The Pennsylvania State University the Graduate School College of Agricultural Sciences GREENING the FACTORY FARM
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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Agricultural Sciences GREENING THE FACTORY FARM: TOWARD A THEORY OF AGRI- ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOSCIENCE A Dissertation in Rural Sociology By Jonathan Lawrence Clark © 2010 Jonathan Lawrence Clark Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2010 The dissertation of Jonathan L. Clark was reviewed and approved* by the following: Kathryn Brasier Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Clare Hinrichs Associate Professor of Rural Sociology Carolyn Sachs Professor of Rural Sociology and Women’s Studies E. Paul Durrenberger Professor of Cultural Anthropology Richard C. Stedman Special Member Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Policy and Management Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Ann R. Tickamyer Professor of Rural Sociology Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii Abstract During the past several decades, as ecological concern about industrial agriculture has intensified, some sectors of agriculture have become subject to environmental regulations, a trend rural sociologist Fred Buttel called the environmentalization of agriculture. Although this transformation has had a crucial technoscientific dimension, and although agricultural technoscience has long been an important topic in rural sociology, rural sociologists have had little to say about the relationship between environmental regulations and agri-environmental technoscience. In this thesis I address this relatively neglected topic by examining a particular regulatory system: the nutrient management regulations that attempt to reduce nutrient runoff from industrial livestock and poultry operations. The thesis examines the regulatory science that laid the scientific foundation for the regulations as well as three techno-fixes that were developed to reduce the risk of runoff. I explain how these two types of agri-environmental technoscience have helped keep regulatory compliance costs in check, maintaining the profitability of the regulated industry and of regions as locations for it. My thesis is that agri-environmental technoscience plays a crucial role in overcoming (socio)ecological obstacles to the accumulation of capital. I also use this case study to grapple with the larger intellectual problem of how to understand the relationship among capitalism, technoscience, and nature in an era of increasing environmental concern. Focusing on one of the techno-fixes in particular, the Enviropig™, the first animal ever genetically engineered to be more “environmentally friendly,” I highlight the emergence of a striking new development in the capitalist production of nature: the reconstruction of nature––in this case, the body––as a way of overcoming (socio)ecological obstacles to capital accumulation. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES!............................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES!.........................................................viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS!................................................ix Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION!.............................................1 Chapter 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK!......................6 I. Overcoming natural obstacles to capitalist agriculture!.................6 II. Socioecological obstacles!..............................................................12 III. The role of environmental technoscience in overcoming (socio) ecological obstacles to capital accumulation.!..................................19 A. Regulatory Science!.......................................................................................19 B. Techno-fixes!..................................................................................................23 IV. The real subsumption of nature!....................................................28 Chapter 3. METHODS!....................................................35 I. Introduction!.......................................................................................35 II. Conceptual Model and Research Questions!.................................35 III. Data Collection and Analysis!.........................................................42 A. Document Collection!....................................................................................42 1. Question One! 42 2. Questions Two and Three! 43 3. Question Four! 51 B. Document Analysis!.......................................................................................52 iv IV. Plausibility!.......................................................................................54 Chapter 4. REGULATORY OBSTACLES!.......................56 I. Introduction!.......................................................................................56 II. Surplus Manure!................................................................................61 III. The Excess Manure Phosphorus Challenge Facing the U.S. Pork Sector!....................................................................................................62 IV. Follow the Phosphorus: The Ecological Consequences of Manure Disposal!...................................................................................66 V. Nutrient Management Regulations!.................................................71 VI. Conclusion!......................................................................................81 Chapter 5. AGRI-ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORY SCIENCE!.........................................................................87 I. Introduction!.......................................................................................87 II. The Bay and the first imminent manure disposal crisis!..............88 III. Nitrogen-based regulations help avert the crisis!........................93 IV. “New” science on phosphorus causes a second imminent manure disposal crisis!......................................................................108 V. Averting another regulatory crisis: the role of agri-environmental regulatory science!.............................................................................117 VI. Conclusion!....................................................................................141 Chapter 6. AGRI-ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNO-FIXES!148 I. Introduction!.....................................................................................148 II. Environmental Nutrition!................................................................152 III. Adding Microbial Phytase to Feed!...............................................161 v IV. Enviropig™!....................................................................................175 A. Introduction!..................................................................................................175 B. Technical Background on the Enviropig™!...............................................179 C. The Alleged Benefits of the Enviropig™!...................................................184 1. It"s simple.! 184 2. Feed friendly! 186 3. Regulatory friendly! 186 4. Environmentally friendly! 191 D. Will the industry adopt the Enviropig™?!..................................................206 V. Conclusion!.....................................................................................215 Chapter 7. CONCLUSION!............................................218 Appendix: Interview Guides!.......................................224 REFERENCES!..............................................................227 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 5-1: Maximum legally acceptable manure application rate with each version of the agronomic approach.........................................................................................................119 Table 5-2: Maximum legally acceptable manure application rates with environmental threshold of 200 ppm Mehlich-3 P...................................................................................................120 Table 5-3: PA P Index (Version 1) and maximum legally acceptable manure application rate...126 Table 5-4: PA P Index (Version 2) management guidance...........................................................140 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2-1: The circulation of capital..........................................................................................12 Figure 2-2: Nature and the circulation of capital.........................................................................13 Figure 2-3: Conceptual Model.....................................................................................................19 Figure 3-1: Case-specific conceptual model................................................................................39 Figure 4-1: An Integrated Agri-Food System with Cyclical P Flows..........................................66 Figure 4-2: A Disintegrated Agri-Food System with Linear P flows...........................................67 Figure 4-3: Pennsylvania’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.......................................77 Figure 4-4: Manure P minus P removal capacity of crops for Pennsylvania counties in 2002...77 Figure 4-5: Average levels of plant-available P in the soils of PA counties in 2002...................78 Figure 5-1: Phosphorus runoff.....................................................................................................103 Figure 5-2: The Critical Source Area Concept............................................................................121 Figure 6-1: Enviropigs™.............................................................................................................176