This thesis argues from a contrarian point of departure that the successes of GMO agriculture have thus far been limited or underwhelming. It thus asks what accounts for the limitedness of the GMO food economy. From this overarching question, the research is divided into three further questions that consider the roles of law, the structural requirements of the capitalist system, and the use of discourses of nature amongst activists respectively as factors influencing the underdevelopment of GMO agriculture. These questions form the basis for three chapters that comprise the thesis. Chapter one draws on the work of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi in evaluating the consequences of legal regimes that regulate GMOs. Against the tide of neoliberalism, I discuss how a binding, precautionary agreement over international trade in GMOs emerged through the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. I argue that this Protocol is an example of what Polanyi termed the “self-protection of society,” the second phase of his double movement. Chapter two uses Marxist theories of agrarian capitalism to understand both the early successes and later setbacks of GMOs as a capital accumulation strategy. I argue that the successes and failures of GMO agriculture are partly circumscribed by the structural requirements of the capitalist system, as well as by the materiality of GMO crops themselves. The chapter builds on the work of Gabriela Pechlaner and David Goodman to show how processes of appropriationism, expropriationism and the logic of capital more generally can explain not only why some innovations have succeeded but also why so many others have been unsuccessful. Innovations that are geared at consumers rather than farmers have largely failed due to their status as value-added products (whose value is subjective and market-driven) rather than capital goods. Chapter three considers the role played by nature narratives in structuring the cultural politics of GMO agriculture. It argues that natural purity discourses have been central to the success of GMO activism as they have mobilized widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural world from the human world. However, though strategically effective, these discourses hold dubious political implications, as they entrench or naturalize unequal power relations in the social world and deflect attention away from the problematic political economic consequences of GMOs under neoliberalism. The chapter argues that activist campaigns that directly target the political economic, neocolonial, and class implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature, an approach that I argue ought to frame opposition struggles against GMOs going forward. The thesis uses a mixed methods approach that includes document analysis, historical analysis, discourse analysis and literature review. It incorporates a wide lens approach, drawing on a range of case studies from multiple scales to animate the conceptual arguments being analyzed. By problematizing how GMO agriculture has evolved as a capital accumulation strategy for large transnational corporations, this thesis seeks to critically evaluate the practical social justice implications of anti-GMO resistance efforts for those opposed to neoliberal globalization. / Graduate / 0366 / 0615 / mylesc@uvic.ca

This thesis is a work of theory; it is also historical. It attempts to provide a critique of the categories through which the phenomena of agricultural development and land reform are habitually grasped. It is divided into three parts. In the first part three main theoretical orientations to the study of capitalist agrarian development are discussed, both abstractly and with reference to their accounts of Latin American rural society in the 1960's. It is argued that all three are unable to explain adequately the process of social and agrarian change. This inability is traced to the fact that all three reduce social totalities to two or more distinct sub-entities or sub-totalities. The author calls this general position the social problematic of dualism. Its inability. to account for social change is, he argues, traceable to the fact that the existence of the sub-entities into which social totalities are divided, is posited as theoretically prior to the relations which connect them. These points are pursued in the second and third parts of the thesis. In the second part an alternative to dualism' with particular reference to its variants of the separation of a realm of industry from a realm of agriculture, and of the separation of a realm of the economic from a realm of the social, is provided through a detailed theorisation of capitalist social relations. It is argued that the existence of distinct realms of agriculture, industry, economy and society is a real effect of the essential relations of capitalist society, and that these divisions must be transcended through an elucidation of the character of such relations. This is done by distinguishing three forms of capitalist development which are produced by these essential relations. Further examples of a dualist analysis in contemporary theorisations of petty commodity production, the world economy and the articulation of modes of production are discussed. In the third part the author returns to an examination of the Latin American context through a discussion of the case of Chile. The theoretical insights developed in the earlier parts are systematically applied to various aspects of Chilean history from the conquest of Latin America to the 1960's, and to the processes of land reform which covered the decade 1962-1973. It is suggested that the agrarian social transformations which this country experienced are only explicable in terms of a position which systematically transcends all dualist assumptions.

As food scares have hastened the growth of safety and quality standards around the world, certification schemes to assure various attributes of foods have proliferated in the global marketplace. High-value food commodities produced in the global south for export have been the subject of such schemes through third-party environmental certifications, providing regulatory and verification mechanisms welcomed by global buyers. As certification becomes more common, re-localization in the current global context can also mean the projection of place onto a food commodity to highlight its origin or attributes secured by transparent verification mechanisms. However, environmental food certification is often criticized for its inapplicability in the context of the global south, due to the extensive documentation requirements and high costs. The key question here is the process for small-scale producers in the global south to navigate increasing international regulation of food safety and quality. This dissertation examines (1) how the environmental standards (as defined by the global north) were translated in the rural global south through international certification schemes, and (2) what the implications are at the local level, especially where producers had not yet integrated into conventional global markets before the introduction of certification. The dissertation also analyzes the influence of such certification in determining the development trajectories of rural society in the global south. A case study is used to examine newly-introduced certified organic shrimp production in Ca Mau Province in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The selected shrimp production site is the first pilot organic shrimp project in Vietnam working with an international third-party certification scheme. It is located in rural Vietnam where, as in other parts of Southeast Asia, an accelerated process of agrarian transition is underway. Whereas elsewhere the trend with intensified regulation has been the consolidation of large-scale farms and the exclusion of small-scale farms from international agrofood markets, this case study demonstrates comparative advantages of small-scale farms over large-scale farms in producing sensitive high-value crops. This dissertation employs two main analytical approaches. The first approach is to examine the network of actors and the flow of information, payment and shrimp at the production level using environmental regulatory network (ERN). In contrast to chain analyses, which can be useful in identifying linear structure of supply chains for global commodities, ERN can capture the interrelatedeness of actors in the network built around environmental certification for agrofood products. The second analytical lens is that of agrarian transition. Countries experiencing agrarian transition at present are doing so in a very different international context from countries that accomplished their transitions in the past. Results of this research indicate that technical and financial constraints at the time of initial certification are not the primary obstacles to farmers getting certified, since the extensive farming method employed at the study site is organic by default. In spite of this, many farmers unofficially withdrew from the organic shrimp project by simply shifting their marketing channel back to a conventional one. Inefficient flows of information and payments, and a restrictive marketing channel within the environmental regulatory network that does not take into account local geographical conditions and farming practices, all contributed to limiting the farmers’ capacity and lowering their incentives to get involved in the network. The analysis also indicates that, by influencing those agrarian transition processes, food standards and certification based on values developed in the global north may modify, reshape and/or hold back agrarian transition processes in agricultural sectors of developing countries. The potential benefits of environmental certification are enhanced rural development, by generating opportunities for small-scale farmers to connect to global niche markets. The findings of this dissertation highlighted that such certification schemes or their environmental regulatory networks need to ensure information sharing and compensation for farmers. As an empirical finding, this dissertation also captures where ecological credibility and market logic meet: the success of this kind of certification depends on finding a balanced point where standards are ecologically (or ethically) credible to the level that does not attract too much criticism for being green washing, but not too unrealistic to become a disincentive for farmers to participate.

No description available.

Diss. Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2004.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1980. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1988. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-244).

Thesis--Université de Poiters, 1968. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 224-228).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1966. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves xi-xviii).

Thesis--University of Paris. / Includes bibliographical references.