The Rise of the Food Risk Society and the Changing Nature of the Technological Treadmill

Abstract

Economic development of transition and developed countries is associated with increasingly unhealthy dietary habits among low-income population segments. Drawing on Ulrich Beck's sociological theory of risk society, the present research note calls attention to the positive relation between national economic development and food risks that result in the rise of food-related diseases and healthcare costs. On this basis, we argue that the knowledge-intensive agribusiness may translate Cochrane's technological treadmill into Beck's risk treadmill that shifts a growing share of food-related healthcare costs from producers toward consumers, state, and the healthcare system. This argument motivates a novel research program dealing with the "food risk treadmill" that emerges in response to modern farming and agribusiness practices. Awareness of the food risk treadmill may help to streamline the development of agricultural science and to prevent it from being excessively dominated by the agricultural and food industry.

Middle-range theories of land system change

“…First, declining yields and profitability of pioneer agriculture (due to soil degradation or poor soil quality) with out-migration of smallholders leads to the formation of a "hollow frontier", with depopulation and extensive land uses (Casetti and Gauthier, 1977;Hecht, 2005;Rudel et al, 2002). Second, a "technology treadmill" occurs when continuing competition leads to intensification and the exclusion of farmers-mostly smallholders-that lag behind due to lack of capital, technology, or knowledge, giving rise to large-scale capitalized agriculture (Levins and Cochrane, 1996;Chatalova et al, 2016). Smallholders might sell their land or be displaced, engage in commercial operations as laborers, migrate to cities in a process of "de-agrarianization" (Bryceson and Jamal, 1997), or seek cheaper land elsewhere, driving further frontier expansion (Richards, 2012.…”

The Soybean Trap: Challenges and Risks for Brazilian Producers

“…Subsequently, technological diffusion of innovations drives over-production and decreases commodity prices, leading other producers to adopt the innovation, wiping out the initial financial benefits. Producers that cannot continue to realize profits to offset investments eventually fall off the treadmill (i.e., go bankrupt), opening opportunities for others (Röling, 2009;Chatalova et al, 2016). On the treadmill, producers are challenged to produce more and more to reduce their debt burdens.…”

“…Brazil began to encourage soybean production in the mid-1970's as a national objective during the military regime, and this model of economic development has not been questioned by any administration that has governed the country since. Innovations to improve production come every year in the form of attractive interest rates or less bureaucratic systems to obtain credit, political lobbying to help producers obtain debt forgiveness or renegotiation of debts with public (e.g., banks) and private financers (e.g., traders), seed varieties of higher productivity (e.g., kg per hectares), more effective pesticides, or technological tools (e.g., connection of mobile phones with machinery to provide producers with realtime field information; Chatalova et al, 2016;Oliveira, 2016;Wesz, 2016).…”

Risk Society and Anti-Politics in the Fracking Debate

“…The lines between the political and non-political realms become blurred (Beck 1999). Risk and responsibility for responding to it, become individualised (Benn et al 2009;Chatalova et al 2016). Increasingly class-based politics is replaced by a focus on moral choices surrounding individual lifestyles (reflexive modernity) (Oosterlynck and Swyngedouw 2010).…”