CfP: The history of crop science and the future of food
Since the turn of the twentieth century, crop
science has pushed agricultural productivity to unprecedented levels, while
expanding production frontiers worldwide. These achievements have been widely
celebrated for averting famine and sustaining economic development even as
global population expanded dramatically.
However, a dominant narrative of science-driven
agricultural growth over this period has at times obscured the persistence of
hunger, emergence of environmental problems, and contributions of scientific
research and technological interventions to inequality despite the best
intentions of those working in crop science and related fields. Historical
accounts of agricultural change have been crucial in forging new understandings
of the (uneven) contributions of crop science to sustaining human communities
and cultures at local, regional, and global scales.
This special issue of Plants, People,
Planet will bring new voices and perspectives to the ongoing project
of understanding the history of agricultural science and development, with the
goal of better informing research and policy of the present and future.
Contributions will offer historically informed
accounts that chart how and with what consequences various kinds of knowledge,
labour, techniques and tools within crop science and allied fields were used to
advance agricultural production in specific times and places. They will reflect
especially on how historical perspectives help us to understand the
relationships among crop science, environmental change, food security and,
ultimately, human well-being.
In bringing together geographically diverse and
historically rich perspectives, the special issue will seek to offer new
insights into the changing role of plant scientists and other researchers in
shaping the conservation, utilization and cultivation of diverse crop varieties
and communities’ experiences of food security and sovereignty – during a period
in which scientists aimed to address these as increasingly pressing, and
increasingly global, concerns.
We welcome contributions that adopt historical
methods and materials to explore the development of crop science and allied
fields in the period since 1900 and assess the contributions of crop science
knowledge, labour, tools or techniques to social, agricultural, or
environmental change in particular times and places. We are particularly
interested in archive-based case studies and studies that highlight the voices
and contributions of figures marginalised or missing in existing studies.
Contributions may include (but are not limited
to) historical accounts of:
- The
knowledge, labour, tool and/or techniques imagined or used as means of
creating or disseminating new crop varieties
- The
development of specific commodities or crop varieties
- The
development of particular institutions or programmes for crop science
- The role
of the state, economy and society in shaping research programmes
- The
effect of conflict or (post)colonial conditions on crop selection and
production
Please submit your manuscript by 31 March 2023.
Contact the Editorial Office if you have any questions,
or a potential manuscript that you would like to discuss.