First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology

by Jack Ralph Kloppenburg

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299192433
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	04/26/2005
Series:	Science and Technology in Society
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	468
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jack Ralph Kloppenburg Jr. is professor of rural sociology in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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