ABSTRACT
This book employs a political ecology lens to unravel how industrial crops catalyse ecological, agrarian, socioeconomic, and institutional transformation.
Using the conceptual tools and perspectives of political ecology, namely multi-scalar analysis and attention to marginalisation, social difference, and discourses and narratives, this volume provides a critical and comprehensive assessment of the transformative power of industrial cropping systems. It presents a truly international overview by drawing on a range of case studies from the global South, including soybeans in South America, cashew nuts in Guinea Bissau, cotton in India, maize in China, jatropha in Ghana, sugarcane in Peru and Eswatini, and oil palm in Ghana and Peru. The unique case studies are put into perspective with chapters introducing the key concepts of political ecology and critical dimensions of industrial cropping systems related to large-scale land acquisitions, land grabbing, and marginal land. The individual chapters employ different approaches all rooted in political ecology, thus offering a rich overview of how the field engages with such cropping systems. Overall, this volume contains valuable propositions for improving current policies and practices in industrial crop settings in both developed and developing countries.
Through its comprehensive and interdisciplinary outlook, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political ecology, agrarian studies, development studies, and ecological economics.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|94 pages
Introductory
chapter 2|20 pages
Political Agronomy 101
chapter 4|18 pages
Marginal land for bioenergy crop production
part II|55 pages
Ecological transformation
chapter 5|27 pages
Transforming nature, crafting irrelevance
part III|47 pages
Agrarian transformation
chapter 8|25 pages
Changing agrarian dynamics in oil palm and jatropha production areas of Ghana
part IV|77 pages
Socioeconomic and institutional transformation
chapter 10|23 pages
The political ecology of maize in China
part V|14 pages
Synthesis