Abstract:The loss of genetic diversity of thousands of plants and crops has been well documented at least since the 1970s, and has been understood as a result of epistemological and political economic conditions of the Green Revolution. The political economic arrangement of the Green Revolution, alongside a post-war focus on economies of scale and export-oriented growth, replace high-yield single varieties of crops for a diverse array of varieties that may not have the same yield, but may be able to resist pests, disease, and changing climatic conditions. Also, the harvest does not flow in all directions equally: Whereas small holder subsistence farming uses a large variety of crops as a food source and small-scale trade, the industrial economic system requires simplified, machine harvested ship-loads of one variety of maize, for example. Diverse varieties of different crops confound the machines, whereas one variety of wheat can be harvested with one setting on a machine. However, none of this is new. The purpose of this article is to analyze how the twin concerns of lost varietals and lost cultures are bound together in the socio-political process of standardization, and to explain some areas of resistance.

Scholars in nonhuman animal studies and criminology have argued that more attention should be paid to the violence sanctioned by society, that of animal slaughter for industrial food production. Slaughterhouses and the communities surrounding these facilities present ideal sites for investigating how the violence of nonhuman animal slaughter work impacts individuals and society. The main research questions addressed in this study were whether the presence of a slaughterhouse in a rural community had an effect on violent crime arrest rates and what impact these facilities have on social disorganization in the community. Previous research on slaughterhouse communities has established a correlation between slaughterhouse employment and violent crime. This research examined the relationship between the presence of a slaughterhouse in the community and violent crime rates. Findings indicated that the location of a slaughterhouse in a county was associated with increases in the total arrest rate, arrests for rape, and arrests for offenses against the family in comparison to counties without a slaughterhouse, pointing to a relationship between the violence of killing nonhuman animals and violence towards humans.

This paper only begins analyzing the political economy of US food security, but even at this early stage clear vulnerabilities emerge from investigating the social structure of food production in the US. The United States is among the most food secure countries in the world, so much so that US citizens face the opposite problem of consuming too many calories, leading to adverse health effects of obesity and related diseases. Yet, there are surprising vulnerabilities to US food security embedded in the political economic structure of the agribusiness-government-consumer chain, not to mention critical ecological vulnerabilities. Political economic vulnerabilities include the asymmetrical distribution of 1) simple calories and 2) critical nutritional components to calories where "food deserts" and "food swamps" exist among communities where children may have their only meal at school. This meal is subsidized through the US Department of Agriculture and supplied by a very few large corporate interests and stabilized by legislative support for heavily processed food rich in fat. This corporate-legislative-agency iron triangle in US food politics favors high yield productivity, simplification and homogeneity, and still results in food insecurity for more than 49 million people. This paper analyzes the "choke points" in the US food system that sheds light on the overall global food system inasmuch as both the food that the US produces and the political economy it has exported are globally important. Chokepoints include water use, monoculture, oligopolistic corporate agents, climate change, and inequality. Each of these variables explain mechanisms for food security vulnerabilities both for the US and other countries that adopt the US model.