From Farming to Biotechnology

This book provides an interpretation of the industrialization of agriculture, and proposes a new analytical framework for interpreting this transformation and the development of the contemporary food system. This analytical framework provides a critique of agricultural modernisation theories, while the authors introduce new concepts of "appropriationism" and "substitutionism" to propose an interpretation which overcomes the invitations of traditional approaches. The authors use this new theoretical framework to reconstruct the evolution of agricultural industrialization since the mid-19th century and to reinterpret the dynamics of social structures, the state and technology in shaping the modern food system.