Patrick Baur

PhD Student

Education

A.B. in  Environmental Science and Public Policy,  Harvard University, 2007.

Research Interests

Science and Technology Studies (STS), Political Ecology, Public Policy || Agriculture and food systems, Diversified farming systems, Food justice, Politics of technological change and development, Collective knowledge production, Science and democracy, Sustainability, efficiency, and other normative frameworks for socio-environmental governance

Research Description

Equitable and Sustainable Food Systems

The great success story of American agriculture in the 20th century was increasing productivity. The industrialization of agriculture through mechanization, technological innovation, and consolidation allowed massive yield increases with less labor such that today farmers account for less than 2% of the U.S. population, yet produce food so cheaply that on average Americans spend less of the their income on food than any other country in the world. This fact is even more impressive given the rapidity with which we have reach this state. As little as a century ago, synthetic fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides, intensive monocropping , hybridization and genetic modification of crop genomes - all precursors to and lasting legacies of the Green Revolution - had not yet entered the agricultural sphere. The transformation of whole food systems by these technological advances and their complementary organizational innovations has been hailed as one of humanity's great achievements, an unprecedented explosion in agricultural yield to feed not just America, but the entire world.

Despite apparent success, however, it is becomingly increasingly apparent that the industrialization of agriculture has not come without cost. The modern American food chain degrades the environment, wastes fresh water at an unsustainable rate, encourages obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and social isolation, contributes to global climate change, condones cruelty toward animals, requires government subsidies to survive, and inequitably distributes nutritious food and profits while concentrating the burden of harm amongst vulnerable and disenfranchised populations. Now, more than ever before, the time has come to ask critically whether this intense focus on high yield and cheap food through increasingly industrialized systems is capable of meeting our needs, both biologically and socially, in a sustainable and just manner. Where does our food system succeed, where and whom does it fail, and why? Can these failures be reversed, or are they endemic to the system? In other words, can we reform the industrial food chain, or has the time come for a paradigm shift to an alternative food system?

Current Research Topics

Mechanization and Automation in Agriculture

• What sorts of organizational structures (e.g. corporate agribusiness, family farms) have been co-produced along with technological development in US agriculture, specifically labor-saving mechanization and automation on the farm and in processing?
• Under what (institutional, political, epistemic, economic) conditions can technological change promote organic agriculture? Sustainable agriculture? Local agriculture? Just agriculture?

Social Movements and Agri-Food Systems

• Can recent social trends in agriculture and food -- such as organic, local, sustainable, slow -- be construed as social movements?
• If so, what sorts of cognitive spaces have these movements opened up, what sorts of new knowledges and technologies have they enabled, and in what ways have they affected institutional structure and policy?

Research and Development in Agri-Food Systems

• What research gaps exist with regard to US agri-food systems, and what is the nature of those gaps?
• Under what context have gaps emerged, and why has R&D progressed rapidly in some areas, such as genetic modification, and lagged in gap areas?

 

Selected Publications

Baur, P. Rethinking Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Huilliche Communities and Alerce Forests in Southern Chile. 2011. Lambert Academic Publishing: Saarbrücken, Germany.

Cropper, M., Y. Jiang, A. Alberini, P. Baur. 2010. Getting Cars Off the Road: The Cost-Effectiveness of an Episodic Pollution Control Program. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 15904.

Honors and Awards

Graduate Research Fellowship - National Science Foundation - 2012

Graduate Division Summer Grant - UC Berkeley Graduate Division - 2011, 2012

James A. Buchanan Scholarship - UC Berkeley - 2010

Recent Teaching

Graduate Student Instructor for ESPM 102D AC - Resource and Environmental Policy - Spring 2012

Designated Emphasis - Science and Technology Studies