First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology
by Jack Ralph Kloppenburg, Jr.
University of Wisconsin Press, 2005
eISBN: 978-0-299-19243-3 | Paper: 978-0-299-19244-0
Library of Congress Classification SB117.3.K57 2004
Dewey Decimal Classification 631.52
eISBN: 978-0-299-19243-3 | Paper: 978-0-299-19244-0
Library of Congress Classification SB117.3.K57 2004
Dewey Decimal Classification 631.52
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
First the Seed spotlights the history of plant breeding and shows how efforts to control the seed have shaped the emergence of the agricultural biotechnology industry. This second edition of a classic work in the political economy of science includes an extensive, new chapter updating the analysis to include the most recent developments in the struggle over the direction of crop genetic engineering.
1988 Cloth, 1990 Paperback, Cambridge University Press
Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Award of the Agricultural History Society
Winner of the Robert K. Merton Award of the American Sociological Association
1988 Cloth, 1990 Paperback, Cambridge University Press
Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Award of the Agricultural History Society
Winner of the Robert K. Merton Award of the American Sociological Association
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jack Ralph Kloppenburg Jr. is professor of rural sociology in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
REVIEWS
"Kloppenburg is trying to put the thorny questions raised in the biotechnology debate into historical perspective."—Deborah Fitzgerald, ISIS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of tables page x
List of figures xii
Preface to the second edition xiii
Preface to the first edition xv
Acknowledgments xix
List of abbreviations xxi
1. Introduction i
Outdoing evolution 2
First the seed 4
Structuring the story 7
Political economy - commodification 9
Institutions - division of labor 12
World economy - germplasm transfer 14
New biology, new seedsmen I6
2. Science, agriculture, and social change 19
Science and capitalism 19
Primitive accumulation and imposition of the
commodity-form 22
Agriculture and social change 27
Primitive accumulation and agricultural research 30
Seeds and the circuits of capital 37
Basic research, applied research, and the
commodity-form 39
Plant genetic geography 45
3. The genetic foundation of American agriculture 50
Early plant introduction in North America 50
The U.S. Patent Office and germplasm 53
The institutionalization of agricultural research 57
Seed distribution: public duty or private prerogative? 6I
Conclusion 65
4. Public science ascendant: plant breeding comes
of age 66
The promise of Mendel 67
The position of the seed industry 71
Capital and country life 73
Public breeding ascendant 77
New genetics, New Deal, new agriculture 84
Conclusion 90
5. Heterosis and the social division of labor 91
Hybrid corn: fabulous or fable? 92
Corn breeding at an impasse 94
Dividing the labor: public and private research 105
Previewing the Green Revolution xI6
Heterosis in other crops 123
Conclusion: The road not taken 128
6. Plant breeders' rights and the social division of
labor: historical perspective 130
PVPA: the issues I31
Setting a precedent: the Plant Patent Act of 1930 132
Private enterprise militant 133
The struggle for a law 136
Assessing the PVPA 140
Conclusion: PVPA and the lessons of history 150
7. Seeds of struggle: plant genetic resources in the
world system 152
From Columbus to Mendel: imperialism, primitive
accumulation, and plant genetic resources 153
The Green Revolution and plant genetic resources I57
Coordinating germplasm flows: International Board for
Plant Genetic Resources 16I
Reaping the benefits of free exchange 167
The seed industry and global reach 169
Seed wars at the FAO: North vs. South, common
heritage vs. the commodity 170
The common bowl: plant genetic interdependence in the
world economy 175
Interdependence in food crops I80
Interdependence in industrial crops 182
Value in the seed 184
Conclusion 189
8. Outdoing evolution: biotechnology, botany, and
business 191
Biotechnology: an overview 193
First the seed: nexus of the production process 201
Biotechnology and plant breeding: revolution
or evolution? 202
From competitive to monopoly capital 207
The campus and the corporation: biotechnology and
changes in the technical division of labor 220
The campus and the corporation: biotechnology and
changes in the social division of labor 223
Conclusion: New generation, new division of labor 240
9. Directions for deployment 242
Heading for hybridization 242
Biotechnology and genetic vulnerability 243
The chemical connection 245
Deliberate controls for deliberate release? 251
Plants, products, processes, and patents 261
Biotechnology and plant genetic resources 270
Conclusion: Logical extensions 276
10. Conclusion 278
Bridges to the island empire 280
Commodification: primitive accumulation and the
propertied laborer 280
Division of labor: w(h)ither public varieties? 283
Germplasm transfer: seeds and sovereignty 286
An epigram for an epilogue 289
11. Still the seed: plant biotechnology in the
twenty-first century 291
The race to cash in on the genetic code: g988-2004 295
Slowing down? 310
Commodities and commodification 314
Divisions of labor: biotechnologization and freedom to operate 327
Genetic resources and ecoliberalization 335
Conclusion: revitalizing public plant science 344
Notes 355
References 379
Index 421
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