https://www.lakeheadu.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/53/outlines/2013-14/GEOG4411/Ivey%20et%20al.%2C%202006.pdf

An institutional perspective on local capacity for source water protection

Aquaculture is equated with the reduction of poverty by intergovernmental agencies such as the FAO, which advocate the promotion of small-scale aquaculture through project-based interventions. There is a lack of convincing empirical evidence to support the efficacy of this type of intervention, however. Meanwhile, commercial cultured freshwater fish production has increased hugely throughout Asia, despite limited direct donor or government support. Its impact with respect to poverty also remains ambiguous, however. This article critically evaluates the developmental impacts of both immanent and interventionist forms of aquaculture and advances finely nuanced interpretations of both.

Immanent and Interventionist Inland Asian Aquaculture Development and its Outcomes

Environmental farm planning in Ontario: exploring participation and the endurance of change

Aquaculture has long been promoted by development institutions in Bangladesh on the understanding that it can alleviate poverty. Most of this attention has focused on forms of the activity commonly referred to as ‘small-scale’. This article draws on concepts from the literature on agricultural growth and elaborates a typology of aquaculture based on relations of production which suggests that, in Bangladesh, quasi-capitalist forms of aquaculture may possess greater potential to reduce poverty and enhance food security than the quasi-peasant modes of production generally assumed to do so. The implications of this conclusion are explored.

Does Size Matter? Reassessing the Relationship between Aquaculture and Poverty in Bangladesh

Corn ethanol production is central in the United States' agrofuels initiatives In this paper I discuss corn ethanol production in Iowa, USA and examine several dynamics: farmers' positions in agrofuel supply chains; struggles around the construction and operation of agrofuel refineries; the politics of ethanol production and regulation; and the ecological consequences of increased corn production I argue that current US agrofuels production and politics reinforce longstanding and unequal political economic relationships in industrial agriculture I also argue that the politics of US agrofuels, focused on carbon accounting for greenhouse gas reduction and energy security, privilege urban and other actors' social and ecological interests over those of rural places of production

Fields of dreams: negotiating an ethanol agenda in the Midwest United States.

Why do certain full-time farming operations embrace low-chemical input production practices and not others? Historical records of production from 25 randomly-sampled participants reflecting the conventional approach to production were systematically compared with 14 purposively-chosen low-input farming operations in three Iowa counties. Empirical indicators revealed a consistent relationship between increasing scale and chemical use intensity. In addition, younger family farm operators were more likely to adopt low-input practices. The causal mechanisms that account for these differences in chemical use are presented and related to long-standing debates regarding farm structure and class differentiation in capitalist agriculture.

Farm Structure and Chemical Use in the Corn Belt1

Towards an alternative logic of technological change: Insights from Corn Belt agriculture

The growing problem of nonpoint source ground water contamination from agricultural chemicals is conceptualized as an historical outcome of the production environment of capitalist agriculture in the Corn Belt. Chronic overproduction and ground water contamination reveal different aspects of the same technological treadmill. The debate over Iowa's 1987 Ground Water Protection Act symbolizes the contradiction between popular demand for clean water and structural limits on policymaking. Although the Act does provide for expanded research, education, and monitoring, a coalition of commercial farmers, local chemical dealers, and the national chemical industry defeated a tax on pesticide use. Analysis of alternate policy responses - Best Management Practices (BMPs), cross compliance, site-specific regulation of chemical use, and taxation of synthetic chemicals - reveals that all tend to founder on the same structural constraints. Without practical, profitable, low-input technologies that farmers, over time, would choose to adopt, both voluntary and regulatory approaches encounter major political or implementation difficulties. The public agricultural research agenda, therefore, emerges as a central control variable for ground water quality management and a central focus for political struggle.

The political economy of agriculture, ground water quality management, and agricultural research

This paper explores the constraints to sustainable agriculture in the Com Belt stemming from the trend toward increased farm size and the continued dependence of the region on undifferentiated farm commodities produced for regional, national, and international markets. It is based on a three-county comparison of 14 full-time farmers who have embraced sustainable principles and practices, and a randomly sampled group of 25 farmers. An encouraging finding was the substantial progress made towards lower-input production of com and soybeans by the nine farmers who had adopted the ridge tillage system, which uses elevated seedbeds, banded herbicides, and post-plant nitrogen application to reduce both soil erosion and synthetic chemical inputs while maintaining yields. However, operators of large farms that depend on hired labor and highly dispersed field sites regarded these practices as too risky at their scale of production despite their short-term economic and long-term environmental benefits. The region's commercial farmers appear split between family farmers who wish to avoid the headaches of scale expansion and hired labor, and therefore, embrace more efficient low-input systems such as ridge tillage versus those who reject the increased management intensity and risks of lower-input systems in favor of scale expansion via more chemical-intensive no-till systems. Although ridge tillage represents movement toward low-input cash grain production, low-input production systems alone are not sufficient to improve the underlying social welfare of rural areas. Arresting the trend towards fewer and larger farms will also require development of more specialized or more localized markets for sustainably produced commodities.

David R. Lighthall

Papers

Farm Structure and Chemical Use in the Corn Belt1

Towards an alternative logic of technological change: Insights from Corn Belt agriculture

The political economy of agriculture, ground water quality management, and agricultural research

Sustainable agriculture in the Corn Belt: Production-side progress and demand-side constraints