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Purpose – Agribusiness is crucial for the Brazilian trade balance surplus. Innovation, not only that focused on technology or productivity, is a basic condition for its development. The context of the agribusiness activities in a developing country is dynamic and requires a multilevel and multifaceted view. This suggests that these features need to be incorporated both in the theories and methods. Therefore, we propose a method, from within the perspective of Configurations Theory, of capturing this dynamic multidimensionality. The method was applied in the context of the rice-farming business in Southern Brazil.

Methodology/approach – The proposed method, which we refer to as a Case Study Method with Multiple Units of Analysis and Mixed Methods, was applied in a research organization in an attempt to identify the evolution of innovation while considering a theoretical perspective based on multilevel rules.

Findings – Six different configurations in the temporal organization of research were identified. These six configurations describe the evolution of four emphases given to innovation, the drivers associated with the evolution of these emphases, and the changes that have occurred over time.

Social implications – The results may provide support for new public policies for rice farming and lead to improvements in the organization's strategies for innovation.

Originality/value of chapter – The combination of methods used (Case Study, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Social Network Analysis, Path Dependence, and Patterns of Decision Making) to study configurations, together with the dynamic approach to innovation based on multilevel rule, is unique.

The argument for the damaging effects of capitalist modes of production on traditional or indigenous communities is convincing, and has been upheld by scholars interested in development issues. Recent research, however, has called for a closer look at the problem. In this paper, a Japanese village that was created by the government for collective rice farming under a state-controlled distribution system is examined in an attempt to discern how a sudden shift to capitalist modes of production and largely uncontrolled marketing changed the social structure of the community. It is argued that the effects of such a shift may actually promote new unions and different kinds of solidarity, even when the overall impression indicates a decline in solidarity.

On December 31, 2018, the White Earth Reservation Business Committee, or tribal council, passed Resolution Number 001-19-009 recognizing the inherent rights of wild rice. The resolution also includes a regulation entitled “Rights of Manoomin,” meaning the regulation is enforceable under tribal law (White Earth Reservation Business Committee, 2019, pp. 19–21). The Rights of Manoomin lays out the legal protections afforded to wild rice under the resolution. The Reservation Business Committee passed Resolution Number 001-19-010 the same day to support the previous resolution (White Earth Reservation Business Committee, 2019, pp. 22–26). The resolution to recognize the inherent rights of wild rice is part of a larger international movement to recognize the rights of nature (Bouayad, 2020, pp. 39–40). However, the case of the White Earth Anishinaabeg (pl.) and wild rice is different for two reasons. First, the Rights of Manoomin regulation is the first to recognize the inherent rights of a plant (LaDuke, 2019). Second, the resolution claims protection for wild rice in all the territories the Anishinaabeg ceded under the 1867 treaty with the United States government that established the reservation. In this paper, I will argue that the importance of wild rice to the Anishinaabeg and the threats it is currently under served as an impetus for the White Earth Reservation Business Committee to pass the resolutions in question.

Care is by no means a new topic to those involved in philosophy of education. However, I wish to (re)make the case that we ought to care as educators, despite the many risks and uncertainties. I draw on the work of contemporary philosophers to explore the connection between teaching and care in an attempt to (re)focus our understanding of the why and how we care (the process that brings us to caring action and practices to enhance normative practices of education) and the ethical considerations that accompany such a caring approach in education. I will engage in an exercise of praxis in an attempt to foster teaching that promotes things as they ought to be through Björn Freter's (2017a) conceptual work regarding the “existential experience of and the existential need to exercise care” (p. 5).

Using the framework developed by Freter, I point out that, despite normative uncertainties, educators should engage their concern, volition, and practice in order that what ought to be for students can be sought. How this theoretical exploration of caring is extrapolated into classroom practice is found in a synthesizing of Nicholas Burbules and Susanne Rice's (1992) concept of communicative virtues, Nel Noddings' (2012) work on caring as a relational dialogue, Schmitz, Müllan, and Slaby (2011) thoughts on affective involvement, and Barbara Thayer-Bacon and Charles Bacon's (1996) philosophical investigation into a model of caring educator. I will then humanize my contribution by adding personal testimony and philosophical conceptualization of particular experiences with pedagogical practices of care as an educator in primary, secondary, and tertiary educational settings. I conclude with some discussion on the risks and uncertainties inherent in such an endeavor.

The products of transgenic technology have captured the attention of enthusiasts and detractors, but transgenics are just one tool of agricultural biotechnology. Other applications enable scientists to understand biodiversity, to track genes through generations in breeding programs, and to move genes among closely related as well as unrelated organisms. These applications all have the potential to lead to substantial productivity gains.

In this chapter we provide an introduction to basic plant genetic concepts, defining molecular markers, transgenic and cisgenic techniques. We briefly summarize the status of commercialized biotechnology applications to agriculture. We consider the likely future commercialization of products like drought tolerant crops, crops designed to improve human nutrition, pharmaceuticals from transgenic plants, biofuels, and crops for environmental remediation. We identify genomic selection as a potentially powerful new technique and conclude with our reflections on the state of agricultural biotechnology.

Research at universities and other public-sector institutions, largely focused on advancing knowledge, has aroused enormous optimism about the promise of these DNA-based technologies. This in turn has led to large private-sector investments on maize, soybean, canola, and cotton, with wide adoption of the research products in about eight countries. Much has been made of the potential of biotechnology to address food needs in the low-income countries, and China, India, and Brazil have large public DNA-based crop variety development efforts. But other lower income developing countries have little capability to use these tools, even the most straightforward marker applications. Ensuring that these and other applications of biotechnology lead to products that are well adapted to local agriculture requires adaptive research capacity that is lacking in the lowest income, most food-insecure nations. We are less optimistic than many others that private research will fund these needs.

Social entrepreneurs in both the developed and the developing countries have established social enterprises with the intent of solving social problems leveraging social innovations that create sustainable social impact goals. The research gap that calls for this research is the question: ‘Are social problems, social objectives, social activities, social outputs, social outcomes and social impact goals of social enterprises the same in the developed and the developing countries?’ Against the above backdrop, this chapter presents a comparative discourse of cases of social enterprises in the developed and developing countries using the Theory of Change framework to provide answers to the above research question. The chapter adopts a qualitative research method to generate rich findings from diverse cases, reports, articles, and other secondary sources from the developed and developing economies. To ensure academic rigour and objectivity, a sample of 50 scholarly works on social enterprises were reviewed, which produced in-depth insights on the subject. Additionally, 16 cases on social enterprises from the developed and developing countries were purposively selected and meticulously analysed using the content analysis (CA) and the thematic analysis (TA). The first finding revealed that the social enterprises in the developed countries focused on ‘the secondary-level social issues’ such as education, health, environmental issues, psycho-social disabilities, wealth inequality, integration enterprises, work-integration services, financial exclusion, and gender balance. This is the focus of Ashoka, Children Commissioner, Allen Carr Easyway, Angaza Design Inc., Bridge International Academies, and others. The second finding indicated that the social enterprises in the developing countries focused on ‘the primary level social issues’ such as illiteracy, poor school enrollment, unemployment, poverty, social exclusion, gender imbalance, weak healthcare system including hygiene and sanitation. This is the focus of VisionSpring, Danone Clover – Daniladies and Danimama, Unjani Clinic NPC, Indego Africa, and others. The implication of the findings is that irrespective of continental contexts, social enterprises are established to bridge critical social problems, hence their philosophy transcends geographical contexts. The chapter concludes with a summary of insightful information and suggestions, which could trigger more empirical research on the subject.

In Asian monsoon region, rice production has been a key industry for two millennia. This region is blessed of fertile paddy on vast alluvial plain, which has been formulating through erosive/transport/depositional work of rivers around upthrusted high mountains due to orogenic movements of the earth. Rice harvest was the main taxable property since the first step of the human history, and rice production process has made fundamental land use in this region. Catching up with the development of water transport and commodity economy, paddy field covered wide and flat alluvial plains expecting more and more harvest. Rice was brought away for tax or as currency.

Manufacturing waste reduction with productivity improvement 4.0 has a crucial role in the use of technology for efficient production development. The objective of this research is to measure the productivity increase rate of healthy juices to present the pathway of loss reduction in healthy juices with productivity improvement 4.0. The author collected data from informants through 14 activities, including observation and in-depth interviews, before analysing the received data with the Integration Definition (IDEF) process flow chart and value stream mapping using SPSS Statistics version 17.0. The study found that loss reduction in healthy juices takes place during the cutting, boiling, and pasteurizing processes. After checking the productivity increase in healthy juice production, the total time spending is eight hours and the rate of is 6.66 minutes/bottle; the total amount is 2,880 bottles, which is lower than the expected number. Therefore, the author offered the pathway for loss reduction in healthy juices with productivity improvement 4.0. The author also found that it is able to reduce the loss during the healthy juices production activity, resulting in the productivity increase to 4,000 bottles. Within eight hours, the productivity rate is 4.80 minutes/bottle, an increasing number of 38.88%. This increase benefits entrepreneurs to increase productivity efficiently and effectively.

The contamination of groundwater by natural arsenic is currently a worldwide epidemic. Arsenic-contaminated groundwater has been reported in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, China, Hungary, West Bengal in India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Of these regions, Bangladesh and West Bengal are the most seriously affected in terms of the size of the population at risk and magnitude of health problems. Hence, chronic exposure to arsenic >50′′μg/L in drinking water can result in serious health problems. Common symptoms of arsenic-related ailments are skin, cardiovascular, renal, hematological, and respiratory disorders. Therefore, this chapter focuses on nature, origin, and extent of groundwater arsenic contamination, probable causes, and its impacts on food, drinking water, and social coverage. It further discloses mitigation approaches proposed and practiced by the different research groups to combat this problem and finally concludes.