10. Food Flashcards
An analysis of SDG implementation in Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Emphases on inclusion do not translate on the ground since SDGs end up being shaped by domestic politics, pre-existing institutions and power relations.
In Brazil, pro-business govt means that SDGs played no role in the soy sector whilst other multinationals cherry-picked convenient targets such as Zero Hunger to claim support for the 2030 SDGs Agenda.
SDGs further entrench marginalisation and legitimise business as usual.
SDGs and agri-food governance in South America.
Siegel & Bastos Lima (2020)
Debunking 5 myths of global sustainable forest governance.
These apolitical myths assume a common sense status and are used to justify further intervention.
Delabre et al (2020)
Private sector sustainability initatives
Critique of MSIs - that arise when govts are not able to or are unwilling to regulate the activities of global corporations.
Paper questions to what extent they are democratically legitimate.
Hard law regulation has superior regulatory power
Mena & Palazzo (2015)
Governmentality and CSR
Networked governance is a significant aspect of govt involvement and management of CSR to nudge corporate behaviour.
Governments now use CSR as a tool for economic value creation.
Vallentin & Murillo (2012)
Green consumption and ecolabelling.
Scales (2014)
Overview of soy production in S America
Soy has become a very important commodity in S America, leading to the conversion of huge tracts of land.
It discursively embodies agriarian and technological development, mass production and food security.
Common discourse that agroindustrial intensification oxymoronically spares land for strong conservation - ‘Amazon swerve’ - soy became understood as a key tool for conservation.
This proposes that increased productivity in one region will satisfy crop demands without extending the production area. Concerns over deforestation produced a voluntary ‘moratorium’ on soy in the Amazon, diverting attention away from the Cerrado and Paraguay’s Atlantic forest biome
However, soy production has been heavily criticised by conservationists for social and ecological impacts arising from monocultures.
Oliveira & Hecht (2016)
A study of ABCD companies in the Southern Cone finds that its power depends on local factors of relations of proximity, trust and reciprocity.
The local scale is a key stratefic arena because this is where relationships between firms and producers are built and maintained.
Food chains are not always top-down but webs of actors
Green neoliebralism as one component of a broader web of relations
Wesz Jr (2017)
Paper giving an overview of the social impacts of soy expansion in Cerrado.
* forced emigration
* flying titles
* violent evictions
* men benefitting most from waged work
Stakeholders want to experience inclusive development and genuine participation in governance
Distribution of costs and benefits has been highly skewed
Lopes et al (2021)
Soy value chains: one of the most unjust and unsustainable agrifood chains due to social impacts of large-scale soybean monoculture.
Moratoriums do not reduce inequalities because they don’t alter power structures
Maluf et al (2022)
The Cerrado as a sacrifice zone. Only 19% of undisturbed nataive vegetation persists.
Soy has replaced less profitable cattle ranching due to neoliberal reform, increased demand for animal feedstock and GMO products.
Negative impacts of soy production transferred from Amazon (region of high international attention) to one of less conservation value.
Local agricultural elites designed powerful lobby institutions to set dominant narratives around soy.
Levy et al (2024)
Tracks why only commitments emerged for the Amazon rather than the Cerrado, where deforestation was 3.2x higher from 2000-2021 despite its significantly smaller size.
- More international attention and icongraphic;
- Seen as more of a reputational risk;
- No detailed analyses available for companises to rebut;
- Lower sunk cost;
- Favourable political context
Numerous cultural, political and economic factors combined to constrain the adoption of a SoyM policy in Cerrado.
Brandao et al (forthcoming)
Agri-bolsonarism.
The partnership between regional agricultural elites and far-right politicans in Brazil, connected with national agricultural associations and transnational agribusiness corporations.
Pompeia (2024)
How is China re-ordering the global food regime through its presence in the soy sector?
Problematising food regime theory since there is no clear core, as evidenced by growing role of Chinese state in challenging ABCD hegemony and adopting different business logics (not vertical integration)
Re-ordering into a polycentric dynamic
Wesz Jr et al (2023)
The politics of flexing soybeans.
* Over the past 60 years, global soybean production has increased by almost 1000%
* Enabled by expansion of its cultivation, expansion of markets, and global restructuring of industry towards S America and East Asia
* Southern Cone now accounts for 57% of soybean exports
* East Asia surpassed Europe as the leading soybean consumer in 2000
* China’s state-owned agribusiness companies have been favoured to regain control of the soybean industry using ‘asset-light’ strategies that create strategic partnerships with other agribusiness firms. This has led to new business logics and the broadening of agro-industrial processing operations
* Soy has flexible biological characteristics (notably it can serve as a petroleum replacement), which combined with social/economic/cultural factors, has led to its mulitplication of uses that has allowed some major actors to reduce risk, transform waste into more profit and streamline trading operations
Oliveria & Schneider (2016)
Soybean production in Paraguay
- Introduced in 1921 and spread due to international demand, incorporation of soy into oil production and political context
- Soy impacts are very dramatic: 40% of total exports
- Over time it has shifted to almost exclusive commercial export
- A significant group of smallholders cultivate it - why, even though it does not suit capacities?
- Cotton crisis and lack of financial/technical support for other crops has pushed smallholders into growing soy and dedicating increasing space to it
- Total externalisation of decision-making and productive processes but famer takes on all the risk since no rent is paid
- The Paraguayan model is unique and an extreme example of outsourcing - direct corporate control without land ownership
- Phenomenon of rural-urban migration: farmers choose to lease their land rather than cultivate themselves
STATE HAS PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THIS.
Wesz Jr (2023)
