Exploring the ways in which culture, systems of value, and ethics impact agriculture, this volume addresses contemporary land questions and conditions for agricultural land management. Throughout, the editors and contributors consider a range of issues, including pressure on farmland, international and global trade relations, moral and ethical questions, and implications for governance.

The focus of Finance or Food? is land use in Australia, Canada, and Norway, chosen for their commonalities as well as their differences. With reference to these specific national contexts, the contributors explore political, ecological, and ethical debates concerning food production, alternative energy, and sustainability. The volume argues that recognition of food, finance, energy, and climate crises is driving investments and reframing the strategies of development agencies. At the same time, food producers, small farmers, and pastoralists facing eviction from their land are making their presence felt in this debate, not just locally, but in national policy arenas and international fora as well.

This volume investigates the many ways in which this process is occurring and draws out the cultural implications of new developments in global land use. An important intervention into a timely debate, Finance or Food? will be essential reading for both academics and policymakers.

Hilde Bjørkhaug is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and senior advisor at Ruralis, Institute for Rural ad Regional Research.

Hilde Bjorkhaug's profile page

Philip McMichael is a professor in the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University.

Philip McMichael's profile page

Bruce Muirhead is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Waterloo and the associate dean, Graduate Studies and Research. He is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). He has written extensively on post-Second World War Canadian commercial, economic, and political history. He is the co-editor, along with Ron Harpelle, of Long-Term Solutions for a Short-Term World: Canada and Research Development (WLU Press, 2011).

Ronald N. Harpelle is a historian and filmmaker. He is the author of The West Indians of Costa Rica and has written extensively about the West Indian diaspora in Central America. Ron Harpelle is also the director of In Security, a documentary film about barbed wire and boundaries, and the co-director of Banana Split, a documentary about Canada’s favourite fruit. With Bruce Muirhead he appeared in [http://vimeo.com/16696833/ Citoyens du Monde/Citizens of the World], done for TFO.

Bruce Muirhead's profile page