The recent unprecedented growth of Nicaragua’s sugarcane industry has brought promises of more jobs, better healthcare, and cleaner energy. But these promises have been overshadowed by an epidemic of chronic kidney disease of non-traditional causes (CKDnt). Unknown before the late 1990s, this disease has sickened and killed thousands of sugarcane plantation workers. Scientific studies link the disease to rises in mean average annual temperatures, chronic water scarcity, and the overuse of toxic agrochemicals. CKDnt is now understood as a consequence of global climate change. In The Kidney and the Cane, Alex M. Nading situates this epidemic within a deeper history of sugarcane plantation violence, arguing that CKDnt is not a result of climate change, it is climate change. Outlining a place-based approach to planetary health, Nading follows activists, scientists, and sugarcane zone residents wrestling with the consequences of plantation life. Along the way, he raises critical questions about the capacity of corporations and states to care for people and ecosystems; the ability of citizens and experts to regulate toxic substances; and the future of work on a warming planet.

Alex M. Nading is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University and author of Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health, and the Politics of Entanglement.

“Offering compelling storytelling, fresh insights, and stunning connections, Alex M. Nading outlines the futility of isolating the cause of chronic kidney disease of non-traditional causes (CKDnt) while also showing the limits of fixes based in liberal structures of contestation. He shows how the work involved in keeping bodies and production alive in Nicaragua’s sugarcane zone is tantamount to life support; they cannot cure, although they remain essential to repair. In this way, CKDnt serves as a bellwether of planetary health.”
-- Julie Guthman, author of The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food