Ronald Herring

Ronald Herring is Professor of Government and International Professor of Agriculture and Rural Development at Cornell University. His field research in South Asia centered farmer interests, class politics and government policy. Ron’s first book was Land to the Tiller: The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in South Asia (Yale University Press) on responses to peasant movements for social justice and development.
Curiosity about GMOs was ignited by intense controversy around Bt cotton in India: farmer welfare and sustainability in a vital crop plagued by crisis and the lowest yields in the world. This research stirred him to edit a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies: Transgenics and the Poor: Biotechnology in Development Studies, published in book form by Routledge (London). His most recent major work was as Editor of the Oxford Handbook of Food, Politics and Society (2015) and now writing a book entitled Suicide Seeds and Silver Bullets.
If there really were superpowers, and he could have one, it would be Enquiry: meticulous, definitive, unassuming and down-to-earth.