IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/agspub/v8y2019i3p391-413.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Farmers’ Seed Systems in Southern Africa: Alternatives to Philanthrocapitalism

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Mushita
  • Carol Thompson

Abstract

Farmer seed systems survive by engaging changing conditions and by sharing seeds and indigenous knowledge. Although the systemic change attracting the most attention as a challenge to farmer seed systems is climate change, another systemic threat needs equally urgent analysis. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) of the Gates Foundation is trying to transform farmer seed systems through ‘business rule’ and ‘business practices’ of philanthrocapitalism. Outlining the trajectories of philanthrocapitalism, this analysis explores fundamental differences in how large foundations are interjecting their private goals into public spaces, while extracting public funds for private use. Although much has been written about philanthrocapitalism in the fields of education and health, this article focusses on its role in farmers’ seed systems. Grounded in Southern Africa, it explains how smallholder farmers are not just resisting the insertion of philanthrocapitalism into their seed systems, but are offering alternatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Mushita & Carol Thompson, 2019. "Farmers’ Seed Systems in Southern Africa: Alternatives to Philanthrocapitalism," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 8(3), pages 391-413, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:agspub:v:8:y:2019:i:3:p:391-413
    DOI: 10.1177/2277976019872327
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2277976019872327
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2277976019872327?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atish R Ghosh & Jun I Kim & Mahvash S Qureshi, 2020. "What’s in a name? That which we call capital controls," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 35(101), pages 147-208.
    2. Lowder, Sarah K. & Carisma, Brian & Skoet, Jakob, 2012. "Who invests in agriculture and how much? An empirical review of the relative size of various investments in agriculture in low- and middle-income countries," ESA Working Papers 288992, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).
    3. Reckhow, Sarah, 2013. "Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public School Politics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199937738.
    4. Christoph Scherrer, 2018. "The Disrupted Passage from an Agrarian Rural to an Industrial Urban Workforce in Most Countries in the Global South," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 7(3), pages 301-319, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kivisto, Hanna, 2016. "Capital as Power and the Corporatization of Education," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-17.
    2. Koddenbrock, Kai & Sylla, Ndongo Samba, 2019. "Towards a political economy of monetary dependency: The case of the CFA franc in West Africa," MaxPo Discussion Paper Series 19/2, Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo).
    3. Schioppa, Claudio A. & Papadia, Andrea, 2015. "Foreign Debt and Secondary Markets: The Case of Interwar Germany," MPRA Paper 102863, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2016.
    4. Calò, Silvia & Herzberg, Valerie, 2019. "The Future of Global Financial Centres after Brexit: an EU Perspective," Financial Stability Notes 9/FS/19, Central Bank of Ireland.
    5. Girardin, Eric & Salimi Namin, Fatemeh, 2019. "The January effect in the foreign exchange market: Evidence for seasonal equity carry trades," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 422-439.
    6. Bathla, S., 2017. "Futuristic Private and Public Capital Requirements in Agriculture for Doubling Farmers’ Income across the States," Agricultural Economics Research Review, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), vol. 30(Conferenc).
    7. Andrea Papadia & Claudio Schioppa, 2020. "Foreign Debt, Capital Controls, and Secondary Markets: Theory and Evidence from Nazi Germany," Working Papers ECARES 2020-36, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Robin Rogers, 2015. "Making Public Policy: The New Philanthropists and American Education," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 743-774, September.
    9. Makram El‐Shagi & Steven J. Yamarik, 2021. "IMF conditionality and capital controls: Capital account liberalization to capital inflow management?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 590-605, August.
    10. Ismail Doga Karatepe & Christoph Scherrer, 2019. "Collective Action as a Prerequisite for Economic and Social Upgrading in Agricultural Production Networks," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 8(1-2), pages 115-135, April.
    11. Global Commission on Adaptation, 2019. "Adapt Now," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 32362, December.
    12. Fabio Zagonari & Stella Tsani & Sotiris Mavrikis & Phoebe Koundouri, 2018. "Common Environment Policies in Different Sustainability Paradigms: Evidence From the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas," DEOS Working Papers 1812, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    13. Richard J. Nugent, 2019. "Restrictions on Short-Term Capital Inflows and the Response of Direct Investment," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 350-383, June.
    14. Andrzej Wojtyna, 2017. "Nowa faza dyskusji o kontroli międzynarodowych przepływów kapitału," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 6, pages 5-29.
    15. Christoph Scherrer, 2021. "The “Nested†Power of TNCs: Smallholders’ Biggest Challenge," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(2), pages 391-403, August.
    16. Laurence Roudart & Benoît Dave, 2014. "Family Farms and Investment Capacities," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/179469, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    17. Willem Vanlaer & Mattia Picarelli & Wim Marneffe, 2021. "Debt and Private Investment: Does the EU Suffer from a Debt Overhang?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 789-820, September.
    18. Stephen Fox & Yusuf Mubarak & Abdurasak Adam, 2020. "Ecological Analyses of Social Sustainability for International Production with Fixed and Moveable Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-15, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:agspub:v:8:y:2019:i:3:p:391-413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.