First published in 1989, this book deals with the impact of cereal production upon the Third World, specifically ‘Modern Varieties’ (MVs). Using evidence from plant breeding, economics and nutrition science, the authors seek to pinpoint what has been achieved, what has gone wrong and what needs to be done in future. Although the technical innovations of MVs mean more employment, cheaper food and less risk for small farmers, the reduction in crop diversity increases the risk of danger from pests and though MVs enlarge cereal stocks, many are too poor to afford them. The book concludes that technical breakthroughs alone won’t solve deep-rooted social problems and that only new policies and research priorities will increase the choices, assets and power of the rural poor.

From Poverty to Power argues that a radical redistribution of power, opportunities, and assets rather than traditional models of charitable or government aid is required to break the cycle of poverty and inequality. The forces driving this transformation are active citizens and effective states. Published in association with Oxfam GB.

This book explores successful efforts to alleviate poverty, and asks whether any of the features of these policies or projects can be imported into environments where poverty has not yet declined significantly.

The Routledge Handbook of Development Ethics provides readers with insight into the central questions of development ethics, the main approaches to answering them, and areas for future research. Over the past seventy years, it has been argued and increasingly accepted that worthwhile development cannot be reduced to economic growth. Rather, a number of other goals must be realised: Enhancement of people's well-being Equitable sharing in benefits of development Empowerment to participate freely in development Environmental sustainability Promotion of human rights Promotion of cultural freedom, consistent with human rights Responsible conduct, including integrity over corruption Agreement that these are essential goals has also been accompanied by disagreements about how to conceptualize or apply them in different cases or contexts. Using these seven goals as an organizing principle, this handbook presents different approaches to achieving each one, drawing on academic literature, policy documents and practitioner experience. This international and multi-disciplinary handbook will be of great interest to development policy makers and program workers, students and scholars in development studies, public policy, international studies, applied ethics and other related disciplines.

To fully benefit from new agricultural technologies like improved seed varieties, significant investment in complementary inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, and practices such as systematic planting, irrigation, and weeding are also required. Farmers may fail to recognize the importance of these complements, leading to unsatisfactory crop yields and outputs and, eventually, dis-adoption of the variety. We provide a simple model of biased expectations, complementary input use and technology adoption and test its predictions using a field experiment among smallholder maize farmers in eastern Uganda. We find that pointing out the importance of complementary investments using a short, engaging video effectively deters some farmers from using commercial improved varieties. Consistent with the theoretical model, we find some evidence that this behavior change emanates from increased knowledge and expectations that are more in line with realized outcomes.

Food security is one of the twenty-first century’s key global challenges, and lessons learned from India have particular significance worldwide. Not only does India account for approximately one quarter of the world’s under-nourished persons, it also provides a worrying case of how rapid economic growth may not provide an assumed panacea to food security. This book takes on this challenge. It explains how India’s chronic food security problem is a function of a distinctive interaction of economic, political and environmental processes. It contends that under-nutrition and hunger are lagging components of human development in India precisely because the interfaces between these aspects of the food security problem have not been adequately understood in policy-making communities. Only through an integrative approach spanning the social and environmental sciences, are the fuller dimensions of this problem revealed. A well-rounded appreciation of the problem is required, informed by the FAO’s conception of food security as encompassing availability (production), access (distribution) and utilisation (nutritional content), as well as by Amartya Sen’s notions of entitlements and capabilities.

In this innovative and entirely original text, which has been thoughtfully edited to ensure coherence and readability across disciplines, scientists and practitioners from around the world provide evidence of the opportunities for, and the challenges of, developing collaborative approaches to bringing advanced and emerging technology to poor communities in developing countries in a responsible and sustainable manner. This volume will stimulate and satisfy readers seeking to engage in a rich and challenging discussion, integrating many strands of social thought and physical science. For those also seeking to creatively engage in the great challenges of our times for the benefit of struggling farmers, sick children, and people literally living in the dark around the world, may this volume also spark imagination, inspire commitment, and provoke collaborative problem solving.

Food has, for most of our species history, been intensely political: who gets to eat what, how often, and through what means? The scale of polity in question has shifted over time, from very local institutions dividing up grain piles to an international community imagined in the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. Simultaneously, the numbers and interests of people asserting political stakes in food and agriculture have likewise shifted up and out. Global networks advocate social justice in distal agrarian systems, promotion of some farming techniques and prohibition of others, food sovereignty or efficiencies of markets and trade. Political consumerism allows the well-endowed to "vote with their dollars" for changes in food systems far from home, but depends on certification and labeling from unseen institutions. As an object of governmentality, food has never been so prominent. The thirty-five handbook chapters confront four major themes in the politics of food: property, technology, justice and knowledge. Ronald Herring's editorial introduction asks how food is political, highlighting contention around the role of market, state and information in societal decisions. The first section of the handbook then examines technology, science and knowledge in food production. What is known - and disputed - about malnutrition, poverty and food security? The second section addresses ethics, rights and distributive justice: agrarian reform, gender inequality, entitlements and subsidies, and the social vision of the alternative food movement. The third section looks to intersections of agriculture and nature: wild foods, livestock, agro-ecological approaches to sustainability, and climate change and genetic engineering. The fourth section addresses food values and culture: political consumerism, labeling and certification, the science and cultural politics of food safety, values driving regulation of genetically modified foods and potential coexistence of GMOs, and organic and conventional crops. The fifth and final section looks at frontiers of global contentions: rival transnational advocacy networks, social movements for organic farming, the who and why of international land grabbing, junctures of cosmopolitan and local food narratives, the "supermarket revolution" and the international agrifood industry in low-income countries, and politics of knowledge in agricultural futures.