Ecological Economics Beyond Markets

Bliss, Sam; Egler, Megan

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106806

Cited by 28 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 119 publications

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“…Amid the backdrop of carrying capacity, environmental limits, and sustainability, the obstinate question of whether farms are "a part" or "apart" from nature persists. Bliss and Egler (2020) contend that markets are artificial constructs and inappropriate in most relational contexts to ecological economists, nor do they serve justice, sustainability, efficiency, or value pluralism.…”

Section: Ecological Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Economics of Conventional, Organic, and Alternative Agricultural Production Systems

Durham

Mizik

2021

Economies

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Agricultural production systems are a composite of philosophy, adoptability, and careful analysis of risks and rewards. The two dominant typologies include conventional and organics, while biotechnology (GM) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) represent situational modifiers. We conducted a systematic review to weigh the economic merits—as well as intangibles through an economic lens—of each standalone system and system plus modifier, where applicable. Overall, 17,485 articles were found between ScienceDirect and Google Scholar, with 213 initially screened based on putative relevance. Of those, 82 were selected for an in-depth analysis, with 63 ultimately used. Economically, organic generally outperformed conventional systems. This is largely due to their lower production costs and higher market price. However, organic farms face lower yields, especially in the fruit, vegetable, and animal husbandry sectors. With that said, organic farming can provide significant local environmental benefits. Integrated pest management (IPM) is a potentiator of either core system. As a risk reduction and decision-making framework, it is labor intensive. However, this can be offset by input reductions without yield penalty compared to a conventional baseline. Biotechnology is a rapidly emerging production system, notably in developing countries. The use of GM crops results in lower production cost and higher yields. As a conventional modifier, its major advantage is scale-neutrality. Thus, smaller and lower income farmers may achieve higher gross margin. The main source of environmental benefits is reduced pesticide use, which implies a decreased need for fuel and labor. Barring external influences such as subsidies and participation in prescriptive labeling programs, farmers should focus on an a la carte approach (as opposed to discrete system adoption) to optimize their respective enterprises.

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Section: Ecological Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Economics of Conventional, Organic, and Alternative Agricultural Production Systems

Durham

Mizik

2021

Economies

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“…There are considerable grounds for hope in that various arguments about the necessity for increasing productivity, efficiency and optimisation in agriculture and the economy more broadly are being routinely challenged across a wide spectrum of policy, civil society and community spaces (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], 2018; Lunn-Rockliffe et al, 2020). This is accompanied by a questioning of the subordination of ecosystems and human social and cultural life to economic reasoning, extractivism and efficiency, precisely because markets cannot be relied on to deliver justice, sustainability and value pluralism (Bliss & Egler, 2020), nor to safeguard natural resources and shared public goods.…”

Section: Treating the Earth Like Dirtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tilting relationalities: Exploring the world through possible futures of agriculture

Moore¹,

Moreno²

2022

The Sociological Review

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Demography has driven increases in agricultural productivity and is in the limelight once again with questions about how we intend to feed 9 billion people on the planet. The scale of this challenge and the ecological threat from collapsing resources has generated a sense of impending crisis, but remarkably little action. The frames of reference tend towards climate change and the Anthropocene, but perhaps a more fruitful approach is to reflect on developments in agriculture and agroecology to examine the scale and significance of the ecological challenges we face. In this article, we use agriculture as a nodal point through which to engage with the emerging and dislocating human–planetary relations of the contemporary world, reflecting on past, current and future notions of ‘progress’, and on how ongoing developments and experiments in making a living with others (human, non-human and more-than-human others) might offer potential pathways for positive social transformation and future flourishing. As we argue throughout the article, reassessing notions of progress does not mean the mere return to traditional forms of knowledge and practice, nor embracing a form of luddite politics absent of advances in modern science and technology. Instead, we propose this is about opening spaces where diversity, pluralism and contending perspectives and agencies are engaged on their own terms, creating and sharing alternative knowledge and ways of doing and being. Here, the role for the social sciences and humanities is not to describe or pretend to represent these emerging relationalities, but instead to enable and actively engage them. Doing this responsibly and effectively will require us to inhabit the disorienting and discomforting ruins of progress, eschewing the turn towards finalised solutions and outcomes.

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“…Core textbooks of EE, like that of Daly and Farley [69], explicitly concern themselves with what the scale of markets should be within an economy, and recent work by Bliss and Egler [70] urge a decentering of markets, and propose a research agenda for EE towards non-market forms of economy. Debates within EE as to the appropriateness of any form of commodification are ongoing [71,72].…”

Section: Markets: Governance and Commodificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capital Sequestration: Degrowth through Investing in Community-Led Transformations of Provisioning Systems

Sellers¹

2022

CiS

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Investing in different futures is an existential challenge that much research within and adjacent to Ecological Economics engages with, yet organizations that recognize this social ecological imperative have few options for funding and implementing radical transformations to the needs and well-being provisioning systems that currently exist. Ecological macroeconomic ideas and EE principles of long term well being and justice on a livable planet will be explored in the context of the housing crisis in Canada, and a rural Ontario community organization attempting to find transformative solutions to the lived, local experience of this crisis. Provisioning systems for housing, when tied to real estate markets, debt money creation, land enclosures, and financialized supply chains, contribute to capital accumulation cycles; it is hardly possible to meet our housing needs, in aggregate, without also perpetuating the form of this provisioning system. The idea presented here, that of Capital Sequestration, proposes to remove capital from markets and 'invests' this capital in land trusts as an intentional transformation of financial capital into social and ecological values. Through land and housing trusts as well as non-market funding pathways, Capital Sequestration is a method of investing in the transformation of provisioning systems through the sustained and collective boundary management of financial markets and incommensurable values. This practice offers significant promise as it applies ecological macroeconomic theory work, is grounded in the normative goals of and emerges from empirical research of EE, and meets a pressing need within society for imagining alternative economies.

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Ecological Economics Beyond Markets

Cited by 28 publications

References 119 publications

Comparative Economics of Conventional, Organic, and Alternative Agricultural Production Systems

Comparative Economics of Conventional, Organic, and Alternative Agricultural Production Systems

Tilting relationalities: Exploring the world through possible futures of agriculture

Capital Sequestration: Degrowth through Investing in Community-Led Transformations of Provisioning Systems

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