TY  - CHAP
AB  - Abstract Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of irresponsibility by public actors who breach a societal trust they assume. This research focuses on the issue of “Peak Farmland,” a rendering of global carrying capacity that, we suggest, qualifies for what Freudenburg called “privileged discourse” and possibly recreancy. Scholars identified with dematerialized progress argue that finite farmland in the face of increasing population will improve human welfare and spare land for nature. This iconoclasm presents an arena for testing academic probity with respect to global food security. After an overview of past carrying capacity debates, we summarize the “Peak Farmland” position of the dematerialization school and suggest an important blind spot: the dematerialization of the global land base itself. Gathering the results of multiple studies on land loss, we offer evidence that the world’s warehouse of productive land is not just peaking but eroding on a grand scale. Ignoring this form of dematerialization while proclaiming nearly unlimited carrying capacity for Earth’s denizens strains the meaning of responsible scholarship.
VL  - 21
SN  - 978-1-78190-734-4, 978-1-78190-735-1/0196-1152
DO  - 10.1108/S0196-1152(2013)0000021012
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S0196-1152(2013)0000021012
AU  - Geisler Charles
AU  - Currens Ben
PY  - 2014
Y1  - 2014/01/01
TI  - “Peak Farmland”: Revealed Truth or Recreancy
T2  - William R. Freudenburg, A Life in Social Research
T3  - Research in Social Problems and Public Policy
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 177
EP  - 199
Y2  - 2024/04/24
ER  -