Suchergebnisse

Around the world, plantation economies are on the rise. Increasing concerns over food, energy, and financial security combined with a geopolitical restructuring of the global agro-food system have led to a new wave and rush to secure control over resources. Corporate-controlled agro-industrial complexes – from seed to silo – have extended their reach geographically and produced new spaces for capital to penetrate, circulate, and accumulate. New actors and forms of capital penetration have entered the countryside, transforming the forms and relations of production, property and power. Soybeans, with industrial inputs 'upstream' and storage, processing and transportation 'downstream', have become a quintessential agro-industrial 'flex crop', used as feed, food, fuel and industrial materials. This study analyzes how and the extent to which the development and expansion of the soy complex in Bolivia is transforming the countryside. New processes of productive exclusion have emerged, value-chain control and appropriation have materialized, and the very extractive character of the soy complex has severe implications for society, the economy and the environment. These dynamics of agrarian change are not unique to Bolivia nor the soy complex, but characteristic of the broader changes taking place in the global agrofood system dominated by agro-industrial complexes. This study puts forth an analytical framework referred to as the _politics of control_ which captures the new forms and mechanisms of resource control and value appropriation (or extraction) through an analysis of access rather than property or concessional rights. An analysis into the new forms of control contributes to a better understanding of class formation, differentiation, and class consciousness. These new forms of control are conceptualized as 'productive exclusion' and 'value-chain control'. The _politics of control_ also requires an analysis into the role and nature of the capitalist state. The strategic relations among state and societal actors in gaining and maintaining control over the state apparatus are analyzed in the context of the need to balance the social contradictions of capitalism which entail facilitating the conditions for accumulation and social legitimacy. Understanding these complex relations through the 'state-society-capital nexus' helps us conceptually to grasp the relations and interactions among elected and non-elected state managers and the various class fractions of labour and capital in their historic contexts. This analysis of Bolivia's soy complex is explored within its broader three-pronged neo-extractivist development strategy based on minerals, hydrocarbons, and soybeans. Within this neo-extractivist model, the soy complex is characterized as a type of 'agrarian extractivism', revealing the very extractivist social, economic and environmental dynamics associated with soybean production in Santa Cruz. 'Agrarian extractivism' not only reveals the extractive dynamics of capitalist industrial agriculture, it also challenges dominant discourses legitimating this form of production as a means to achieve rural development and food security. Within the context of Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, and the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) as a 'government of social movements', fundamental contradictions abound. This study ultimately argues that the new forms and mechanisms of control and extraction which characterize the soy complex are leading to a truncated trajectory of agrarian change where the rural majority are excluded from accessing the means of production without prospects for labour absorption elsewhere. The soy complex has rendered the Bolivian economy and society vulnerable to volatile commodity prices, threatening their food security with an increased dependence on food imports. The forms of exclusion and control require farmers to bear the risks of production while the corporate-controlled market oligopoly appropriates the majority of the value produced. While the majority of the excluded smallholders have maintained formal ownership over their land, this trajectory is not a pre-determined outcome but will depend on the balance of forces in society and the contested relations within the state-society-capital nexus.

__abstract__ The concept of food sovereignty has been enshrined in a number of countries' Constitutions around the world without any clear consensus around what state-sponsored 'food sovereignty' initiatives might entail given the complexity and interconnectedness of the global food system. In the vanguard of this movement at the national level has been the so-called 'pink tide' of Latin America – namely Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. As a constitutional right, food sovereignty presents a significant opening to promote a citizen's revolution of the food system, but is such a proposal possible or desirable as a top-down initiative? The concept itself is inherently peopleled as it implies constructing (or deconstructing) a food system that is defined, led, controlled, and accessed in a culturally appropriate and ecologically sustainable way by local people in a given territory. At the same time, state intervention is a necessary function to confront the global food system, dismantle unequal agrarian structures, and recognize the autonomy of people and communities in defining and controlling their food and agricultural systems. In different geographies and societies of food sovereignty, it is necessary to evaluate how state and social actors interact in the pursuit of a national food sovereignty strategy, with particular attention to the relations of control and access to decision-making and physical resources.

Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Aluminium composites have been extensively developed for automotive applications due to their high specific strength. However, particle agglomeration, high porosity content, and weak reinforcement/matrix interface bond are prone to occur in the casting process. These arise during the introduction of the reinforcement, mould filling, and solidification process, especially when the particle sizes are approaching the nanoscale and are detrimental, with respect to the mechanical properties. By applying high pressure in conjunction with high cooling rates, an improved distribution of the reinforcing particles can be expected, as the high pressure improves the filling capacity of the composite melt, in which the fluidity is generally decreased by the added heterogeneous particles. The fine grain structure obtained under the high cooling rate is also beneficial for the distribution of the reinforcing nanoparticles during solidification. In this study, SiC nano-reinforced AlSi9Cu3 composites were developed by employing an Al–Cu-SiCnp master alloy, stir mixing, ultrasonication and HPDC technology. The findings showed a good distribution of individual SiC particles, resulting in a reduction of ∼40% in the α-Al grain size and near 10% increment in the yield strength, which was attributed to grain refinement, CTE strengthening and Orowan strengthening. Compared to commercial AlSi9Cu3 HPDC alloys, the developed AlSi9Cu3-1wt% SiCnp composite provided an improved YS of ∼187 MPa and a UTS of ∼350 MPa in the as-cast state and the milestone high YS and UTS of ∼370 MPa and ∼468 MPa under a T6 condition, respectively. ; Financial support from European Union (LIGHTME Grant Agreement No. 814552) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are also grateful to the ETC for providing access to equipment for microstructural characterisation.