for improving current policies and practices in industrial crop settings in both developed and developing countries.

Providing a comprehensive and interdisciplinary outlook, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political ecology, agrarian studies, development studies, and ecological economics.

Part I: Introductory

1. Industrial crops as agents of transformation: Justifying a Political Ecology lens
Abubakari Ahmed, Marcin Jarzebski, Alexandros Gasparatos

2. Political Agronomy 101: An Introduction to the Political Ecology of Industrial Cropping Systems
William G. Moseley

3. Political ecology of large-scale land acquisitions and land grabs for industrial crops
Abubakari Ahmed, Alexandros Gasparatos

4. Marginal land for bioenergy crop production: Ambiguities, contradictions and cultural significance in policy and farmer discourses
Orla Shortall, Richard Helliwell

Part II: Ecological transformation

5. Transforming nature, crafting irrelevance: The commodification of marginal land for sugarcane and cocoa agroindustry in Peru
Patricia Urteaga-Crovetto, Frida Segura-Urrunaga

6. Cashews in Conflict: The Political Ecology of Cashew Pomiculture in Guinea-Bissau
Brandon D. Lundy

Part III: Agrarian transformation

7. The Political Ecology of Genetically Modified and Organic Cotton in India as Agents of Agrarian Transformation
Andrew Flachs

8. Changing agrarian dynamics in oil palm and jatropha production areas of Ghana: A feminist political ecology perspective
Abubakari Ahmed, Alexandros Gasparatos

Part IV: Socioeconomic and institutional transformation

9. Political ecology of soybeans in South America
Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira

10. The Political Ecology of Maize in China: National Food Security and the Reclassification of Maize from Staple to Industrial Crop
Li Zhang

11. Institutional and socioeconomic transformation from sugarcane expansion in northern Eswatini
Alexandros Gasparatos, Graham von Maltitz, Nikole Roland, Abubakari Ahmed, Shakespear Mudombi, Marcin Jarzebski

Part V: Synthesis

12. Political ecology of industrial crops: Towards a synthesis and systematization
Alexandros Gasparatos, Abubakari Ahmed

Editor(s)

Biography

Abubakari Ahmed is a Lecturer at the S.D. Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), Wa, Ghana.

Alexandros Gasparatos is an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo and a Visiting Associate Professor at the United Nations University, Japan.