Agrifood Transitions in the Anthropocene: Challenges, Contested Knowledge, and the Need for Change(Sage Studies in International Sociology)

The greatest challenges of the twenty-first century stem from the fact that we are now living in a new epoch: the Anthropocene. The human footprint on the planet can no longer be denied.  One of the greatest and most essential human innovations, agriculture, is being increasingly recognised as a leading contributor to climate change.  According to global governance bodies, the world will need to feed a predicted nine billion people by 2050.  However, in this Anthropocene, we must address the environmental inequalities in how these people will be fed. This book explores our current societal struggles to transition towards more sustainable agrifood systems.  It suggests that debates around sustainable agriculture must be social as well as technical, exploring the growth of social movements campaigning for more democratic food systems.  However, as each chapter demonstrates, both the problems and the solutions in sustainable agriculture are highly contested. Using the term ′agrifood′ to capture the nexus between research, governance and the environment knowledge-environment-governance, this book provides an in-depth and wide-ranging account of current research around agricultural production and food consumption. The book introduces the Anthropocene along with the fundamental question that it poses about human-nature interactions.  It outlines the core concerns related to agriculture and food and the debates around the need for agrifood system transitions. Each chapter investigates controversies in the field through case studies. These contributions offer a call for sociologists of agriculture and food to engage with the controversies unfolding in the Anthropocene.  

Table of Contents:
Exploring agrifood transitions in the anthropocene (Agri)Food for Thought on the Anthropocene Food Systems in the Anthropocene: Some Philosophical Reflections The Invitation of the Anthropocene: Towards a New Way of Living with All Our Relations Governing the Agrifood Transition in the Capital-driven Anthropocene Empirical Stories of Transitions in the Anthropocene Does Everything Have to Change for Nothing to Change? Reduced Antibiotic Use in Intensive and Industrial Livestock Farming Sustainable transitions for Brazilian animal agriculture in the Anthropocene: Scientific knowledge about pasture restoration ‘Anti-fish’ Campaign: Food safety and Ethical Issues of Eating Fish from Indonesia Hunger, Obesity and Soy: The Corporate Agribusiness Diet in Argentina Farmers, Autonomy and Biodiesel: What can we expect from Brazil’s experiment with Biodiesel for Rural Development Policy? Disasters and Catastrophes in Agrifood Studies Food Systems in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa: Critical Reflections on the Interface between Food Systems and Ecosystem Services using Social Practice Theory ′Planting Seeds’ for ‘Good Growth’: Anthropocenic performances of responsibility Interactive Innovation : New ways of knowing for the Anthropocene? Why and how to observe agroecological transitions in the anthropocene? Contested Agrifood Knowledge Transitions into the Anthropocene: The Case of CGIAR

About the Author :
Allison Marie Loconto (PhD, HDR in Sociology) is Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Science, Innovation and Society (LISIS) and a Research Professor at the French National Institute for Research on Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE). Dr. Loconto is Chief Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture, an Associate Editor for the Journal of Rural Studies and an editorial board member of Agriculture and Human Values. Previously, she was a Science, Technology and Society Fellow at Harvard University and a Visiting Scientist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Author of numerous academic and practitioner oriented publications, she focuses on the governance of transitions to sustainable food systems, specifically on the metrics, models, standards and systems of certification that are part of emerging institutional innovations. Douglas H. Constance is Professor of Sociology at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, USA. His degrees are in Forest Management (BS), Community Development (MS) and Rural Sociology (PhD), all from the University of Missouri - Columbia. His recent co-edited books are Alternative Agrifood Movements: Patterns of Convergence and Divergence (2014) by Emerald Press and Contested Sustainability Discourses in the Agrifood System (2018) by Earthscan Press. He is past president of the Southern Rural Sociological Association (2003) and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (2008), and past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Rural Social Sciences. He is also past Chair of the Administrative Council of the United States Department of Agriculture Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research Education Program (USDA/SARE), where he served as the Quality of Life Representative.