Cooperation or cooptation: A southwest French wine cooperative

Conclusion Cooperatives, with respect to the history of wine production in the southwest of France, require that they be graced as the outcome of the transformation from the era of captitalist markets to the era where the capitalist mode of production became dominant—a transformation marked by the creation of a market in labor as predominant among winegrowers. As Marx showed through his many works on the development of capitalism, the translation of market exchanges into a quantifiable economic entity only serves to mask the social relations on which it is based. It was therefore my intent in the first part of this essay to highlight, if only suggestively, the process that led to expanded commercialization of wine in the Aquitaine and the deployment of a specific system of labor. Although wine proprietors and growers were divided by social class early on, the market in labor matured slowly, especially in the sector of the production of table wines. The market in labor among winegrowers followed from the appearance of the grand crus in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and from the social consequences that ensued from the phylloxera in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The grand crus ushered in new specialized labor while the phylloxera intensified this process by turning wealthy merchants and large proprietors towards the volume production of table wines, thus usurping the last vestige of the small independent producer.Markets were not left to follow their own telos as the state played a central mediative role in creating legislation that both encouraged and pressured small independent producers to collectivize their resources in vinification cooperatives. This was not a conspiracy of the state legislature against the excesses of production on the part of the small producers. Wine cooperative legislature was an attempt on the part of the state legislature to resolve the periodic crises in viticulture caused by overproduction and to implement a long overdo agricultural policy The problems faced by the Sigouls Cooperative today are largely a product of the past history of wine production in the southwest of France. Currently, seventy-five percent of the Cooperative's plantation is in white wines. The high plantation in white wines reflects northern European preferences that are traceable to the sixteenth century and earlier. More recently, in France and elsewhere, there has been a gradual shift in consumer preferences from white to red wines. Consumer preferences in part can be attributed to the vicissitudes of taste. However, one must not overlook concerted efforts through advertising to shape consumer taste. Recently, the best known example is the enthusiasm for Beaujolais Nouveau cultivated through clever advertising in major urban centers such as Paris and New York. Since wine cooperatives have not had sufficient capital to invest in advertising and promotion to establish trends, they have had to settle for keeping pace with new developments. Although Sigouls has exceeded its neighboring cooperative, Monbazillac, in keeping pace with the latest trend, it must be recognized that it requires at least five years for a red wine stock such as merlot to mature after plantation.Although wine cooperatives can be seen as assimilatory institution in that they have served the absorption of small independent producers of wine into the capitalist mode of production, it should be recognized equally that wine cooperatives have been the only means available to small producers for continuing the cultivation of their vineyards given the constraints of capitalist social relations. With this in mind, one must avoid the conclusion that wine cooperatives are simply an instrument of the capitalist mode of production, French legislature, the ruling class and nothing else. Although the political motives that led some of the Sigouls Cooperative's early members to pool their vinification and marketing resources have given way to pragmatics, or as my informants related la rentabilité (profitability), the Cooperative has preserved, albeit in a transformed medium, an ageold meaningful livelihood, a sense of local pride in the production of wine, and some sense of independence from the fate of wage labor.Robert Ulin is Professor of Sociology & Anthropology, Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa.

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Aspects of the political economy of development and synthetic biology

What implications might synthetic biology’s potential as a wholly new method of production have for the world economy, particularly developing countries? Theories of political economy predict that synthetic biology can shift terms of trade and displace producers in developing countries. Governments, however, retain the ability to mitigate negative changes through social safety nets and to foster adaptation to some changes through research, education and investment. We consider the effects the synthetic production of otherwise naturally derived molecules are likely to have on trade and investment, particularly in developing countries. Both rubber in Malaysia and indigo dyes in India provide historical examples of natural molecules that faced market dislocations from synthetic competitors. Natural rubber was able to maintain significant market share, while natural indigo vanished from world markets. These cases demonstrate the two extremes of the impact synthetic biology might have on naturally derived products. If developing countries can cushion the pain of technological changes by providing producers support as they retool or exit, the harmful effects of synthetic biology can be mitigated while its benefits can still be captured.     

The global economic costs of substituting dietary protein from fish with meat,grains and legumes,and dairy

This paper estimates the costs to replace fish by protein from meat, from grains and legumes, or from dairy products. We apply the World Trade Model, an input–output model of the interactions among major world regions based on comparative advantage, to analyze alternative scenarios about protein content and sources in global diets. We find that the substitution of fish by meat or dairy entails several trillion U.S. dollars of additional costs annually, corresponding to increased use of pastureland, cropland, water, and other factors of production. The price of animal products increases steeply as higher‐cost producers need to come online, yielding rents to owners of scarce resources. By contrast, the global economy adjusts at significantly lower costs to the substitution of fish by grains and legumes, but this dietary shift involves substantial modification in the mix of agricultural output and its geographic distribution. There have been few analytic studies able to associate costs and prices directly with specific combinations of dietary options. We provide a flexible economic framework for analyzing alternative scenarios about the present and future production of food. The focus on the provision of protein for the human diet, allowing for substitutions between land‐based and aquatic sources, lays the groundwork for subsequent closer examinations of the potential future contribution of aquaculture and, in a yet broader framework, the impact of the coming generation of large dams on fish habitat and freshwater ecosystems more generally.     

生态系统服务对人类福祉的影响——以浙江省桐庐县为例

近年来,生态系统变化与人类福祉间的关系成为生态学领域的研究热点。基于桐庐县农业生产及土地利用情况,采用谢高地提出的生态系统服务价值当量表,对其进行了较有针对性地修正,据此计算桐庐县生态系统服务价值,以HDI(人类发展指数,Human Development Index)作为衡量人类福祉的指标,最后分析两者之间的相关关系,以探究生态系统服务对人类福祉的影响。研究结果显示:2005—2008年,生态系统服务价值平均每年减少0.157%,2009—2014年生态系统服务价值平均每年减少0.0948%,且两个时期的生态系统服务价值减少速率均都呈现逐年减少的趋势。人类发展指数一直在升高,其中2006年增长最多,达3.15%,2013年最少仅为0.64%,其中教育、预期寿命和经济这3个维度中经济指数增长最快,发展势头最为明显。但总体看来,2005—2014年期间桐庐县HDI的增长速度在不断减缓。表明桐庐县经济发展势头迅猛,经济社会快速发展。因此构成HDI的经济指标增长比较显著,从而促使HDI逐年增长。但随着桐庐县各行业用地需求不断增大,可耕作和建设的土地资源更加紧缺,保护与建设耕地难度越来越大,以致生态系统服务价值进一步缩减。生态系统服务价值与HDI及构成HDI的经济指数都呈现负相关关系,其中2005—2008年在控制经济指数的情况下,各项生态系统服务价值与教育指数均呈现显著正相关关系,随着生态系统服务价值的减少,HDI的增长速率不断降低。表明经济因素的高度发达,在一定程度上减缓了生态系统服务价值减少对人类福祉的负面影响,且生态系统服务对人类福祉的影响具有一定的滞后性。在特定的社会经济条件下,生态系统服务价值与教育会产生积极的相互作用。根据变化趋势,随着生态系统服务价值不断减少,人类福祉最终还是会受到负面影响。     

A working-class profession: opportunism and diversity in U.S. law

Experts of capitalist labor and economy have called white-collar professionals a “re-embedded market” inasmuch as they defy expectations that free-market economic life should be liberated from social and moral constraints. In the USA, lawyers, a historically middle-class community, have re-embedded their profession through robust ethics rules that prohibit opportunistic behavior. But, in recent years, they have seen increased opportunism by legal academics toward aspiring students eager for a chance at professional upward mobility. This shift has manifested in the increased recruitment of working-class students into low-value law schools struggling to fill their seats after the global economic downturn. As legal education grew more accessible to the working class, it grew increasingly detached from the morally grounded economic judgment that once characterized professionalism. From this example, I argue that the embeddedness of professional labor may be tied to socioeconomic class relations more than advanced knowledge and the informational asymmetries that entails.     

Evaluation of water footprint and economic water productivities of dairy products of South Africa

Assessment of water footprint sustainability indicators and economic water productivities is regarded as a cornerstone of the world’s sustainability goal and the reduction of the fresh water scarcity risk. These assessments are gaining much prominence because about four billion people face severe water scarcity, globally. Attaining sustainable and economically efficient water use goals requires a thorough assessment of all the existing sectors that use water. This paper examined the water footprint and economic water productivities of dairy products in South Africa for the periods 1996–2005 and 2006–2013 using the water footprint network assessment methodology. We found the total water footprints of all the selected dairy products in South Africa to be higher than the global averages are. During the period of 1996–2005, South African dairy producers utilized more green water in their dairy production. The production of butter and cheese products, whether grated or not grated, powdered or not powdered, blue-veined and cheese of all kinds had the highest total water footprints among all the dairy products in South Africa. Dairy production under a sole grazing system has high water footprints and low economic water productivities, relative to mixed production systems, for the period 2006–2013. With blue water becoming scarcer in South Africa, it is time for dairy livestock producers to shift their production to a system that is highly productive and has low water footprints. The water footprints of most of the dairy products for period 2006–2013 have reduced by varying amounts, relative to 1996–2005, which shows that water users along the dairy industry chains are managing water cautiously. Our findings have revealed dairy products that have high economic water productivities, and suggest that profit maximising and environmentally sustainable dairy producers and water users should integrate both blue water sustainability and economic water productivity indicators in their production decisions.     

Whatever happened to economic anthropology?1

In the 1970s, economic anthropology, along with kinship and ecological anthropology, was regarded as a core discipline in the teaching of anthropology. The centrality of all these subjects was reflected in the debates of the time. For economic anthropology, understanding the articulation of modes of production was the problem; the holy trinity—tribe, peasant, capitalist—provided the key terms of the debate. These terms, and this problem, are history. The discipline of anthropology has been de‐cored over the past 30 years: economic anthropology, kinship and ecological anthropology are not even on the agenda in many universities today (ANU included). This presents us with a paradox because these academic trends are in inverse proportion to the importance of contemporary developments in the economy, the family and ecology as global problems facing humanity. This paradox must be addressed not by arguing for a rehabilitation of the core subjects of the 1970s—those days are long gone—but by taking a critical look at the implicit theories of value that inform anthropological thinking about the economy, the family and ecology today. I shall argue that, along with neoliberalism, ‘agency’ has been the key term of the new paradigm that emerged in the 1970s, that this paradigm is about to become history and that new ways of thinking about the economy will have to emerge as we all become victims of the ‘financialisation’ of Europe, the industrialisation of Asia and the desiccation of Australia.     

Invariable biomass-specific primary production of taxonomically discrete picoeukaryote groups across the Atlantic Ocean

Oceanic photosynthetic picoeukaryotes (< 3 μm) are responsible for > 40% of total primary production at low latitudes such as the North-Eastern tropical Atlantic. In the world ocean, warmed by climate changes, the expected gradual shift towards smaller primary producers could render the role of photosynthetic picoeukaryotes even more important than they are today. Little is still known, however, about how the taxonomic composition of this highly diverse group affects primary production at the basin scale. Here, we combined flow cytometric cell sorting, NaH1?CO? radiotracer incubations and class-specific fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) probes to determine cell- and biomass-specific inorganic carbon fixation rates and taxonomic composition of two major photosynthetic picoeukaryote groups on a ～7500-km-long latitudinal transect across the Atlantic Ocean (Atlantic Meridional Transect, AMT19). We show that even though larger cells have, on average, cell-specific CO? uptake rates ～5 times higher than the smaller ones, the average biomass-specific uptake is statistically similar for both groups. On the other hand, even at a high taxonomic level, i.e. class, the contributions to both groups by Prymnesiophyceae, Chrysophyceae and Pelagophyceae are significantly different (P < 0.001 in all cases). We therefore conclude that these group's carbon fixation rates are independent of the taxonomic composition of photosynthetic picoeukaryotes across the Atlantic Ocean. Because the above applies across different oceanic regions the diversity changes seem to be a secondary factor determining primary production.     

‘The complexity of an enduring relationship’: gender,generation, and the moral economy of the Gambian Mandinka household

This article examines the moral economy of the Gambian Mandinka household, focusing on girls' labour contributions in the time of neoliberalism. Scholarship on the moral economy of the household within rural production systems reduces the term to altruism and harmony within the domestic unit. This article provides a more theoretically nuanced understanding of the moral economy of the household, with a focus on the cultural codes that underpin intra‐household relations, the inter‐generational contract, as well as the generational and gendered hierarchies that inform processes of negotiation in relation to labour contributions. Transitions in the moral economy of the household can be captured in the shifting nature of girls' labour contributions and in their changing attitudes towards these contributions. Interpretations of work obligations are increasingly framed in terms of exchanges and incentives. Further, girls aspire to get an education and a good job, or marry well in order to move out of farming. Such novel interpretations and practices recast the moral economy of the household as dynamic and subject to change. These ethnographic insights have relevance for the anthropological study of children's labour, intra‐household relations, and the moral economy of the household.     

Meeting the consumer challenge through genetically customized wine-yeast strains

Wine producers are facing intensifying competition brought about by a widening gap between wine production and wine consumption, a shift of consumer preferences away from basic commodity wine to top quality wine, and economic globalization. Consequently, they are calling for a total revolution in the 'magical' world of wine. The process of transforming the wine industry from a production- to a market-orientated industry results in an increasing dependence on, amongst others, biotechnological innovation. Market-orientated wine-yeast strains are currently being developed for the cost-competitive production of wine with minimized resource inputs, improved quality and low environmental impact. The emphasis is on the development of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains with improved fermentation, processing and biopreservation abilities, and capacities for an increase in the wholesomeness and sensory quality of wine.     

Evaluating Local Crop Residue Biomass Supply: Economic and Environmental Impacts

The increasing interest in energy production from biomass requires a better understanding of potential local production and environmental impacts. This information is needed by local producers, biomass industry, and other stakeholders, and for larger scale analyses. This study models biomass production decisions at the field level using a case example of a biomass gasification facility constructed at the University of Minnesota??Morris (UMM). This institutional-scale application has an anticipated feedstock demand of about 8,000?Mg?year^?1. The model includes spatial impacts due to sub-field variation in soil characteristics and transportation costs. Results show that the amount of biomass producers could profitably supply within a 32.2-km radius of UMM increases as plant-gate biomass price increases from $59 to $84?Mg^?1, with 588,000?Mg annual biomass supply at $84?Mg^?1. Results also show that the most profitable tillage and crop rotation practices shift in response to increasing biomass price with producers shifting from a corn-soybean rotation toward continuous corn. While biomass harvest is conducive to increased soil erosion rates and reduced soil organic carbon levels, changes in crop production practices are shown to at least partially offset these impacts. Transportation costs tend to concentrate and intensify biomass production near the biomass facility, which also tends to concentrate environmental impacts near the facility.     

Circular economy innovations,growth and employment at the firm level: Empirical evidence from Germany

Circular economy (CE) describes a concept that aims at saving resources by minimizing the use of material and energy over the entire life‐cycle of products, including production and repair, as well as reuse and recycling. CE innovations help to realize the goals of sustainable development by targeting environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability. This paper looks at the economic and social dimensions by investigating whether firms with CE innovations perform better or worse in terms of sales growth and employment. Our econometric analysis uses data from two waves of the German part of the Community Innovation Survey. Quantile regressions show that CE innovations are positively linked to turnover and employment growth. While there is no statistically significant impact on labor productivity, at the same time, firms with CE innovations show a significantly better financial standing.     

基于辐热积法模拟烤烟叶面积与烟叶干物质产量

烟叶叶面积增长与干物质累积是烤烟产量形成的主要部分,对品质的形成也有影响。本研究根据气温和光照对烤烟叶片生长和干物质累积的影响,基于辐热积理论建立了适用于不同烟区的烤烟叶面积模型和干物质累积模型,分别使用独立的试验数据建模及对模型进行检验,再通过多年次烟叶干重试验数据对模型进行检验。结果表明,与传统的预测方法相比,用辐热积模型获得的叶面积模拟值与实测值间1:1线的决定系数（R2）和RMSE值为0.9634和0.1653 m2/株,预测精度比SLA法和GDD法分别提高了93%和82%。模型对叶干重模拟的RMSE值为27.1 g/m2,用历年玉溪试验数据检验的RE值为24.5%,说明模型的拟合度和可靠性较好。本研究所建立的模型能够利用气温、日照等常规气象观测数据,动态预测烤烟叶面积增长和干物质累积,且模型参数少,符合度好,实用性强,可以为烤烟生产中的产量预测提供理论依据和决策支持。     

Agent-Based Mapping of Credit Risk for Sustainable Microfinance

By drawing analogies with independent research areas, we propose an unorthodox framework for mapping microfinance credit risk---a major obstacle to the sustainability of lenders outreaching to the poor. Specifically, using the elements of network theory, we constructed an agent-based model that obeys the stylized rules of microfinance industry. We found that in a deteriorating economic environment confounded with adverse selection, a form of latent moral hazard may cause a regime shift from a high to a low loan payment probability. An after-the-fact recovery, when possible, required the economic environment to improve beyond that which led to the shift in the first place. These findings suggest a small set of measurable quantities for mapping microfinance credit risk and, consequently, for balancing the requirements to reasonably price loans and to operate on a fully self-financed basis. We illustrate how the proposed mapping works using a 10-year monthly data set from one of the best-known microfinance representatives, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Finally, we discuss an entirely new perspective for managing microfinance credit risk based on enticing spontaneous cooperation by building social capital.     

Tobacco talk: reflections on corporate power and the legal framing of consumption

This article examines how North Carolina tobacco farmers think about the moral ambiguities of tobacco business. Drawing on ethnographic research with tobacco farmers and archival research on the tobacco industry, I specify the core psychological defense mechanisms that tobacco companies have crafted for people associated with the industry. I also document local social, cultural, and economic factors in rural North Carolina that underpin ongoing rural dependence on tobacco despite the negativity that surrounds tobacco and structural adjustments. This article contributes to our knowledge about tobacco farmers and tobacco farming communities, which is important for tobacco-control strategies. I reflect on ethical and economic paradoxes related to the rise of corporate social responsibility in the tobacco industry, where an official legal framing of consumption, focused on informed adult consumer autonomy and health education, is promoted to undermine more robust public health prevention efforts.     

Expression of the major mugwort pollen allergen Art v 1 in tobacco plants and cell cultures: problems and perspectives for allergen production in plants

An economic and cheap production of large amounts of recombinant allergenic proteins might become a prerequisite for the common use of microarray-based diagnostic allergy assays which allow a component-specific diagnosis. A molecular pharming strategy was applied to express the major allergen of Artemisia vulgaris pollen, Art v 1, in tobacco plants and tobacco cell cultures. The original Art v 1 with its endogenous signal peptide which directs Art v 1 to the secretory pathway, was expressed in transiently transformed tobacco leaves but was lost in stable transformed tobacco plants during the alternation of generations. Using a light-regulated promoter and “hiding” the recombinant Art v 1 in the ER succeeded in expression of Art v 1 over three generations of tobacco plants and in cell cultures generated from stable transformed plants. However, the amounts of the recombinant allergen were sufficient for analysis but not high enough to allow an economic production. Although molecular pharming has been shown to work well for the production of non-plant therapeutic proteins, it might be less efficient for closely related plant proteins.     

A Preliminary Cross-Cultural Study of Moral Intuitions

Hypothetical moral dilemmas have been used to explore the nature of moral intuitions that may reflect a universal moral belief system. Several dimensions have been identified empirically that are important to the resolution of these hypothetical moral dilemmas. These dimensions are unrelated to gender, ethnicity, or other factors that might be expected to influence individuals’ moral intuitions. We explored the generality of these findings by presenting hypothetical dilemmas to a sample of Taiwanese students attending National Taiwan University. Their native language was Chinese, and over half of the students were affiliated with an Eastern religion. Responses to the dilemmas by the Taiwanese students were similar to the responses from several U.S. samples. The same dimensions that were important in the U.S. samples also were important in the Taiwanese sample. These findings support the argument that an evolved human nature influences the resolution of these dilemmas. These evolved tendencies would be those that would enhance inclusive fitness and increase the likelihood of reciprocal altruism and would be expected to enhance the ultimate reproductive success in the environment of evolutionary adaptation.     

Energy Efficiency and Structural Change in the Netherlands, 1980–1995

International agreement has been reached to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. One important way of decoupling CO₂ emissions from economic growth is by introducing technical measures to improve energy efficiency. In this article, we assess the influence of developments in energy efficiency and economic structure on the total primary energy consumption in the Netherlands over the period 1980– 1995. We find a distinct decoupling of the economic growth and energy consumption of 1.5% per year in the 15-year analysis period. We measure (technical) changes in energy efficiency by changes in the energy consumption per physical unit of production or activity. The aggregate rate of (technical) energy-efficiency improvement was 1.4% per year over the period 1980–1995. The use of physical production indicators makes it possible to measure energy-efficiency developments without detailed surveys at a very low level of aggregation. When we look at economic structural changes over this period, we find that (i) no substantial shift took place at the level of the economic sectors that we distinguish; (ii) the most energy intensive subsectors grew much faster than the total economy; and (iii) at the subsector level, on average, a sizable decoupling of physical production and value added occurred. We conclude that structural changes, that is, changes in the composition of the economy, did not lead to a net decrease in the energy intensity of the Netherlands over the period 1980–1995.     

Development and strategies of cell-culture technology for influenza vaccine

Influenza is a pandemic contagious disease and causes human deaths and huge economic destruction of poultry in the world. In order to control and prevent influenza, mainly type A, influenza vaccine for human and poultry were available since the 1940s and 1920s, respectively. In the development of vaccine production, influenza viruses were cultured originally from chicken embryos to anchorage-dependent cell lines, such as MDCK and Vero. The anchorage-independent lines have also been used to produce influenza virus, such as PER.C6 and engineering modified MDCK and Vero. During the process of influenza vaccine production, the common problem faced by all producers is how to improve the titer of influenza virus. This paper focuses on the developments of cell culture for influenza virus vaccine production, limitations of cell culture, and relative strategies for improvement virus yields in cell-culture systems.