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Title: Professor Job Title: Professor of Standards and Society Tel: 44 (0)1524 510840 Fax: 44 (0)1524 510856 Email: l.busch@lancaster.ac.uk Building: Institute for Advanced Studies Room Number: D12
I was born and raised in New York City, but have spent most of my life elsewhere. I have an undergraduate degree in history from Hofstra University and an MS and PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University. In between my undergraduate and postgraduate work I spent about four years in West Africa (Guinea and Togo) as a beekeeper, and several years running a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program in eastern North Carolina. Upon receiving my doctorate I began work at the University of Kentucky. In 1990 I joined the sociology faculty at Michigan State University and I remain jointly employed by that institution and, since September 2008, by Lancaster University.
For much of my career I have engaged in research on various issues surrounding the food and agricultural sciences. Starting in the late 1970s I became interested in the emerging field of science studies, and began research on problem choice among agricultural scientists. In the early 1980s I began to study the (then new) agricultural biotechnologies, examining how their use would transform biology as well as food and agriculture. This, in turn, led me to ask questions about crop biodiversity; as such I led a team that examined plant germplasm conservation in four nations: the United States, France, Brazil, and Chile.
On completion of the work on crop biodiversity, I began to study the canola (oilseed rape) commodity chain, doing comparative work in Canada and China. As that work progressed it became apparent that canola would not have existed at all as a commodity were it not for a wide range of standards that ‘disciplined’ the crop from seed production through to the cooking oil on the supermarket shelf. That interest in standards grew leading to my becoming founding director of the Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards, an interdisciplinary group concerned with these issues.
Numerous studies and action projects on standards followed, including the ‘Partnerships for Food Industry Development – Fruits and Vegetables’ project, a multi-country project designed to help small farmers produce higher value crops by meeting various public and private, national and international standards.
Over the years I have spent a considerable amount of time doing research on food and agriculture in various locales in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the late 1980s I led a joint Indo-American review of the Indian Agricultural Universities. I served for several years on the Scientific Committee of CIRAD (La Recherche Agronomique au Service des Pays du Sud), and worked for a year for what is now the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement. I have also worked with Brazilian colleagues on the introduction of genetically modified soybeans in that nation. More recently, I have been involved with research on food safety with colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, where I am a visiting professor at their graduate school.
I am a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, past president of both the Rural Sociological Society and the Food, Agriculture, and Human Values Society, an Elected Member of the Académie d'Agriculture de France, and a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole. I have been a visiting scholar at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim), the University of Edinburgh, and Cardiff University. I recently received a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa.
My current research interests include:
Recent books:
Busch, L. 2000. The Eclipse of Morality: Science, State and Market. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine DeGruyter.
Bingen, J. and L. Busch, eds.. 2006. Agricultural Standards: The Shape Of The Global Food And Fiber System. Dordrecht: Springer.
Rudy, A.P.; D. Coppin, J. Konefal, B.T. Shaw, T. Ten Eyck, C. Harris, and L. Busch. 2007. Universities in the Age of Corporate Science: The UC Berkeley–Novartis Controversy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Recent articles:
D. Winickoff, Jasanoff, S., R. Grove-White, L. Busch, and B. Wynne. 2005. “Adjudicating the GM Food Wars: Science, Risk, and Democracy in World Trade Law.” The Yale Journal of International Law. 30 (1): 81-123.
Hatanaka, M., C. Bain, and L. Busch. 2005. “Third-Party Certification in The Global Agrifood System,” Food Policy 30: 354–369.
Busch, L. 2005. “Commentary on ‘Ever Since Hightower: The Politics of Agricultural Research Activism in the Molecular Age,’” Agriculture and Human Values 22: 285-288.
Mascarenhas, M. and L. Busch. 2006. “Seeds of Change: Intellectual Property Rights, Genetically Modified Soybeans and Seed Saving in the United States,” Sociologia Ruralis 46 (2), 122–138.
Busch, L. 2007. “Comments” [on Stone, ‘Agricultural Deskilling….’], Current Anthropology 48(1): 87-88.
Busch, L. 2007. “Performing the Economy, Performing Science: From Neoclassical to Supply Chain Models in the Agrifood Sector,” Economy and Society 36 (3): 439-468.
Peterson, N., Riley, S., Busch, L., and Liu, J. 2007. “Reconciling Wildlife Management’s Conflicted Purpose with a Land Community Worldview,” The Journal of Wildlife Management, 71(8): 2499–2506.
Holt, D.; T. Reid, and L. Busch. 2007. “Les Normes dans l’Agriculture Contemporaine: Du Droit Positif à l’Etat Evaluateur et Auditeur,” Déméter 13: 89-115.
Busch, L. 2008. “Nanotechnologies, Food, and Agriculture: Next Big Thing or Flash in the Pan?” Agriculture and Human Values, 25 (2) :215–218.
Hatanaka, M. and L. Busch. 2008. “Third-Party Certification in the Global Agrifood System: An Objective or Socially Mediated Governance Mechanism?” Sociologia Ruralis 48 (January): 73-91.
Qi Yamei, Ye Zhihua, Zhao Weijun, Tian Heshan, Fan Hongping, and Lawrence Busch. 2008. “Third-Party Certification of Agro-Products in China: A Study of Agro-Product Producers in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Qingdao,” Food Protection Trends 28 (11): 765–770.
Fan Hongping; Zhihua Ye; Weijun Zhao, Heshan Tian, Qi Yamei, and Lawrence Busch. 2009. “Agriculture and Food Quality and Safety Certification Agencies in Four Chinese Cities,” Food Control 20: 627-630.
Busch, L. 2009. “What Kind of Agriculture Do We Want? What Might Science Deliver?” Natures, Sciences, Sociétés, in press.
Busch, L. 2010. “The Private Governance of Food: Equitable Exchange or Bizarre Bazaar?” Agriculture and Human Values, in press.
Recent book chapters:
Busch, L. 2005. “Agricultural Sciences,” Pp. 2-8 in Science, Technology, and Society: An Encyclopedia, Sal Restivo, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hatanaka, M., C. Bain, and L. Busch, 2006. “Differentiated Standardization, Standardized Differentiation: The Complexity of the Global Agrifood System,” Pp 39-68 in T. Marsden and J. Murdoch, eds., Between The Local And The Global: Confronting Complexity In The Contemporary Food Sector. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Konefal, J., C. Bain, M. Mascarenhas and L. Busch, 2007. “Supermarkets and Supply Chains in North America,” Pp. 270-290 in G. Lawrence and D. Burch, eds., Supermarkets and Agri-food Supply Chains: Transformations in the Production and Consumption of Foods. London: Edward Elgar.
Busch, L. “Commentary on Agricultural Biotechnology.” 2007. Pp. 202-206 in Charles McManis, ed., Biodiversity and the Law: Intellectual Property, Biotechnology & Traditional Knowledge. London: Earthscan.
Busch, L. and J. Lloyd. 2008. “What Can Nanotechnology Learn from Biotechnology?” Pp. 261-276 in Paul Thompson and Kenneth David, eds., What Can Nano Learn from Bio? New York: Academic Press.
Busch, L. 2008. “Agricultural Intensification and the Environment.” Pp. 149-155 in P. Thompson, ed. The Ethics of Intensification. Heidelberg: Springer.
Busch, L. 2008. “Science, Standards, and Safe Food: Challenges and Opportunities.” Pp. 13-24 in Singh, S. P., Julie Funk, S. C. Tripathi, and Nanda Joshi, eds., Food Safety, Quality Assurance and Global Trade: Concerns and Strategies. Lucknow, India: International Book Distributing Company.
Busch, L, A. Loconto, and X. Li. 2008. “New Technologies, Standards, and Local Food Resources.” Pp. 163-181 in Proceedings of the Third Afrasian International Symposium. Resources Under Stress: Sustainability of the Local Community in Asia and Africa, Y. Kawamura, H. Nakamura, and S. Ishizaka, eds. Kyoto: Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development Studies, Ryukoku University.
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