Rick Welsh

The effects of the industrialization of US livestock agriculture on promoting sustainable production practices

US livestock agriculture hasdeveloped and intensified according to a strictproductionist model that emphasizes industrialefficiency. Sustainability problems associatedwith this model have become increasinglyevident and more contested. Traditionalapproaches to promoting sustainable agriculturehave emphasized education and outreach toencourage on-farm adoption of alternativeproduction systems. Such efforts build on anunderlying assumption that farmers areempowered to make decisions regarding theorganization and management of theiroperations. However, as vertical coordinationin agriculture continues, especially in theanimal agriculture sectors, this assumptionbecomes less valid. This paper examines how thechanging industrial structure in four USlivestock sectors (poultry, hogs, beef, anddairy) affects possibilities in each forpromoting more sustainable productionpractices. Comparisons between the sectors arebased on the relative ability to employ anintensive pasture or alternative (deep-bedded)housing system, which are widely seen assustainable livestock alternatives. While thehighly integrated poultry sector appearsimpregnable to traditional sustainableagriculture approaches, the cow-calf sub-sectorof the beef industry, non-feedlot dairyoperations, and small parts of the hogindustry, especially in the Midwest, stillretain some potential for effectively targetingthe farmer. Building on the presentation ofbarriers and opportunities in the fourlivestock sectors, the paper concludes byevaluating several structurally-orientedapproaches to promoting a more sustainablelivestock agriculture that should complementmore traditional approaches. They includedeveloping alternative coordinated networks inlivestock agriculture, pressing integrators topermit more sustainable production practices,and working for legislation that shifts moredecision-making within integrated systemstowards growers.

UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS, AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY, AND ACADEMIC CAPITALISM: Defining the Public Good to Promote University–Industry Relationships

The theory of academic capitalism explains how federal, state, and university policies and people have expanded university–industry relationships (UIRs) and the commercialization of knowledge. These changes represent a profound shift in the way university research is expected to contribute to the public good. Because university administrators are responsible for creating organizational policies and infrastructures that are consistent with their organizational mission and with federal and state laws, it is critical to analyze how university administrators assess UIRs in relation to public-interest scientific research. Our in-depth interviews at six prominent land-grant universities with 59 key administrators having oversight responsibilities for agricultural biotechnology research programs and UIRs reveal how administrators justify their role in promoting UIRs. They tend to interpret their universitys mission to contribute to the public good in a way that is conducive to encouraging UIRs and to commercializing research discoveries. Their rationale emerges within a context of having to justify their budgets to state governments.

Considering the role of the university in conducting research on agri-biotechnologies

Private sector firms have dominated the research, development, and commercialization processes for transgenic crops. This has led to a narrow focus on a few commercially important crops and engineered traits, while minor crops and traits remain largely ignored. Analysts have decried this situation and called for more public-centered research regimes, such as research on minor crops and traits. Universities are often identified as places where research on the more minor crops and traits should occur. The burgeoning literature on the changing structure of the university toward an institution more aligned with private for-profit sector interests and orientations calls these arguments into question. Using time series data from 1993-2002 obtained from the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, we find that over time, university research on transgenic crops has increasingly mirrored the research profile of for-profit firms.

Towards an ecological systems approach in public research for environmental regulation of transgenic crops

Abstract A review of current research shows insufficient monitoring and testing have been conducted to reliably assess the degree of environmental risks posed by transgenic crops. The major risks include increased resistance to particular pesticides, gene flow into related plant species, and negative effects on non-target organisms. Significant gaps in knowledge, often stemming from missing markets for ecological services, warrant a cautious environmental regulatory approach for transgenic crops. The objective of this paper is to identify the types of ecological systems public research to implement effective biosafety controls. US biosafety regulatory processes tend to focus on controlling type I error, i.e. restricting the release of the crops when significant environmental risks do not exist, because the economic losses from denying commercialization can be estimated. However, the precautionary principle, which focuses on controlling type II errors, i.e. releasing the crops when serious ecosystem damage will occur, adds a necessary criterion given the current deficit in ecological science. The key challenge facing regulators is to find the appropriate balance of controlling type I versus type II errors. The research program should embed the lessons of evolutionary biology and ecological sciences. Viewing the plant as a production machine that can be “brute-force” reengineered for more efficiency is a poor analogy. Unanticipated and unintended results, positive and negative, will emerge from such engineering because plants are complex systems embedded in poorly understood, complex, and interacting ecosystems. An ideal public research program should capture the interconnectedness of ecological systems, the essential roles of ecosystem services, nonlinear and threshold responses to accumulating stresses, and global expansion of the technology. Basic elements of such a program include long-term studies of cumulative and synergistic pesticide resistance effects, potential gene flow problems for those transgenic crop trait-weed complexes with high probabilities of outcrossing and ecological disruption, and scientific protocols for assessing deleterious effects on non-target organisms. For all three effects, expanded ecosystem monitoring of the commercialized crops in varied settings is needed for improved type II error definitions and estimates. The development of improved risk analysis methodologies and protocols should also be a priority. Finally, scientific effort to stimulate precautionary research, such as the development of transgenic crops that mimic ecological systems functioning, could avert many risks. Creating information to avoid significant ecological damages and foster precautionary research and development for transgenic crops are neglected roles of public biotechnology research.

Transgenic crops: Engineering a more sustainable agriculture?

Transgenic crops currently available foruse potentially provide environmental benefits, suchas reduction in insecticide use and substitution ofless toxic for more toxic herbicides. These benefitsare contingent on a host of factors, such as thepotential for development of resistant pests,out-crossing to weedy relatives, and transgenic cropmanagement regimes. Three scenarios are used toexamine the potential sustainability of transgeniccrop technologies. These scenarios demonstrate thatexisting transgenic varieties, while potentiallyimproving the sustainability of agriculture relativeto existing chemical based production systems, fail inenabling a fully sustainable agriculture. Genetictraits that have a higher potential for promoting asustainable agriculture have been precluded fromdevelopment for a number of reasons. These include thelack of EPA and USDA regulatory policies thatexplicitly promote sustainable traits; the structureof the agricultural biotechnology industry, which isdominated by agricultural chemical companies; andpatent law and industry policies that proscribe farmhouseholds from saving transgenic seed and tailoringtransgenic crops to their local environmentalconditions – ecological, social, and economic.

AN EXAMINATION OF TRENDS IN GEOGRAPHIC CONCENTRATION IN U.S. HOG PRODUCTION, 1974-96

Geographic concentration in U.S. hog production from 1974-96 is investigated using a measure based on Theils entropy index. For the U.S. as a whole, geographic concentration is occurring at a slow rate, both for hog farms and hog numbers. However, for particular states, primarily in the new Southern Atlantic production region, concentration is high and increasing at a rapid pace. Concentration was increasing for the 23-year period for 16 out of the 20 states in the analysis. Results indicate that geographic concentration by augmentation is occurring to the greatest degree in Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

Precaution as an approach to technology development: The case of transgenic crops

The commercialization of transgenic crops has engendered significant resistance from environmental groups and defensive responses from industry. A part of this struggle entails the politicization of science as groups gather evidence from the scholarly literature to defend a supportive or opposing position to transgenic crop commercialization. The authors argue that novel technology development and associated scientific uncertainty have led to two competing approaches to risk management: precaution and ex post trial and error. In this paper we use the controversies over currently commercialized transgenic crops to analyze the debate over these competing approaches. We also suggest a hybrid approach that incorporates a precautionary selection process, but also relies on ex post trial and error after commercialization. This approach is labeled precaution through experience since the development of a technology’s characteristics would ideally take into account previous experience with similar technologies, or rather technologies with similar applications. The authors argue that substantial public participation and dialogue is needed to identify socially desirable crop traits to guide research and development. Policy tools are also recommended that provide incentives to private-sector firms to engineer the identified traits into crops.

Agricultural industrialization, anticorporate farming laws, and rural community welfare

The effect on rural communities of shifts in US agriculture toward a system dominated by large-scale industrial production is a central problematic in the sociology of agriculture. Despite the importance of agriculture structure and practice to US society, most research on this topic has been confined to specialized journals. And though research in this area has found negative effects on rural communities from agricultural industrialization, there is a dearth of inquiry into public policy remedies. Using data on 433 agriculture-dependent counties in the USA, we find that counties in states with laws that limit nonfamily corporate entry into farming score higher on important welfare indicators, and that the laws mitigate negative impacts on rural communities from industrial farming.

Agro-food system restructuring and the geographic concentration of US swine production

The US swine industry has dramatically reorganized over the last two decades. Economic concentration in the slaughter sector has increased and hog production has consolidated economically and geographically. Increases in the geographic concentration of hog production have led to water pollution through spills and leakage from high numbers of very large manure storage lagoons centered within limited areas, such as a few counties. The global restructuring of agro-food systems has promoted the development of intensive and concentrated livestock production. However, national, state and local institutions, and dynamics have also influenced the structure of geographic concentration of hog production. Using state-level and national-level time series data from 1975–1996, we find that national-level increases in concentration in the hog-processing sector are positively associated with geographic concentration of production within states. However, we also find that state, and even local, government policy can mitigate, or worsen, the geographic concentration of hog production.

On the effectiveness of state anti-corporate farming laws in the United States

Structural changes in US agriculture toward a more corporate-oriented and vertically aligned system have focused attention on the relative efficacy of the anti-corporate farming laws of nine Midwestern states. Using state-level data from a survey of agricultural lawyers and the U.S. Census of Agriculture, we find that the restrictiveness of the laws vary among states, and the relative restrictiveness of the laws have changed over time. Also, strengthening a law tends to limit acreage under non-family corporate ownership arrangements.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.