Hydroponic Capital: Socionatural Innovation and the Intensification of Glasshouse Agrifood Production

IF 7.2 1区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economic Geography Pub Date : 2023-04-21 DOI:10.1080/00130095.2023.2196004

Adrian Smith

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract This article develops the concept of hydroponic capital in order to explain the emergence of socionatural innovations aiming to enhance food security and production efficiencies in glasshouse agrifood production clusters. It does so through an archaeology of the knowledge regimes involved in technology innovations and examines the regionalized and transnational networks of crop scientists, growers, and extension workers involved. How hydroponics resulted in an intensification of the circulation time for capital and a reduction in the scale and costs of labor inputs is explained. In doing so, advances in economic geographic understanding of innovation through an engagement with agrarian political economy and political ecological debates to explain how hydroponic capital developed through the combination of different innovatory knowledges seeking to grapple with plant pathologies and cropping systems across regionalized networks of actors are discussed. Hydroponics was a way for growers to overcome biophysical barriers to production and labor rationalization problems. The article combines an understanding of the dynamics of labor and capital in agrarian systems, since they struggle with crop biophysicality, with the granular processes of knowledge deployment by which innovation takes place to overcome these biophysical barriers in agrifood supply chains. Unlike much existing innovation research focusing on the combination of different knowledge bases, why different forms of innovation knowledge were combined to overcome biophysical barriers in agrifood innovation is explained.

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水培资本:社会自然创新与温室农业粮食生产集约化

摘要本文发展了水培资本的概念，以解释旨在提高温室农业食品生产集群粮食安全和生产效率的社会自然创新的出现。它通过对技术创新所涉及的知识制度进行考古研究，并检查所涉及的作物科学家、种植者和推广人员的区域化和跨国网络。解释了水培法如何缩短了资本的流通时间，减少了劳动力投入的规模和成本。在此过程中，通过参与农业政治经济学和政治生态辩论来解释水培资本是如何通过不同创新知识的结合来发展的，这些创新知识试图解决植物病害和跨区域行动者网络的种植制度。水培法是种植者克服生产生物物理障碍和劳动力合理化问题的一种方法。本文结合了对农业系统中劳动力和资本动态的理解，因为它们与作物生物物理性作斗争，以及知识部署的粒状过程，通过这种过程进行创新，以克服农业食品供应链中的这些生物物理障碍。不同于许多现有的创新研究侧重于不同知识基础的结合，本文解释了为什么不同形式的创新知识被结合起来以克服农业食品创新中的生物物理障碍。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Economic Geography Multiple-

CiteScore

9.70

自引率

2.90%

发文量

期刊介绍： Economic Geography is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing original research that advances the field of economic geography. Their goal is to publish high-quality studies that are both theoretically robust and grounded in empirical evidence, contributing to our understanding of the geographic factors and consequences of economic processes. It welcome submissions on a wide range of topics that provide primary evidence for significant theoretical interventions, offering key insights into important economic, social, development, and environmental issues. To ensure the highest quality publications, all submissions undergo a rigorous peer-review process with at least three external referees and an editor. Economic Geography has been owned by Clark University since 1925 and plays a central role in supporting the global activities of the field, providing publications and other forms of scholarly support. The journal is published five times a year in January, March, June, August, and November.