Biological Economies

Recent agri-food studies, including commodity systems, the political economy of agriculture, regional development, and wider examinations of the rural dimension in economic geography and rural sociology have been confronted by three challenges. These can be summarized as: ‘more than human’ approaches to economic life; a ‘post-structural political economy’ of food and agriculture; and calls for more ‘enactive’, performative research approaches. This volume describes the genealogy of such approaches, drawing on the reflective insights of more than five years of international engagement and research. It demonstrates the kinds of new work being generated under these approaches and provides a means for exploring how they should be all understood as part of the same broader need to review theory and methods in the study of food, agriculture, rural development and economic geography. This radical collective approach is elaborated as the Biological Economies approach. The authors break out from traditional categories of analysis, reconceptualising materialities, and reframing economic assemblages as biological economies, based on the notion of all research being enactive or performative.

In this book, Kean Birch analyses the co-construction of markets and natures in the emerging bio-economy as a policy response to global environmental change. The bio-economy is an economic system characterized by the use of plants and other biological materials rather than fossil fuels to produce energy, chemicals, and societal goods. Over the last decade or so, numerous countries around the world have developed bio-economy strategies as a potential transition pathway to a low-carbon future. Whether this is achievable or not remains an open question, one which this book seeks to answer. In addressing this question, Kean Birch draws on over ten years of research on the bio-economy around the world, but especially in North America. He examines what kinds of markets and natures are being imagined and constructed in the pursuit of the bio-economy, and problematizes the idea that this is being driven by neoliberalism and the neoliberalization of nature(s).

For over a century, New Zealand has built its economy through a series of commodity-based booms—from wood and wool to beef and butter. Now the country faces new challenges. In a world where value is increasingly rooted in capital- and technology-intensive industries, can countries dependent on agriculture really sustain its high living standards by growing crops? This book takes readers out on to farms, orchards, and vineyards, and inside the offices and factories of processors and exporters, to show how innovative New Zealanders are answering these challenges. From Icebreaker clothing to Mr Apple fruit exports, innovative companies are creating high-value, unique products, rooted in particular places, and making pathways to the niche markets where they can realize that value.

The theory of evolution and Neo-Darwinian biological theory extend their analysis in sociobiology from the life sciences and the animal societies to human societies. Sociobiology as a unifying theory of the social interaction within and between species has led to an integration of economic analysis into biology. The economy of nature has become the subject of bioeconomics which in turn transferred biological analysis to the human economy. Evolution, competition, selection, and cooperation are phenomena common to the economy of nature and human economy. The inclusion of economic and cultural theory in evolution theory raises the question whether the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis with its exclusive concern with somatic heredity is able to incorporate developmental systems of the human economy and of cultural heredity. A new synthesis of the natural and the social sciences is in the making.

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

Both macro- and microeconomic aspects of biotechnology are discussed in this book for biologists studying microbiology, biochemistry and genetics. It explains economics and accounting procedures from first principles and assumes no prior knowledge of these areas. The author works on developing new biotechnological projects. He draws extensively on his own experience and brings together the factors which determine commercial reasoning towards biotechnology in areas such as markets, project selection, costing and capital investment. His subjects include market analysis, fermentation, enzyme technology, genetic engineering and many others; they are all tied together by a common framework of industrial and technological development.

This book is at the cutting edge of the ongoing research in bioeconomy and encompasses both technological and economic strategies to master the transformation towards a knowledge- and bio-based production system. The volume combines different international perspectives with approaches of the various fields of research. Bioeconomy is one of the future concepts of an economy which, while based on renewable biological resources, also predicts economic growth. Starting from a growth-economic as well as knowledge- and innovation-economic perspective the contributions give an overview of different existing patterns and cases and describe the basic prerequisites for the bioeconomy transformation. Therewith, the volume is a resource for experts and newcomers in the field of bioeconomy giving insight into the life cycle of bio-based products, detailing the latest advancements and how to turn them into economic growth.