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Monopsony

Thanks to our occasional contributor Jacob van Etten for the following article on markets and agrobiodiversity. 

Monopoly happens when there is only one seller for a certain product. Monopsony, this week’s new word, happens when there is only one buyer. And when this happens, it is also likely that this single buyer will impose some rigid standards. And then the industrial buyer makes fake diversity by making slightly different mixes of standard components:

One technique retail oligopolies use is flood the shelves with a pseudo variety of similar products made in almost exactly the same way, so that minor vendors that offer real variety can be elbowed out. The beer industry is a great example of this trend.

In other words, agricultural biodiversity is being replaced with industrial diversity. Monopsony is growing in the US wine market. If climate change will push wine production to the north, will Canadian and Swedish vineyards become planted only to the few grape varieties demanded by the monopsonists 1?

The role that markets play in biodiversity conservation as well as local food provision is also the subject of a recent article, published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. The article is behind a pay-wall, but the PhD dissertation (in Spanish) on which it based and a colorful brochure are available for free.

Neus Martí and Michel Pimbert explain that in the Peruvian Andes, local communities organized barter markets to exchange local food products, while the economy of the region was pushed towards commercial agriculture. The barter markets permit a commercial exchange of agricultural products that is economically horizontal (between equals) and ecologically vertical (between ecological floors in the mountain landscape), whereas neo-liberal policy promote something that is the other way around.

The barter markets also happen to be good for biodiversity. All crops that are sold for money may also be bartered, but the reverse is not true. Many crop landraces and wild foods exchanged in barter markets are never sold in money-based markets.

So, don’t blame the market. Blame the monopsonists.

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A maize tour

SIRGEALC over, Marleni, David and I headed for CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre. That’s in Texcoco, about an hour’s drive from the hotel where we were staying in Mexico City (or three hours, unfortunately, on the way back). It turned out to be something of a maize odyssey. I’ll tell the story in pictures.

When we got to Texcoco, it was too early for lunch, but that didn’t stop us spending some time in the market sampling the local cuisine, as the quesadillas there are famous. This lady certainly made us some great ones. Note the two types of maize she’s using.

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Continue reading “A maize tour”

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Domesticated ants?

This I’d like to see. A television documentary depicts in loving detail a battle between red driver ants and termites. The amazing part: the driver ants are under the “control” of the Mofu people of northern Cameroon, who use the ants to protect their houses and harvests. Read all about it at The Ant Room. Better yet, watch the TV show and tell us more.

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Do we need a scientific society for agricultural biodiversity?

SIRGEALC ended on Friday with a call for the establishment of a Latin American Society for Genetic Resources. Similar things have been suggested before, to no avail. The SAT21 conference recommended that an international society be set up, for example. That was seven years ago and I don´t think there´s been much talk about it since. What do you think? Do we need another scientific society?

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Credit where credit is due

The latest Oekologie carnival is up over at 10,000 birds, and I’m here to state that although I submitted the article featured, I did not, as Mike suggests, write it. That was Jacob van Etten, and I hope he’ll submit another guest post soon.

The Oekologie carnival has its usual fascinating bunch of links to stories of potential interest. One in particular that took my fancy was an account of water wars in the south. The south of the United States, that is, where you would think that they would be better prepared. They’re not. As Jennifer at The Infinite Sphere writes:

As a result of the merging of a bad drought, a population explosion in the Atlanta metro area, a lack of planning to accompany said population explosion, lack of any kind of plan to deal with a severe drought, and pretty much no water conservation incentives at a state or local level. As a result, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida are now duking it out over a watershed (Chattahoochee/ Flint/ Apalachicola Rivers) spread over the three states. It’s gotten so bad that the Georgia aquarium, home to the largest aquarium tank in the country, has drained several aquariums to save water (I would assume the water is now being used for some beneficial purpose).

Phew! There’s not a whole heap in there directly about farming, but it does indicate just how complex water management can be.