Dominic Glover

A System Designed for Rice? Materiality and the Invention/Discovery of the System of Rice Intensification

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a novel approach to rice cultivation that is claimed to be both more productive and more sustainable than conventional methods. It is said to have been discovered by a French Jesuit missionary working in Madagascar during the 1970s and 1980s. The system has been depicted as a set of methods determined by the needs of rice itself. However, a close analysis of its origins indicates that the creation of the system involved elements of invention as well as discovery. In a process where conceptual understanding evolved over a period of years, empirical observation, theoretical analysis, practical experimentation, and purposive judgment all contributed to the compilation of a set of cultivation practices making up SRI. In particular, some aspects of the SRI methodology were not dictated by agronomy alone but were intended to suit peasant farmers. The theoretical underpinnings of SRI could equally have been used to justify alternative choices. Key aspects of the scientific controversy that surrounds SRI reflect not only disagreements on scientific questions but also different perspectives on the appropriate roles of agricultural researchers and strategies of agricultural research.

Genetically modified crops and the “food crisis”: discourse and material impacts

A surge of media reports and rhetorical claims depicted genetically modified (GM) crops as a solution to the ‘global food crisis’ manifested in the sudden spike in world food prices during 2007–08. Broad claims were made about the potential of GM technologies to tackle the crisis, even though the useful crops and traits typically invoked had yet to be developed, and despite the fact that real progress had in fact been made by using conventional breeding. The case vividly illustrates the instrumental use of food-crisis rhetoric to promote GM crops.

Africa's biotechnology battle

An influential book accuses Europe of keeping genetically modified crops out of Africa, but, by polarizing the debate, it undermines efforts to improve the continents agriculture, warn Ian Scoones and Dominic Glover.

Heirloom rice in Ifugao: an ‘anti-commodity’ in the process of commodification

We analyse the marketing of ‘heirloom rices’ produced in the Cordillera mountains of northern Luzon, the Philippines, as the commodification of a historical ‘anti-commodity’. We contend that, historically, rice was produced for social, cultural and spiritual purposes but not primarily for sale or trade. The Ifugaos were able to sustain terraced wet-rice cultivation within a system of ‘escape agriculture’ because they were protected from Spanish interference by the friction of terrain and distance. ‘Heirloom rice’ is a boundary concept that enables social entrepreneurs to commodify traditional landraces. We analyse the implications for local rice production and conservation efforts.