Low-Input Agriculture

Description

R.C. Smith:

"As an alternative, Robert Biel argues in The Entropy of Capitalism (2012) toward low-input accumulation regimes for food production. This low-input system, formulated in opposition to capitalism’s high-input system, recommends the transition to the use of small and medium-sized farms as well as personal and communal gardens, which he contends are “[s]urprisingly …/ more efficient than plantation agriculture”.[11] Robert King summarises Biel’s research, noting that he: “also cites the aquaponic greenhouse system technologies as another example of his proposed low-input accumulation regimes. Where the system of capital requires the high-input regimes just to reproduce itself, low-input regimes require a different set of structural supports premised on the logic of a different political economy, supports such as community-based food production divorced from all the trappings of agribusiness. The virtue of Biel’s proposal lies in the fact that low-input agriculture would provide a systemic alternative.” (http://www.heathwoodpress.com/exploring-transition-alternative-agricultural-systems-commons-labour-emancipatory-requirements/)