AbstractCritics charge that agriculture has reached an unsustainable level of consolidation and expropriation, as exemplified by the supply-chain breakdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, advocates suggest the current system serves consumers well by keeping prices low and access to choices high. At the center of this debate rests a disagreement over how to compute market power to identify monopolies and oligopolies. We propose a method to study power across different sectors by using Social Network Analysis to analyze key players, the (...) presence of core-periphery structures, and agricultural consolidation. We test our market network approach to power through an analysis of the top ten pork powerhouses. We find that Big Finance is closely tied to Big Ag, and that key players limit the capacity for more peripheral actors, like growers, equipment producers, and regional banks, to engage in the network. We identify system level risk of collapse and suggest pathways for reform. (shrink)

Critics of modern agriculture decry the dominance of monocultural landscapes and look to multifunctionality as a desirable alternative that facilitates the production of public goods. In this study, we explored opportunities for multifunctional Midwestern agriculture through participatory research led by farmers, landowners, and other local actors. We suggest that agriculture typically fosters some degree of multifunctionality that arises from the divergent intentions of actors. The result is a scattered arrangement of what we term patchwork multifunctionality, a ubiquitous status quo in (...) which individuals provide public goods without coordination. In contrast, interwoven multifunctionality describes deliberate collaboration to provide public goods, especially those cases where landowners work across fence lines to weave a synergistic landscape. Using examples from two case studies, we demonstrate the spectrum of patchwork and interwoven multifunctionality that currently exists in the Corn Belt, and present underutilized opportunities for public good creation. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between farmland investment and environmental uncertainty. It examines how farmland investors seek to “render land investible” in spite of drought, groundwater depletion, and changing regulations. To do so, we analyze a single case study: the purchase of 8000 acres of dry rangeland in California’s Cuyama Valley by the Harvard University endowment for use in creating an irrigated vineyard. Drawing from interviews with Cuyama Valley farmers and community members, participant observation at community meetings, and public document (...) analysis, we make two primary contributions to understandings of uncertain resource materiality in farmland investment. First, this case reveals that investors can turn environmental uncertainty into an advantage, exploiting both the temporal uncertainties associated with resource management under climate change and the spatial uncertainties inherent to all subsurface resources. We argue that the material and legal uncertainties of groundwater access provide investors with a potentially lucrative opening to assert their preferred land imaginaries and improve their property values. In the Cuyama Valley they did so through both participation in groundwater governance and the establishment of water-related infrastructure on their property. Second, this case highlights that the asset-making processes involved in farmland investment may be as much vertical as they are horizontal. The need to map and measure the uncertain vertical dimension of land creates an outsized role for scientific expertise in farmland assetization. (shrink)

On the philosophy of Carvaka (Lokayata) exponent of the materialistic school of Indian philosophy.

Research papers outcome of a seminar organised by the Asiatic Society, Kolkata on 18-19 February 2008.

Verse work on ethics; with prose commentary.

Contributed articles on the life and works of Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, Indian philosopher and Indologist; includes some of his writings and letters.

On the fundamentals of Advaita philosophy refuting theories of other schools in Indian philosophy.

Classical text on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy; with Āloka Sanskrit commentary.

Collection of research articles on various aspects of Mimamsa philosophy.

Study of the meaning of opening and ending verses of the texts on Advaita philosophy which discusses the gist and authority of the work.

Contributed articles on Śaṅkarācārya, Hindu philosophy, and religious life.

On Jaina Nyaya; includes Bhānumatī Sanskrit commentary and Prītīdāyinī Gujarati explanation.

Study on Yoga philosophy of Patañjali in the light of Upanishads, Hindu philosophical classics.

On Advaita philosophy and self-realization; Sanskrit text with Hindi verse and prose translation and interpretation.

Study of the seven classical commentaries dealing with definition of invariable concomitance (vyāpti) according to the Navya-Nyāya philosophy.

Study on the Bhāmati of Vācaspatimiśra, active 976-1000, Pañcapadikāvivaraṇa of Prakāśātman and Bhāṣyaratnaprabhā of Govindananda and commentary of Śaṅkarācārya on first sutra of four chapters called Catuḥsūtrī of Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, work on Vedanta.

Study of Siddhāntabindu of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, being the exegesis of Daśaślokī of Śaṅkarācārya, work on Advaita Vedanta philosophy.

Classical verse work, expounding the early Vedantic approach in Hindu philosophy; Sanskrit text with Hindi translation and exhaustive introduction.

English translation of the commentary on Tattvatrayam of Piḷḷai Lokācāryar, treatise on Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy.

Comparative study of Sankhya and Nyaya Schools of Hindu philosophy with special reference of causation.

Vol. 1 includes text and commentary in Sanskrit and German translation ; vol. 2 notes to the translation.

Study of Yogasūtra of Patañjali with Yogabhāṣya of Vyāsa and philosophy of Osho on Yoga philosophy.

Concept of the Absolute (Brahman) in Upanishads and Indic philosophy; a critical study.

Study of Yatīndramatadīpikā, treatise on Viśiṣṭādvaita metaphysics and epistemology by Śrīnivāsācārya, Son of Govindācārya, active 17th century.

Study of Tātparyacandrikā of Vyasatirtha, 1460-1539, classical commentary on Tattvaprakāśikā of Jayatīrtha, 14th cent., work on Dvaita (Vedanta) philosophy; includes complete text with Ślokatātparyacandrikā.

Study of Yogaratnāvalī, work on the fundamentals of Yoga philosophy by Ṭhakkana Jhā Śarmā, 1884-1948; includes complete text.