The results of man-made systems have moved the pendulum towards a new era of man's dominance over earth's ecological, geological, and geographical balance. The history of the industrial agricultural system in particular has left remnants of control on the American landscape, to the detriment of natural resources and our own symbiosis with the environment. The technology that has allowed the system to flourish now prevents us from its future. Ensuring the sustainability of food security must address the current problems of the system itself. Considering architecture's role as an extension of man's control frames this problem as one that can be alleviated through design, providing solutions for our extreme and fatalistic future. As we move into an age of resource scarcity and pre-apocalyptic advancements in technology, Central Valley, California operates as a landscape affected by this overexploitation of capitalism. Monocultures of almond orchards have led to aquifer depletion, colony collapse disorder, a crop extinction. Anthropocenic Landscapes aims to stave off catastrophe through the co-establishment of resource management, agribusiness, research stations, and agro-tourism through a series of ancillary productive towers in the landscape; a new infrastructure is formed to allow the industrial agricultural complex to sustain itself past the point at which resources become almost non-existent. / 1 / SPK / archives@tulane.edu

This dissertation examines the establishment and influence of the International Livestock Exposition, an annual show that began in Chicago in 1900 and that served as the central hub of the national livestock improvement movement. Industrial meatpacking firms and land-grant university professors worked together to transform the genetic composition and physiology of American meat-producing animals. Packers hosted the Exposition at the Union Stockyards to address market irregularities in quality and supply. University researchers intended to solve a larger set of problems that included rural population decline, the need for more food output to feed a growing population, and diminishing soil fertility. These unlikely partners created the International to eliminate inferior, or “scrub,” livestock. The International played a pivotal role in remaking livestock genotypes and phenotypes. Its organizers and participants favored “improved” animals descended from purebred, British livestock with recorded ancestries—a preference rooted in the reformers’ pseudo-scientific belief in eugenics. Purebred animals had standard bodies with a narrow set of physiological outcomes, which amounted to biotic technology. But genetic homogeneity was only a building block for improvement. The International also employed contests, demonstrations, and advocacy to reconfigure American livestock by making them smaller, more compact, and early-maturing. This study also analyzes the larger shift in American agriculture toward the Corn Belt model of grain feeding. Treating animals as dynamic historical agents, it suggests that machinery, tractors, seeds, and implements did not alone accomplish the industrialization of agriculture. Meat-producing cattle, sheep, and pigs were a requisite component in an emerging industrial sequence. These grain-fed modern livestock and their farmer caretakers fit into a developing web of mutually dependent agricultural specialists. The International united this movement into a singular body at the end of each year in Chicago, and in the process, shaped American agricultural practices and encouraged farm specialization until the show closed in 1975. Sources consulted include land-grant university research and publications, meatpacker records and propaganda, and newspaper and agricultural journal articles.

For over 160 years, The Economist newspaper has been one of the most influential, sophisticated, and effective proponents of capitalism. It has consistently championed and conveyed a form of humanitarian political economy to its weekly, global audience of professionals and business and government leaders. The Economist began in 1843 to campaign for free trade in agriculture and to advocate for the emerging regime of capitalism in Britain. Its primary concern during its first two decades centered on agricultural change. This thesis examines those first two decades, from 1843-1863, and The Economists focus on improvement, or capitalist development, in the English countryside.<p> The Economist was a staunch advocate for increased urbanization, private property, and high agriculture a modern system of agriculture that involved scientific techniques, free trade, large landholdings, and significant amounts of capital. It vehemently opposed any attempts to alleviate rural poverty using measures it felt were inconsistent with the principles of political economy and argued rural labourers would be better off if they were forced to sell their labour and submit to the discipline of the market. The Economist repeatedly portrayed this process of capitalist development as beneficial for all and as a natural occurrence, brought about through the free working of the market. Its account contributed to the prominent idea of the success of British agriculture in the 19th century; an idea that has had profound effects on subsequent notions of development.<p> This thesis uses Marxist and Foucauldian concepts to demonstrate that the process of capitalist development in the countryside was not brought about through market forces. Extensive and often oppressive government intervention was needed to dispossess people from the land and to force them into waged labour. Though much of this dispossession had occurred by the 19th century, The Economist performed a crucial role in advocating for policies that cemented capitalist relations of production. The Economists most important function was to spread belief in capitalism by making its inequality and poverty more palatable.

For over 160 years, The Economist newspaper has been one of the most influential, sophisticated, and effective proponents of capitalism. It has consistently championed and conveyed a form of humanitarian political economy to its weekly, global audience of professionals and business and government leaders. The Economist began in 1843 to campaign for free trade in agriculture and to advocate for the emerging regime of capitalism in Britain. Its primary concern during its first two decades centered on agricultural change. This thesis examines those first two decades, from 1843-1863, and The Economists focus on improvement, or capitalist development, in the English countryside.<p> The Economist was a staunch advocate for increased urbanization, private property, and high agriculture a modern system of agriculture that involved scientific techniques, free trade, large landholdings, and significant amounts of capital. It vehemently opposed any attempts to alleviate rural poverty using measures it felt were inconsistent with the principles of political economy and argued rural labourers would be better off if they were forced to sell their labour and submit to the discipline of the market. The Economist repeatedly portrayed this process of capitalist development as beneficial for all and as a natural occurrence, brought about through the free working of the market. Its account contributed to the prominent idea of the success of British agriculture in the 19th century; an idea that has had profound effects on subsequent notions of development.<p> This thesis uses Marxist and Foucauldian concepts to demonstrate that the process of capitalist development in the countryside was not brought about through market forces. Extensive and often oppressive government intervention was needed to dispossess people from the land and to force them into waged labour. Though much of this dispossession had occurred by the 19th century, The Economist performed a crucial role in advocating for policies that cemented capitalist relations of production. The Economists most important function was to spread belief in capitalism by making its inequality and poverty more palatable.

Social scientists and food studies scholars have shown an enduring interest in how food is produced in our largely industrialized food system. However, there has been little research about the organization of labor on industrialized farms. These sites of production are mostly privately owned and hidden away from researchers and journalists, who are often perceived as critics or activists by farmers and other agriculturalists. My dissertation fills this gap by focusing exclusively on industrialized contract broiler farms. Contract broiler farming is a model where farmers agree to raise chickens for meat for a set amount of time, at a rate of pay based on the ratio of feed to chicken weight at slaughter. Farmers invest in the built infrastructure to execute this process, but the company they contract for is mostly in control of the upstream and downstream supply and processing chains that depend on the production of the broiler chicken for their continued functioning. I use archival, interview, and ethnographic data to detail the history of broiler farming, the emergence of contracting, and what the experience of it is like today. The most significant and novel part of this project is my ethnographic data collected over six months spent working on two broiler farms contracted with one of the largest firms in the US. To date, no other researchers have been able to gain this level of access. In this dissertation, I begin by exploring the role of management, detailing how the structure of the farming contract and ambiguous supervisory oversight facilitates farmer’s compliance with company demands. Then, utilizing agricultural and labor scholarship on deskilling in the labor process, I explore how poultry farming has become deskilled, robbing farmers of autonomy, the opportunity to agitate for better labor conditions, and ultimately eroding the intimate knowledge necessary to execute successful animal husbandry. Finally, I explore the games farmers play at work. While these games obscure how surplus value is appropriated from the farmer by the contracting firm, they also demonstrate farmer’s resistance and acquiescence to their deskilling and loss of autonomy.

No description available.

This thesis uses the recent Bayer-Monsanto acquisition in order to examine historical and contemporary power dynamics found throughout industrial agriculture. With the theoretical aid of Karl Polanyi and Michel Foucault, I examine how the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition is a viable site in order to reflect the interconnectedness of political and economic forces that organize societies and markets across the globe. I briefly introduce the merger-turned-acquisition between these two former 'Big 6' firms that dominated international agricultural input markets. Questions are asked such as how has the history of agriculture led to its current organization, how have these particular firms garnered such market power, and what power structures or historical economic incentives have contributed to the acquisition's manifestation? In order to address these questions I engage in an economic-historical analysis of industrial agriculture, particularly focusing on the role of the U.S. state in drafting agrarian legislation, spreading knowledge regarding production processes, and promoting particular food products to be patented, grown, and consumed across the world. Through an examination of the acquisition itself, potential economic, environmental, and political implications are presented to analyze whether historically visible strategies have appeared to evolve to become invisible overtime. Although the result of this acquisition does involve few firms governing almost entire markets, I contend that there is more at stake than simply few firms monopolizing agriculture. The Bayer-Monsanto acquisition has economic, environmental, and political implications on a host of actors, and it forces us to question the legitimacy of democratic governmental institutions across the world and where power is situated within them. / Master of Arts / Mergers and acquisitions are by no means an emerging trend throughout agricultural markets; however, Bayer’s $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto is a recent development that has garnered attention from politicians, farmers, environmentalists, and public consumers alike. In this thesis I examine how the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition is a viable site in order to show how political and market logics are constantly entangled with one another. I first briefly introduce the mergerturned-acquisition between these two former ‘Big 6’ firms that dominated international agricultural input markets. I then ask how has the history of agriculture led to its current organization, how have these particular firms garnered such market power, and what power structures or historical economic incentives have contributed to the acquisition’s manifestation? After contextualizing the acquisition within a history of legislating land policy, spreading knowledge regarding production processes, and promoting the consumption of particular food products across the world, I present various economic, environmental, and political implications of the acquisition. Although the result of this acquisition does involve few firms with centralized market share, I contend that there is more at stake than simply monopolistic practices. An analysis of the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition reflects why we should question the quality and legitimacy of political institutions across the world, and ask where power lies within them.

This thesis discusses the detrimental effects that industrialized farming practices have on public health, animal welfare, and ecological systems and includes factual support. It also provides practical application of this information as well as possible solutions and a detailed description of a related art exhibition.

This thesis uses an efficiency analysis of agricultural systems to assert that, in lieu of rising prices of fossil fuel, people need to come into more direct contact with their food systems. With a switch to smaller, more efficient farms that rely less on fossil fuel and are connected with the communities they supply for, we can avoid an energy crisis turning into a famine. These smaller-scale systems can help create self-contained, carbon-neutral communities.

Una investigación sobre los trabajadores agrícolas en las regiones del sur no implica un ejercicio de detección de figuras sociales arcaicas que persisten a pesar de la modernización. Muy al contrario. Las realidades socio laborales presentes en el campo murciano son sustancialmente nuevas en el paisaje agrario. La transformación habida en la agricultura hacia formas de producción más industrializadas, globales e informacionales, y los cambios sociales que han reformulado la ruralidad, sitúan a las relaciones de trabajo jornaleras en otras coordenadas espacio-temporales radicalmente diferentes a las del pasado. La tesis doctoral trata de explorar el cambio organizacional y tecnológico en marcha en los actuales complejos agroindustriales, y las relaciones de trabajo que en el mismo se definen. El género y la etnia aparecen como relaciones sociales que definen sujetos vulnerables altamente atractivos para las estrategias empresariales de valorización, y por tanto, se presentan como elementos indispensables para entender la organización social del trabajo en la agricultura industrial murciana. El fenómeno de las migraciones internacionales tiene su función también en este complejo productivo al haber conformado un importante suministro de mano de obra disponible. / Research on agricultural workers in Southem Europe is not some kina of search for archaic social actors who continue to survive in spite of modernization. Rather, in many ways, the work and employment conditions existing in the sector in the Spanish province of Murcia represent an essentially new situation in agricultural production. The shift towards more industrialized, global, and scientific forms of farming, and the social changes these have brought in the countryside, have radically reshaped the work of farm workers. This doctoral thesis explores the ongoing organizational and technological changes taking place in the region' s agribusinesses and the way these have affected employment relations in the sector. This analysis identifies gender and ethnicity as key social relations which give rise to vulnerable actors who are have proved highly beneficial to employers' interests. Consequently, gender and ethnicity are key dimensions of any analysis of the social organization of agricultural work in Murcia. Finally, the thesis reveals the existence of a specific regime of marginalization, segregation and exploitation of inmigrant workers employed in Mediterranean agriculture.