GEOG 130 Chapter Notes - Chapter (Feb 21, 23): San Joaquin Valley, Wage Labour, Primitive Accumulation Of Capital
Feruary /
Kloppenburg: First the Seed – the Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology
• The introduction of plants in the US has been more than a great service, but an absolute imperative
o Jefferson believed that the object of the yeoman farmer and planter was to permanently
establish new crops of subsistence and commerce on the American landscape
• Seed distribution: public duty or private prerogative?
o The federal government was distributing seeds at a tremendous scale without charge – this
put the government in a potentially contradictory position of constraining capital
accumulation; also, it was antagonistic to the seed as a commodity form and in direct
competition with the private seed trade
• The development of hybrid corn increased corn yields
o Hybrid corn affected regions differently – there ere good areas ad poor areas
o Increasing regional specialization in corn production led farmers that survived each cycle of
the technological cycle to absorb their failed neighbors and specialize in a certain crop
o Specialization has brought corn monocultures to vast acreages
o While monoculture contributes to efficiency in farming operations, it greatly increases the
susceptibility to pests and diseases
• The market for the hybrid see was dominated by a handful of firms large enough to afford substantial
research programs
• Commentators occasionally made the point that hybrid corn constituted an American Green
Revolution
Walker: The Conquest of Bread – 150 years of Agribusiness in California
• California has grown the greatest variety of crops out of anywhere in the US
• Liestok has ofte ee treated as a sidear to CA agriulture, ut are etral to the state’s agraria
development
o Expanded markedly in the postwar era
• Farers ega ultiatig heat i the 85s to feed the iers’ taste for read
• Bay Delta axis was a region that represented a leading area of wheat, fruit, and dairy production
• Largest agricultural zone of the state is the San Joaquin Valley
• California agriculture has used hired labor since the outset of the American period
o Wage labor is fundamental to capitalist production systems
o Commodification of labor is the most basic element of primitive accumulation- involves hired
labor, one group after another, in a repetitive cycle of recruitment, employment,
exploitation, and expulsion
▪ Growers were willing to take anybody that would work in the increasingly harsh
oditios ad lo ages of the Califoria’s fields ad orhards
▪ Endless labor turaroud to ath the rotatio of the rops, rae ad ethi
rotatio
o The agricultural economy took off during and after the Civil War
▪ Due to the scarcity of laborers, farm labor was paid the highest farm wages in the
country
• Growers turned to the government for assistance in recruiting labor in wartime
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