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Philip Mcmichael - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the land question in the food sovereignty project
    Globalizations, 2015
    Co-Authors: Philip Mcmichael
    Abstract:

    AbstractThis essay explores the changing landscape of food sovereignty politics in the shadow of the so-called ‘land grab’. While the food sovereignty movement emerged within a global agrarian crisis conjuncture triggered by northern dumping of foodstuffs, institutionalized in WTO trade rules, the twenty-first-century food, energy and financial crises intensify this crisis for the world's rural poor (inflating prices of staple foods and agri-inputs) deepening the process of dispossession. The circulation of food is compounded by global financial flows into enclosing land for Industrial Agriculture and/or speculation, challenging small producer rights across the world. Under these conditions, the terms of struggle for the food sovereignty movement are shifting towards a human rights politics on the ground as well as in global forums like the FAO's Committee on World Food Security. This includes in particular the need to develop a discursive politics to reframe what is at stake, namely the protection and su...

  • effects of Industrial Agriculture on climate change and the mitigation potential of small scale agro ecological farms
    Cab Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture Veterinary Science Nutrition and Natural Resources, 2011
    Co-Authors: Brenda B Lin, Jahi M Chappell, John Vandermeer, Gerald R Smith, Eileen Quintero, Rachel Beznerkerr, Daniel M Griffith, Stuart R Ketcham, Steven C Latta, Philip Mcmichael
    Abstract:

    According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Agriculture is responsible for 10–12% of total global anthropogenic emissions and almost a quarter of the continuing increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Not all forms of Agriculture, however, have equivalent impacts on global warming. Industrial Agriculture contributes significantly to global warming, representing a large majority of total Agriculture-related GHG emissions. Alternatively, ecologically based methods for agricultural production, predominantly used on small-scale farms, are far less energy-consumptive and release fewer GHGs than Industrial agricultural production. Besides generating fewer direct emissions, agro-ecological management techniques have the potential to sequester more GHGs than Industrial Agriculture. Here, we review the literature on the contributions of Agriculture to climate change and show the extent of GHG contributions from the Industrial agricultural system and the potential of agro-ecological smallholder Agriculture to help reduce GHG emissions. These reductions are achieved in three broad areas when compared with the Industrial agricultural system: (1) a decrease in materials used and fluxes involved in the release of GHGs based on agricultural crop management choices; (2) a decrease in fluxes involved in livestock production and pasture management; and (3) a reduction in the transportation of agricultural inputs, outputs and products through an increased emphasis on local food systems. Although there are a number of barriers and challenges towards adopting small-scale agroecological methods on the large scale, appropriate incentives can lead to incremental steps towards agro-ecological management that may be able to reduce and mitigate GHG emissions from the agricultural sector.

  • food security politics and the millennium development goals
    Third World Quarterly, 2011
    Co-Authors: Philip Mcmichael, Mindi Schneider
    Abstract:

    This article reviews proposals regarding the recent food crisis in the context of a broader, threshold debate on the future of Agriculture and food security. While the MDGs have focused on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, the food crisis pushed the hungry over the one billion mark. There is thus a renewed focus on agricultural development, which pivots on the salience of Industrial Agriculture (as a supply source) in addressing food security. The World Bank's new 'Agriculture for development' initiative seeks to improve small-farmer productivity with new inputs, and their incorporation into global markets via value-chains originating in Industrial Agriculture. An alternative claim, originating in 'food sovereignty' politics, demanding small-farmer rights to develop bio-regionally specific agro-ecological methods and provision for local, rather than global, markets, resonates in the IAASTD report, which implies agribusiness as usual ''is no longer an option'. The basic divide is over whether Agriculture is a servant of economic growth, or should be developed as a foundational source of social and ecological sustainability. We review and compare these different paradigmatic approaches to food security, and their political and ecological implications.

Donald J Patterson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • computational agroecology sustainable food ecosystem design
    Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016
    Co-Authors: Barath Raghavan, Bonnie A Nardi, Juliet Norton, Bill Tomlinson, Sarah Taylor Lovell, Donald J Patterson
    Abstract:

    We propose a new domain for sociotechnical system design: creating new ecosystems for food production that are sustainable while producing high yields. Drawing on the field of agroecology, we discuss techniques for allowing a range of users to design sustainable food ecosystems that can overcome the environmental costs of Industrial Agriculture. Industrial Agriculture, relying on declining reserves of fossil fuels and generating increasingly costly externalities, is unsustainable. Agroecology cannot scale until practitioners have access to detailed knowledge of local conditions and appropriate agricultural strategies. This paper reviews the agricultural and sustainability challenges that motivate our research. It describes design problems that must be addressed to scale agroecology. We discuss our initial work, and sketch a program of research we believe will contribute to global food security.

Alana L. Jacobson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • insecticide resistance signals negative consequences of widespread neonicotinoid use on multiple field crops in the u s cotton belt
    Environmental Science & Technology, 2018
    Co-Authors: Anders S Huseth, Thomas M Chappell, Anitha Chitturi, Alana L. Jacobson
    Abstract:

    The intensification of Industrial Agriculture has been enabled by improved crop varieties, genetically engineered crops, fertilizers, and pesticides. Over the past 15 years, neonicotinoid seed treatments have been adopted worldwide and are used on a large proportion of U.S. field crops. Although neonicotinoids are used widely, little is known about how large-scale deployment affects pest populations over long periods. Here, we report a positive relationship between the deployment of neonicotinoid seed-dressings on multiple crops and the emergence of insecticide resistance in tobacco thrips (Frankliniella fusca), a polyphagous insect herbivore that is an important pest of seedling cotton but not soybean or maize. Using a geospatial approach, we studied the relationship between neonicotinoid resistance measured in 301 F. fusca populations to landscape-scale crop production patterns across nine states in the southeastern U.S. cotton production region, in which soybean, maize and cotton are the dominant crops...

  • Insecticide Resistance Signals Negative Consequences of Widespread Neonicotinoid Use on Multiple Field Crops in the U.S. Cotton Belt
    2018
    Co-Authors: Anders S Huseth, Thomas M Chappell, Anitha Chitturi, Alana L. Jacobson
    Abstract:

    The intensification of Industrial Agriculture has been enabled by improved crop varieties, genetically engineered crops, fertilizers, and pesticides. Over the past 15 years, neonicotinoid seed treatments have been adopted worldwide and are used on a large proportion of U.S. field crops. Although neonicotinoids are used widely, little is known about how large-scale deployment affects pest populations over long periods. Here, we report a positive relationship between the deployment of neonicotinoid seed-dressings on multiple crops and the emergence of insecticide resistance in tobacco thrips (Frankliniella fusca), a polyphagous insect herbivore that is an important pest of seedling cotton but not soybean or maize. Using a geospatial approach, we studied the relationship between neonicotinoid resistance measured in 301 F. fusca populations to landscape-scale crop production patterns across nine states in the southeastern U.S. cotton production region, in which soybean, maize and cotton are the dominant crops. Our research linked the spatiotemporal abundance of cotton and soybean production to neonicotinoid resistance in F. fusca that is leading to a dramatic increase in insecticide use in cotton. Results demonstrate that cross-crop resistance selection has important effects on pests and, in turn, drives pesticide use and increases environmental impacts associated with their use

Philip H Howard - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • agroecology and food sovereignty
    IDS Bulletin, 2019
    Co-Authors: Steve Gliessman, Harriet Friedmann, Philip H Howard
    Abstract:

    We propose that agroecology provides a framework for understanding ‘levels’ for the transition to sustainable food systems. If we agree that agroecology includes social and political dimensions of governing territorial food systems, then it must be linked to movements for food sovereignty. However, the concentration of power in food and farmingsystems locks in Industrial logic, posing immense barriers to agroecological and social transition. This creates a tension between efforts at convergence of food system innovations from below, versus co-optation of grass-roots language and practices by private and public actors who are committed not to changing the logic of Industrial Agriculture, but instead to reducing its harm. We suggest agroecological and food sovereignty movements consciously embrace this tension as a dance of creativity and appropriation. If this dance can be made generative rather than deadly, it can open pathways for transition to new ways of seeing, experiencing, and getting food.

Brian S Schwartz - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • high density livestock operations crop field application of manure and risk of community associated methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus infection in pennsylvania
    JAMA Internal Medicine, 2013
    Co-Authors: Joan A Casey, Frank C Curriero, Sara E Cosgrove, Keeve E Nachman, Brian S Schwartz
    Abstract:

    IMPORTANCE Nearly 80% of antibiotics in the United States are sold for use in livestock feeds. The manure produced by these animals contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria, resistance genes, and antibiotics and is subsequently applied to crop fields, where it may put community members at risk for antibiotic-resistant infections. OBJECTIVE To assess the association between individual exposure to swine and dairy/veal Industrial Agriculture and risk of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A population-based, nested case-control study of primary care patients from a single health care system in Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2010. Incident MRSA cases were identified using electronic health records, classified as community-associated MRSA or health care–associated MRSA, and frequency matched to randomly selected controls and patients with skin and soft-tissue infection. Nutrient management plans were used to create 2 exposure variables: seasonal crop field manure application and number of livestock animals at the operation. In a substudy, we collected 200 isolates from patients stratified by location of diagnosis and proximity to livestock operations.