The Government of Beans: Regulating Life in the Age of Monocrops

"THE GOVERNMENT OF BEANS is a multispecies ethnography on the proliferation of the vast soybean monocrop in Paraguay and its ensuing effects on the government, agriculture, population, and environment.

As Kregg Hetherington shows, soy monocropping, which was expanding at an average of 200,000 square hectares per year at the turn of the twenty-first century, has consumed most of Paraguay's arable land, contributing to rising inequity, poor health, deforestation, and climate change.

The book highlights the failed attempts by campesinos, NGOs, and the government to contain the soy monocrops.

Hetherington largely focuses on a group of activist bureaucrats, which he refers to as the Government of Beans, who from 2008-2012 tested the hypothesis that a stronger state, empowered to intervene in the excesses of the soy industry, would be able to slow down the advance of agribusiness interests, and thereby help to promote rural welfare and enviro