The Political Ecology of Bananas: Contract Farming, Peasants, and Agrarian Change in the Eastern Caribbean [Paperback]

Lawrence S. Grossman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 1998

This study of banana contract farming in the Eastern Caribbean explores the forces that shape contract-farming enterprises everywhere—capital, the state, and the environment. Employing the increasingly popular framework of political ecology, which highlights the dynamic linkages between political-economic forces and human-environment relationships, Lawrence Grossman provides a new perspective on the history and contemporary trajectory of the Windward Islands banana industry. He reveals in rich detail the myriad impacts of banana production on the peasant laborers of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Grossman challenges the conventional wisdom on three interrelated issues central to contract farming and political ecology. First, he analyzes the process of deskilling and the associated significance of control by capital and the state over peasant labor. Second, he investigates the impacts of contract farming for export on domestic food production and food import dependency. And third, he examines the often misunderstood problem of pesticide misuse. Grossman's findings lead to a reconsideration of broader debates concerning the relevance of research on industrial restructuring and globalization for the analysis of agrarian change. Most important, his work emphasizes that we must pay greater attention to the fundamental significance of the "environmental rootedness" of agriculture in studies of political ecology and contract farming.

Editorial Reviews

Review

[A] tour de force in demonstrating the virtue of detailed local knowledge and of bringing "ecology" back into political ecology.

Economic Geography

[A] relatively rare outcome in which a highly theoretical work has clear human applications.

Geographical Review

This careful, insightful, frequently brilliant analysis of contract farming reveals the constraints and opportunities of the contemporary global system.

Journal of Political Ecology

A detailed, scholarly contribution combining judicious use of data and penetrating analysis. Highly recommended.

Choice

[A] major contribution to the research on the application of regulation theory and Fordist and post-Fordist practices in agriculture.

Janet Momsen, University of California, Davis

From the Inside Flap

A case study of banana contract farming in the Windward Islands. Challenges conventional wisdom on the control of peasant labor, the impact of contract farming for export on local food supplies, and the problem of pesticide misuse.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (July 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807847186
• ISBN-13: 978-0807847183
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > History > Americas > Caribbean & West Indies > Saint Vincent

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