ESRC funding supports new research

Two academics from Cardiff University’s School of Geography and Planning are celebrating after receiving new funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

The additional funding was made available via the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account for social science impact projects/activity commencing between autumn 2017 and December 2018.

Dr Antonio Ioris has received £13,995 for a project that will look at the ‘other side’ of agribusiness and address the needs of peasant farmers in areas dominated by soybean agribusiness. The project is due to begin in February 2018.

Dr Ioris explained that the “initiative is related to more than five years of research and engagement with the process of agricultural modernisation and regional development in the southern tracts of the Amazon Region, specifically in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso”.

The starting point for the new research project is a recognition that agribusiness is the most strategic economic sector in Brazil today, where the main crop is soybean, and directly responsible for macroeconomic stability. However, despite technological and economic achievements, questions persist about the long-term prospects of agribusiness production in Mato Grosso. This is due to increased dependency on foreign inputs and reliance on foreign markets, precarious logistical infrastructure, mounting environmental impacts and concentration of socio-economic results. The project will address those growing contradictions and tensions from the perspective of the small pockets of family farming in the middle of the soybean production region (in the north of Mato Grosso).

Dr Ioris added: “’I’m confident that this project will produce important impacts in terms of broadening the debate on the problematic integration of agribusiness frontiers into national society and the difficult adoption of policies, legislation and development strategies.”

Professor Kevin Morgan’s project on inclusive growth in the Cardiff capital region and the potential of the foundational economy received funding of £23,250. This project commenced in November 2017.