Why Africa’s New Green Revolution is failing – Maize as a commodity and anti-commodity in South Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8943944 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Klara Fischer (0000-0001-6590-4025, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 130 |
| Pages | 96-104 |
| Publication date | 2021-08-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geoforum (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.08.001 |
| OpenAlex | W3196254653 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 19 |
| References cited | 54 |
The South African Government has for the past two decades spent significant resources on introducing smallholders to Genetically Modified (GM) maize with the aim to make agriculture a way out of poverty. However smallholder farming continues to decline and poverty is on the rise in the country. The present paper aims to explain this failure of the government to support its smallholders by describing the intra-actions between maize, politics and technological development in South African history. Importantly maize is understood here as an agent in that its materialities are not only being impacted by, but are also having impact on the outcome of farming practices and wider political economies. The paper describes how maize, as a result of intra-action between maize biology and choices made by farmers, politicians and breeders during the colonial era and apartheid, developed in parallel as a commodity serving the settler farmers, and an anti-commodity, or escape crop, providing subsistence to marginalised smallholders. While South Africa today is a democracy that spends significant resources on improving smallholder livelihoods, recent technological development and market concentration have increased rather than decreased the gap between commodity- and anti-commodity maize. As a result new GM and hybrid maize varieties introduced to smallholders today are badly equipped to facilitate a crop led New Green Revolution
Agricultural economics · Agriculture · Business · Commodity · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Government (linguistics · Green Revolution · Livelihood · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Subsistence agriculture · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact
Over a decade into the New Green Revolution for Africa
Appropriate farmer classification is key to agricultural development
The Covid pandemic, cultivation and livelihoods in South Africa’s Eastern Cape
Fields of contestation and contamination
Urban Agriculture in South Africa
Crop biocultural traits and diversity dynamics among Bassari farmers
Are genetically modified and genome-edited crops viable strategies for climate-change adaptation among smallholder farmers
Is there a future for smallholder farmers in bioeconomy? The case of ‘improved’ seeds in South Punjab, Pakistan
Whose demand?” The co-construction of markets, demand and gender in development-oriented crop breeding
Drought-tolerant indigenous crops decline in the face of climate change
Social drivers and differentiated effects of deagrarianisation
Rendering smallholders social
Transgenic soy as a political crop and a resistance crop in Argentina – The struggle around control and rent appropriation between the state, seed corporations and soy farmers
The political ecology of crops
Assemblage thinking and actor–network theory
Becoming Underutilised
The making and unmaking of the Bacillus thuringiensis cotton assemblage in South Punjab, Pakistan
Beyond the Genome
Local seed systems and Global China
The rise and fall of the South African peasantry
The Art of Not Being Governed
Cotton Cultivation in India Since the Green Revolution
‘That Child Support Grant Gives Me Powers’ – Exploring Social and Relational Aspects of Cash Transfers in South Africa in Times of Livelihood Change
Rice, Civilisation and the Swahili Towns
East African Railways and Harbours, 1945–1960
Weapons of the Weak
The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860–1930
Against the Grain
An Economic History of South Africa
A bitter pill
Through the ‘Thick and Thin’ of farming on the Wild Coast, South Africa
Could farmer interest in a diversity of seed attributes explain adoption plateaus for modern maize varieties in Malawi
Yield Gap-Based Poverty Gaps in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa
Micro(soft) managing a ‘green revolution’ for Africa
Modernising agriculture through a ‘new’ Green Revolution
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra)
Whose Power to Control? Some Reflections on Seed Systems and Food Security in a Changing World
The Politics of Seed in Africa's Green Revolution
Deactivation of field cultivation in communal areas of South Africa
Does raising maize yields lead to poverty reduction? A case study of the Massive Food Production Programme in South Africa
GMOs and poverty
The ‘philanthropic’ gene
From cotton to paddy
Rooted networks, relational webs and powers of connection
Landraces of Maize in Central Mexico
Dynamic Management of Maize Landraces in Central Mexico
Keepers of maize in Chiapas, Mexico
Becoming differently modern
Living at the Edges of Capitalism
Changing Livelihoods in Rural Eastern Cape, South Africa (2002-2016)
Why Have South African Smallholders Largely Abandoned Arable Production in Fields? A Case Study
Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa
Capitalism and cheap labour-power in South Africa
White science and indigenous maize
Heirloom rice in Ifugao
Seed struggles and food sovereignty in northern Malawi
The Long Green Revolution
Maize and Grace
Maintaining or Abandoning African Rice
Securing Access to Seed
| Unique citing works | 19 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,8 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 19 |