Stranded Assets and Stranded Livelihoods in Agriculture: Identifying Barriers to Change to Support Just Transformation
Manitius, Carina
Manitius, Carina
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Abstract
Aligning the food system with ecological boundaries will require substantial structural changes to global agriculture, with profound implications for farmers and farm workers. This has led many to call for just transformation that centers care, equity, and sovereignty. This lightning talk explores an important but overlooked aspect of just transformation: stranded assets and stranded livelihoods. Stranded assets are capital investments that lose economic value well before the end of their expected life. Stranded livelihoods are occupations and ways of making a living that become economically unviable before people can transition to alternative means of income. With $7.7 trillion in capital investment and 1.3 billion livelihoods globally in agriculture, the potential scale and distribution of stranding raise profound political and moral questions around just transformation. The talk explores stranding not only as a consequence of food system transformation, but also of inaction, as climate change is already impacting yields and undermining agricultural livelihoods. From this perspective, some level of stranding seems inevitable, but the scale and distribution differ sharply and can be greatly shaped by policy. Drawing on emerging dissertation research, I outline a framework for comparing stranded assets and livelihoods under these two futures and discuss how anticipating stranding can help identify sites of resistance, vulnerability, and opportunity.
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Date
1/1/2026
Student Status
Graduate Student
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Oral Presentation
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Program/Major
Sustainable Development Policy, Economics, and Governance
College/School
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
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Social Science (Travel)