New aesthetic regimes: The shifting global political ecology of aroma hops

Climate-induced decline in the quality and quantity of European hops calls for immediate adaptation measures

“…Amplified by the ongoing craft beer popularity 13 , this trend contrasts with previous demands for lower alpha content 14 . The recent craft beer expansion therefore not only triggered new microbreweries but also boosted the demand for aromatic hops globally 15 , 16 . Although linkages between hop production and climate variation have been reported at local to regional scales 9 , 10 , 17 – 27 , relatively little is known about the possible, direct and indirect, effects of a predicted warmer and drier climate on the yield and alpha content of hops.…”

The relational agency of plants in produce supply chains during COVID-19: “Mother nature takes her course”

“…This research problem is nested in the larger question of how nonhuman actors are accounted for in food system supply chains, and builds on the work of others in exploring the role of nonhumans in agri-food networks ( Bonnaud and Anzalone, 2021 ; Brice, 2014 ; Chao, 2018 ; Duggan and Peeren, 2020 ; Dwiartama, 2017 ; Eriksson and Bull, 2017 ; Fleming, 2017 ; Heron et al, 2016 ; O. Jones, 2006 ; K. Legun et al, 2022 ; K. Legun and Henry, 2017 ; Lendvay, 2021 ; Phillips, 2014 ), for other commodities (such as cork Brooks and Francis, 2020 ) and wool (L. Jones et al, 2019 ). A posthumanist lens makes visible the agentic capacities of nonhumans and I argue that plants, along with what participants call ‘nature,’ played a key role in keeping produce supply chains moving at the Terminal.…”

Farmers who tinker: Grounded alternatives to incrementalism and the growth imperative

“…This change has also had impacts on an industry that was previously dominated by small, low‐earning farms obliged to sell on the global commodity market. While this new arrangement has many benefits, hop farmers’ innovation show that farmer‐directed involvement does not contravene many of the problematics involved in the neoliberal marketplace; most notably, farmer innovation in hop growing has exaggerated the already‐dominant growth imperative in Amer‐European agriculture (Legun et al., 2022).…”

“…Large hop farmers in the US have altered global hoping growing practices. Yakima Valley growers have concentrated not just on the acreage of their farms but have also tended towards vertical integration—with many growers having ownership stakes in hop breeding or hop merchant companies (Comi, 2020b; Legun et al., 2022). This allows these large farmers to exert a remarkable amount of power over the hop material that gets selected at the research and development stage alongside the eventual hop flowers that are selected at the brewer side.…”