TY - JOUR
T1 - The Faustian Bargain of Tropical Soybean Production
AU - Goldsmith, Peter
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - I use three case studies in this essay to show that policies promoting commercial soy production in the tropics involve a Faustian Bargain. Faustian Bargains, strictly defined, comprise a conflict one faces when a decision-maker trades one’s ‘‘soul’’ for greater knowledge. Applied more liberally in the context of soybean development, commercial crop technologies, like soybean, offer the potential for improved labor productivity over traditional staples, and as a result, they can provide a pathway out of poverty traps. However, they also may cause considerable changes to traditional norms, cultivation practices, market relationships, natural resources, and the natural environment, hence, the Faustian Bargain. Relevant to this special issue of Tropical Conservation Science, the three case study examples demonstrate how and why commercial crop production requires a shift to intensive input usage. Thus, promoting commercial crops means introducing chemical fertilizers and herbicides into environments where heretofore traditional methods involved little or no inputs other than labor. The Faustian framework involves the tradeoff between potentially greater economic opportunities, but at a cost to traditional norms, practices, and potentially the natural environment.
AB - I use three case studies in this essay to show that policies promoting commercial soy production in the tropics involve a Faustian Bargain. Faustian Bargains, strictly defined, comprise a conflict one faces when a decision-maker trades one’s ‘‘soul’’ for greater knowledge. Applied more liberally in the context of soybean development, commercial crop technologies, like soybean, offer the potential for improved labor productivity over traditional staples, and as a result, they can provide a pathway out of poverty traps. However, they also may cause considerable changes to traditional norms, cultivation practices, market relationships, natural resources, and the natural environment, hence, the Faustian Bargain. Relevant to this special issue of Tropical Conservation Science, the three case study examples demonstrate how and why commercial crop production requires a shift to intensive input usage. Thus, promoting commercial crops means introducing chemical fertilizers and herbicides into environments where heretofore traditional methods involved little or no inputs other than labor. The Faustian framework involves the tradeoff between potentially greater economic opportunities, but at a cost to traditional norms, practices, and potentially the natural environment.
KW - bargain
KW - commercial
KW - faustian
KW - soybean
KW - tropical
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U2 - 10.1177/1940082917723892
DO - 10.1177/1940082917723892
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85065204680
SN - 1940-0829
VL - 10
SP - 1
EP - 4
JO - Tropical Conservation Science
JF - Tropical Conservation Science
ER -