Managing Liabilities Arising from Agricultural Biotechnology

AbstractThe discussion about the impact of agricultural biotechnology on Africa is deeply divided and contains widely diverging claims about the impact of biotechnology on African farmers. Building upon literature on the ‘good farmer’ that highlights that farmers identities are an important factor in explaining the success or failure of agricultural change, we argue that the identity of the farmer is an undervalued yet crucial aspect for understanding the debate about the impact of agricultural biotechnology on African farmers. In this article we therefore investigate what farmers’ identities are implicated in the arguments about the impact of biotechnology on African farmers. We aim to identify the main fault lines in different accounts of the African biotechnology farmer by analysing the identities ascribed to them in two prominent cases of controversy: the debates at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg and the discussion about the impact of biotechnology on smallholder farmers in the Makhathini flats in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Our findings demonstrate that arguments about biotechnology are informed by diverging conceptions of who the African farmer is, what is important for the African farmer, and what role the African farmer has in relation to agricultural biotechnology. These findings remain relevant for current discussions on gene editing technologies like CRISPR-Cas. Openly discussing these different views on the identity of smallholder farmers is crucial for moving forward in the biotechnology controversy and can inform future attempts to elicit the farmer’s voice.

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Risk Regulation in the Internal Market: Lessons from Agricultural Biotechnology Maria Weimer Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, 304 pp. £63.00. Hardback

European Journal of Risk Regulation ◽

10.1017/err.2020.103 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-3

Author(s):

Marco RIZZI

Keyword(s):

Agricultural Biotechnology ◽

Internal Market ◽

Risk Regulation ◽

Oxford University ◽

Oxford University Press

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BioBoard

Asia-Pacific Biotech News ◽

10.1142/s0219030304001582 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 08 (19) ◽

pp. 1045-1046

Keyword(s):

Transgenic Tobacco ◽

Agricultural Biotechnology ◽

Chinese Journal ◽

Curry Leaves ◽

Control Diabetes ◽

Gm Potato

NZ Biotech Given Monetary Boost. Chinese Journal of Agricultural Biotechnology. Curry Leaves May Help Control Diabetes. GM Potato to Feed India's Poorest Children. Online NZ Biomirror in NZ. Transgenic Tobacco Promising for Biopharmaceuticals.

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The Sociology of Agriculture in Transition: The Political Economy of Agriculture after Biotechnology

The Canadian Journal of Sociology ◽

10.29173/cjs5114 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 35 (2) ◽

pp. 243-270 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Gabriela Pechlaner

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

Agricultural Biotechnology ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Patent Infringement ◽

The Political ◽

Corporate Ownership ◽

Seed Saving ◽

Traditional Agricultural Practices ◽

Sociology Of Agriculture

ABSTRACT Due to its particularities as a nature-based process, agriculture’s ‘exceptionalism’ to capitalist industrialization has garnered much debate. One of the more productive consequences of this debate has been the development of conceptual tools that account for its distinction from typical capital accumulation patterns, such as Goodman, Sorj and Wilkinson’s (1987) classic concepts of “appropriationism” and “substitutionism.” The advent of agricultural biotechnology is now testing the limits of even these more refined conceptualizations, however, as the technology’s associated proprietary framework is reorganizing many traditional agricultural practices. Drawing on empirical examples of biotechnology-induced change—e.g. restrictions on seed saving, grower contracts, and patent infringement lawsuits—this paper argues that there is a need for a new concept in political economy of agriculture theory, which I term “expropriationism.” This concept identifies several aspects of an agricultural reorganization premised on legal means to enhance capital accumulation and on separating corporate ownership from liability.

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