Download or read book The Financialization of Agri Food Systems written by Hilde Bjorkhaug and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Financialization is the increased influence of financial actors and logics on social and economic life, and is one of the key drivers transforming food systems and rural economies around the world. The premise of this book is that the actions of financial actors, and their financial logics, are transforming agri-food systems in profound ways. It is shown that although financialization is a powerful dynamic, some recent developments suggest that the rollout of financialization is contradictory and uneven in different spaces and markets. The book examines cases in which state regulation or re-regulation and social movement resistance are setting roadblocks or speed bumps in the path of financialization, resulting in a ‘cooling off’ of investment, as well as the other side of the argument where there is evidence of a ‘heating up’. The authors address not only the limits to financialization, but also the mechanisms through which financial entities are able to penetrate and re-shape agri-food industries. This book provides both a comparative analysis of financialization blending, and empirical findings with conceptual insights. It explores the connection between financialization, food systems, and rural transformation by critically examining: the concept of financialization and how food and farming are being financialized; the impacts of financialization in the food industry; and financialization in farming and forestry – along with the impacts this has on rural people and communities. This is a timely book, bringing together concrete case studies, from around the globe, to reveal the operations and impacts of finance capital in the ‘space’ of agri-food.
Download or read book Handbook of the International Political Economy of Agriculture and Food written by Alessandro Bonanno and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tackles the central question of the political and structural changes and characteristics that govern agriculture and food. Original contributions explore this highly globalized economic sector by analyzing salient geographical regions and sub
Download or read book Speculative Harvests written by Jennifer Clapp and published by Agrarian Change & Peasant Stud. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors highlight the importance of confronting the financialization of food and agriculture, identify the challenges of conventional approaches to reform and consider innovative alternatives. Speculative Harvests is essential for those who not only seek a better understanding of the problems but are also in search of effective interventions.
Download or read book The Transformation of Agri Food Systems written by Ellen B. McCullough and published by Earthscan. This book was released on 2012 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'There should be a good market for this book. The topic is very timely and a major theme of the new World Development Report 2008. The editors and contributors are world class.'Derek Byerlee, World Bank'This is a topic of wide interest and high policy importance. The depth of coverage and excellent synthesis should ensure that the book will have a substantial market in high-level undergraduate and graduate courses in agricultural development. It will have a solid readership among development economists and policy makers as well.'Mark Rosegrant, International Food Policy Research InstituteThe driving forces of income growth, demographic shifts, globalization and technical change have led to a reorganization of food systems from farm to plate. The characteristics of supply chains - particularly the role of supermarkets - linking farmers have changed, from consumption and retail to wholesale, processing, procurement and production. This has had a dramatic effect on smallholder farmers, particularly in developing countries. This book presents a comprehensive framework for assessing the impacts of changing agri-food systems on smallholder farmers, recognizing the importance of heterogeneity between developing countries as well as within them. The book includes a number of case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, which are used to illustrate differences in food systems' characteristics and trends. The country case studies explore impacts on the small farm sector across different countries, local contexts and farm types.Published with FAO
Download or read book Speculative Harvests written by Jennifer Clapp and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Speculative Harvests, Clapp and Isakson investigate the evolving relationship between the agrifood and financial sectors, paying particular attention to how the contemporary process of financialization is reshaping agrarian development and food systems. Understood as the growing prevalence of financial actors, markets, motives and profits in an economy, financialization is a defining feature of modern-day capitalism that is reconfiguring the distribution of wealth and economic power in a variety of contexts across the globe. In a clear and accessible manner, Clapp and Isakson explain the character and ramifications of these changes for the world food economy and systematically detail how different elements of agrifood provisioning -- including commodity trading, farmland tenure, the management of agricultural risk, and food trading, processing, and retailing -- have been reconfigured for financial purposes. Clapp and Isakson highlight the importance of confronting the financialization of food and agriculture, identify the challenges of conventional approaches to food system reform and consider innovative alternatives. Speculative Harvests is essential reading for food scholars and activists who not only seek a better understanding of the problems inherent to the contemporary food system but also are also in search of effective interventions towards its positive transformation
Download or read book Food written by Jennifer Clapp and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all need food to survive, and forty percent of the worlds population relies on agriculture for their livelihood. Yet control over food is concentrated in relatively few hands. Turmoil in the world food economy over the past decade - including the food price crisis, intensification of land grabs, and clashes over rules governing global food trade - has highlighted both the volatility and vulnerability inherent in the way we currently organize this vital sector. At the same time, contrasting extremes of both undernourishment and overnourishment affect a significant proportion of humanity. There is also growing awareness of the serious ecological consequences that stem from industrial models of agriculture that are increasingly spreading worldwide. The revised and updated second edition of this popular book aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of the forces that influence and shape the current global food system. In it, Jennifer Clapp explores how the rise of industrial agriculture, corporate control, inequitable agricultural trade rules, and the financialization of food have each enabled powerful actors to gain fundamental influence on the practices that dominate the world food economy. A variety of movements have emerged that are making important progress in establishing alternative food systems but, as Clapps penetrating analysis ably shows, significant challenges remain.
Download or read book Speculative Harvests written by Clapp Jennifer and published by . This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors highlight the importance of confronting the financialization of food and agriculture, identify the challenges of conventional approaches to reform and consider innovative alternatives. Speculative Harvests is essential for those who not only seek a better understanding of the problems but are also in search of effective interventions.
Download or read book The Transformation of Agri Food Systems written by Ellen B. McCullough and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-23 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'There should be a good market for this book. The topic is very timely and a major theme of the new World Development Report 2008. The editors and contributors are world class.' Derek Byerlee, World Bank 'This is a topic of wide interest and high policy importance. The depth of coverage and excellent synthesis should ensure that the book will have a substantial market in high-level undergraduate and graduate courses in agricultural development. It will have a solid readership among development economists and policy makers as well.' Mark Rosegrant, International Food Policy Research Institute The driving forces of income growth, demographic shifts, globalization and technical change have led to a reorganization of food systems from farm to plate. The characteristics of supply chains - particularly the role of supermarkets - linking farmers have changed, from consumption and retail to wholesale, processing, procurement and production. This has had a dramatic effect on smallholder farmers, particularly in developing countries. This book presents a comprehensive framework for assessing the impacts of changing agri-food systems on smallholder farmers, recognizing the importance of heterogeneity between developing countries as well as within them. The book includes a number of case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, which are used to illustrate differences in food systems' characteristics and trends. The country case studies explore impacts on the small farm sector across different countries, local contexts and farm types. Published with FAO
Download or read book The Sociology of Food and Agriculture written by Michael Carolan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second edition of The Sociology of Food and Agriculture, students are provided with a substantially revised and updated introductory text to this emergent field. The book begins with the recent development of agriculture under capitalism and neo-liberal regimes, and the transformation of farming and peasant agriculture from a small-scale, family-run way of life to a globalized system. Topics such as the global hunger and obesity challenges, GM foods, and international trade and subsidies are assessed as part of the world food economy. The final section concentrates on themes of sustainability, food security, and food sovereignty. The book concludes on a positive note, examining alternative agri-food movements aimed at changing foodscapes at levels from the local to the global. With increased coverage of the financialization of food, food and culture, gender, ethnicity and justice, food security, and food sovereignty, the book is perfect for students with little or no background in sociology and is also suitable for more advanced courses as a comprehensive primer. All chapters include learning objectives, suggested discussion questions, and recommendations for further reading to aid student learning.
Download or read book Fields of Gold written by Madeleine Fairbairn and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fields of Gold critically examines the history, ideas, and political struggles surrounding the financialization of farmland. In particular, Madeleine Fairbairn focuses on developments in two of the most popular investment locations, the US and Brazil, looking at the implications of financiers' acquisition of land and control over resources for rural livelihoods and economic justice. At the heart of Fields of Gold is a tension between efforts to transform farmland into a new financial asset class, and land's physical and social properties, which frequently obstruct that transformation. But what makes the book unique among the growing body of work on the global land grab is Fairbairn's interest in those acquiring land, rather than those affected by land acquisitions. Fairbairn's work sheds ethnographic light on the actors and relationships—from Iowa to Manhattan to São Paulo—that have helped to turn land into an attractive financial asset class. Thanks to generous funding from UC Santa Cruz, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Download or read book Green finance as a critical lever for delivering sustainable agrifood systems A global landscape study written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global landscape study on ‘Green finance as a critical lever for delivering sustainable agrifood system’ is an inclusive commentary on the current status of green finance to agrifood sector in the global south and its support system. This document provides evidence that the current green finance trends favour the development of the clean energy industry, whereas smallholder agriculture has not had the same success. Financing the agrifood sector in a “business as usual” mode is not a sufficient condition to mitigate the risks emanated from a range of climatic shocks and unprecedented events impacting the global food value chains. Sustainable financing mechanisms through innovative instruments and business practices are potential solutions and green finance emerges as the way forward to shift the focus from economic profit creation to the generation of stakeholder’s value (economic, environmental, and social governance). The document presents an excellent opportunity that can help elicit ongoing initiatives, application mechanisms, and significant issues to build global narratives about developing an inclusive approach to green finance services for the agrifood sector.
Download or read book The Transformation of Agri food Systems written by Ellen B. McCullough and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The driving forces of income growth, demographic shifts, globalisation and technical change have led to a reorganisation of food systems from farm to plate. The characteristics of supply chains - particularly the role of supermarkets - linking farmers have changed, from consumption and retail to wholesale, processing, procurement and production. This has had a dramatic effect on smallholder farmers, particularly in developing countries. This book presents a comprehensive framework for assessing the impacts of changing agri-food systems on smallholder farmers, recognising the importance of heterogeneity between developing countries as well as within them. The book includes a number of case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, which are used to illustrate differences in food systems' characteristics and trends. The country case studies explore impacts on the small farm sector across different countries, local contexts and farm types
Download or read book Rethinking Food and Agriculture written by Amir Kassam and published by Woodhead Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-18 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the central role of the food and agriculture system in driving so many of the connected ecological, social and economic threats and challenges we currently face, Rethinking Food and Agriculture reviews, reassesses and reimagines the current food and agriculture system and the narrow paradigm in which it operates. Rethinking Food and Agriculture explores and uncovers some of the key historical, ethical, economic, social, cultural, political, and structural drivers and root causes of unsustainability, degradation of the agricultural environment, destruction of nature, short-comings in science and knowledge systems, inequality, hunger and food insecurity, and disharmony. It reviews efforts towards ‘sustainable development’, and reassesses whether these efforts have been implemented with adequate responsibility, acceptable societal and environmental costs and optimal engagement to secure sustainability, equity and justice. The book highlights the many ways that farmers and their communities, civil society groups, social movements, development experts, scientists and others have been raising awareness of these issues, implementing solutions and forging ‘new ways forward’, for example towards paradigms of agriculture, natural resource management and human nutrition which are more sustainable and just. Rethinking Food and Agriculture proposes ways to move beyond the current limited view of agro-ecological sustainability towards overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on the principle of ‘inclusive responsibility’. Inclusive responsibility encourages ecosystem sustainability based on agro-ecological and planetary limits to sustainable resource use for production and livelihoods. Inclusive responsibility also places importance on quality of life, pluralism, equity and justice for all and emphasises the health, well-being, sovereignty, dignity and rights of producers, consumers and other stakeholders, as well as of nonhuman animals and the natural world. Explores some of the key drivers and root causes of unsustainability , degradation of the agricultural environment and destruction of nature Highlights the many ways that different stakeholders have been forging 'new ways forward' towards alternative paradigms of agriculture, human nutrition and political economy, which are more sustainable and just Proposes ways to move beyong the current unsustainable exploitation of natural resources towards agroecological sustainability and overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on 'inclusive responsibility'
Download or read book Sustainable Food Systems written by Terry Marsden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to the challenges of a growing population and food security, there is an urgent need to construct a new agri-food sustainability paradigm. This book brings together an integrated range of key social science insights exploring the contributions and interventions necessary to build this framework. Building on over ten years of ESRC funded theoretical and empirical research centered at BRASS, it focuses upon the key social, economic and political drivers for creating a more sustainable food system. Themes include: regulation and governance sustainable supply chains public procurement sustainable spatial strategies associated with rural restructuring and re-calibrated urbanised food systems minimising bio-security risk and animal welfare burdens. The book critically explores the linkages between social science research and the evolving food security problems facing the world at a critical juncture in the debates associated with not only food quality, but also its provenance, vulnerability and the inherent unsustainability of current systems of production and consumption. Each chapter examines how the links between research, practice and policy can begin to contribute to more sustainable, resilient and justly distributive food systems which would be better equipped to ‘feed the world’ by 2050.
Download or read book Financial services and logistics innovation within agri food value chains A conceptual framework written by Ambler, Kate and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2023-01-03 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finance and logistics services for agricultural value chains based on technological innovations exist in several LMICs, but they are not often extended to small holders or SMEs working in the agricultural midstream. We consider the constraints to adoption of those services faced by smallholders or SMEs. Finance and logistics improvements hold promise for increased employment, but research is needed to understand where employment gains are most likely. All value chain innovations must carefully consider possible equity-efficiency tradeoffs to ensure change does not negatively affect poor and vulnerable populations.
Download or read book The New Enclosures Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals written by Ben White and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection explores the complex dynamics of corporate land deals from a broad agrarian political economy perspective, with a special focus on the implications for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation. This involves looking at ways in which existing patterns of rural social differentiation – in terms of class, gender, ethnicity and generation – are being shaped by changes in land use and property relations, as well as by the re-organization of production and exchange as rural communities and resources are incorporated into global commodity chains. It goes further than the descriptive ‘what’ and ‘who’ questions, in order to understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of these patterns. It is empirically solid and theoretically sophisticated, making it a robust and boundary-changing work. Contributors come from various scholarly disciplines. Covering nearly all regions of the world, the collection will be of interest to researchers from various disciplines, policymakers and activists. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.
Download or read book True Cost Accounting for Food written by Barbara Gemmill-Herren and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how True Cost Accounting is an effective tool we can use to address the pervasive imbalance in our food system. Calls are coming from all quarters that the food system is broken and needs a radical transformation. A system that feeds many yet continues to create both extreme hunger and diet-related diseases, and one which has significant environmental impacts, is not serving the world adequately. This volume argues that True Cost Accounting in our food system can create a framework for a systemic shift. What sounds on the surface like a practice relegated to accountants is ultimately a call for a new lens on the valuation of food and a new relationship with the food we eat, starting with the reform of a system out of balance. From the true cost of corn, rice and water, to incentives for soil health, the chapters economically compare conventional and regenerative, more equitable farming practices in and food system structures, including taking an unflinching look at the true cost of cheap labour. Overall, this volume points towards the potential for our food system to be more human-centred than profit-centred and one that has a more respectful relationship to the planet. It sets forth a path forward based on True Cost Accounting for food. This path seeks to fix our current food metrics, in policy and in practice, by applying a holistic lens that evaluates the actual costs and benefits of different food systems, and the impacts and dependencies between natural systems, human systems, agriculture and food systems. This volume is essential reading for professionals and policymakers involved in developing and reforming the food system, as well as students and scholars working on food policy, food systems and sustainability.
