World food conference: A perspective

Biswas, Margaret R.; Biswas, Asit K.

doi:10.1016/0304-1131(75)90003-x

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…One should consist of measures designed to sustain land productivity or to rehabilitate degraded lands, while the other should be concerned with the commitment of the people who live on vulnerable lands and who will determine the success or failure of efforts to combat desertification. The present Conference, together with previous ones dealing with Food (Biswas & Biswas, 1975); Population (Biswas & Biswas, 1974); Water (Biswas, 1977), and Human Settlements (Biswas, 1978), form a series of meetings concerned with global problems whose solution by the cooperative effort of the world community is urgently required.…”

Section: Conference Issuesmentioning

confidence: 96%

U.N. Conference on Desertification, in Retrospect

Biswas

1978

Envir. Conserv.

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The United Nations Conference on Desertification was the first occasion on which the nations of the world turned their concerted attention to the need for a comprehensive plan to halt and reverse desertification. The global annual loss to desertification is in the order of 60,000 km2. It is Man's action that degrades the land by misuse as he seeks to wrest a living from fragile ecosystems. A change to a more arid climate could be another cause, but no firm evidence is available that the climate is so changing. The Conference concluded that both the causes of desertification and the technical solutions to combating it are known. The key to combative measures is to be found in proper land-use. If desertification is to be brought to a halt by the end of the century, considerable financial resources will, however, be necessary.The paper includes a comprehensive summary of the unpublished statements of the various national governments and some international agencies regarding their problems, an analysis of the findings of the Conference, and a brief discussion of action taken since its conclusion.

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Section: Conference Issuesmentioning

confidence: 96%

U.N. Conference on Desertification, in Retrospect

Biswas

1978

Envir. Conserv.

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“…Food security was conceptualised in terms o f national self-sufficiency in poor countries (Biswas and Biswas, 1975), and for many rich countries nuclear strategy was understood as a problem o f ensuring national safety in face o f nuclear proliferation (Wilcox, 1972). The distribution o f well-being in India after its independence in 1947 was profoundly shaped, in the first place, by a system o f land reform (Besley and Burgess, 2000) and then by the so-called Green Revolution (Frankel, 1971).…”

Section: The Geopolitics Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

“…While "state-phobia" (Foucault, 2008, page 76) is an interesting matter, the threat of nuclear war and the structural violence of poverty seem more urgent causes of vital insecurity; each was seen as a security issue at the time, and they profoundly shaped systems of government in rich and poor countries alike. Food security was conceptualised in terms of national self-sufficiency in poor countries (Biswas and Biswas, 1975), and for many rich countries nuclear strategy was understood as a problem of ensuring national safety in face of nuclear proliferation (Wilcox, 1972). The distribution of well-being in India after its independence in 1947 was profoundly shaped, in the first place, by a system of land reform (Besley and Burgess, 2000) and then by the so-called Green Revolution (Frankel, 1971).…”

Section: The Geopolitics Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

Governing Vitalities and the Security State

Kearns

2014

Environ Plan D

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In the lectures on Security, Territory, Population, his account of the consolidation of what he called the Security State, Michel Foucault emphasized the ways that a new articulation of biopolitics and governmentality altered the relations between population and territory (Foucault, 2007; Elden, 2007; Legg, 2005; 2011; Nally, 2011).1 Indeed, for Foucault these new relations were in part constitutive of modern notions of state and people, such that, and again in part, a state effect is something produced by the strategies of biopolitics and governmentality. As always with Foucault, a historical argument was made for a political purpose. In order to attend to something contingent in the present, Foucault characteristically illustrated the conditions of its emergence, an intellectual strategy described by Mitchell Dean as making critical and effective histories (Dean, 1994; Kearns, 2007). In broad terms, Foucault highlighted a shift from territory to population, from sovereignty to security, as a focus for the arts of government. For Foucault, the monarch's concern with sovereignty in the earlier period, variously located as ending some time between the mid-seventeenth and late-eighteenth centuries, emphasized the regulation of territorial boundaries. In the security state that followed, the imperatives of economic circulation breached the walls of sovereignty and the arts of government now attended more to the capacities of the state, regulating population and other resources. The political issue that arises from this, exemplified for Foucault in various ways by 1 I want to thank Chris Philo both for the title and for the provocation of an invitation to contribute to the plenary sessions on "Geographies of Insecurity" at the RGS/IBG Conference in Edinburgh, July 2012. 2 Field Code ChangedSweden and Germany, was about regulating individuals to give collective security against threats to the productivity, or force, of the body politic.In this essay, I want to take up the geographical and vital themes of this set of lectures and assess both the nature of the break posited by Foucault and the political purchase afforded by this view of the distinctiveness of the present. My strategy is to reverse Foucault's emphasis and look for aspects of the regulation of life in the earlier period and to aspects of the regulation of territory in the later one. This is not because I think Foucault ignores vitality in his first period or ignores territoriality in his second, but, rather, that the integration of the two themes, rather than the predominance of one over the other, shows the importance in both periods of a set of relations about which Foucault has rather little to say altogether. My conclusion is that, in both periods, life and space are woven together in ways that are distinctly geopolitical and, furthermore, that this dimension of the spatiality of vital security gives us important purchase upon our moment of present danger. Although Foucault saw the Socialist focus upon the state as obscuring the nature of governmen...

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“…One of the major means of transferring water to waterdeficit regions from water-surplus areas is interregional water transfer, which has been receiving increasing attention in recent years (Biswas 1981b, Biswas et al 1982, Golubev and Biswas 1978.…”

Section: Interregional Water Transfermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, severe droughts and floods in many parts of the world during the early Seventies seriously disrupted agricultural production and contributed to a major food crisis. During the World Food Conference, convened in Rome in 19-/4 to propose solutions to such a major global crisis (Biswas and Biswas 1975), it became quite evident during the deliberations that proper control and management of water is absolutely essential not only for further horizontal expansion of agriculture but also for increasing the overall yield from existing cultivated land. Second, steadily increasing prices of fossil fuels, especially oil, focussed national attention on development of hydroelectric power, a renewable source, as a viable source of additional electric power generation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long distance water transfer: the Chinese plans

Biswas

1982

GeoJournal

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The demand for water has been increasing steadily with increases in population and standard of living. The food and energy crises of the Seventies have made water resources development a priority issue in many countries. Agriculture currently accounts for 80 % of all global water consumption but hydroelectric generation does not consume any water. Since irrigation and hydropower generation are compatible uses of water, most recent water developments include both these uses.Quantity of water available to any country is limited, but demands are continually rising. Accordingly, water use has to be made more efficient and options like interregional water transfers have to be explored. The paper outlines the problems and prospects associated with long distance water transfer projects and discusses the latest plansfor this type of development in the People's Republic of China.

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World food conference: A perspective

Cited by 16 publications

References 1 publication

U.N. Conference on Desertification, in Retrospect

U.N. Conference on Desertification, in Retrospect

Governing Vitalities and the Security State

Long distance water transfer: the Chinese plans

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