Send message to Authors

Long abstract:

The agri-food sector is poised for a profound transformation in the upcoming decade, driven by the increasing need and urgency to achieve net zero emissions and avoid exceeding planetary boundaries in food and farming. The market is often considered a key mechanism to address planetary changes, employing various market devices to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, agricultural industries are increasingly governed by market rules, a phenomenon called 'marketisation' by scholars like Callon and MacKenzie. Recent research on the marketisation of agricultural production places significant emphasis on the performative aspect of metrics, examining how different GHGs are standardized. Critical examinations of metrics have demonstrated their role in homogenizing diverse elements, transforming soil into something calculable, visible, and tradable. However, an exclusive focus on 'metric power' often neglects the challenges that arise when these metrics are implemented. Pragmatic economists, or ‘economists in the wild,’ have enlisted various sociotechnical actors and strategies to support the existence of economic discourses, including in relation to agri-carbon markets. Drawing on fieldwork in Taiwan and supplemented by research materials from reports and workshops in the UK and Europe, we have identified two dimensions characterizing these strategies: aligning economic interests and utilizing simplified natural-based geoengineering technologies. Thus, the marketization of soil carbon represents an anthropocentric approach to using life to manage life, aiming more at generating economic interest in the soil than addressing urgent planetary crises. The latter demands a more attuned approach to soil needs and conservation instead of a short-term, metric-based approach to soil care.