BUSCH, Lawrence (Michael) 1945-

PERSONAL: Born March 27, 1945, in New York, NY; son of Raymond and Carol Busch; married Karen Hagberg, December 30, 1966; children: Lisa, Rachel. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Hofstra University, B.A., 1965; Cornell University, M.S., 1971, Ph.D., 1974.

ADDRESSES: Home—5291 Hidden Lake Dr., East Lansing, MI 48823. Office—Department of Sociology, 316 Berkey Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1111; fax: 517-432-2856. E-mail—lawrence.busch@ssc.msu.edu.

CAREER: U.S. Peace Corps, Washington, DC, volunteer in Labe, Guinea, 1965-66, and Lome, Togo, 1967-68; Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), Washington, DC, supervisor of Community Action Council in Rose Hill, NC, 1968-70; University of Kentucky, Lexington, assistant professor, 1974-79, associate professor, 1979-84, professor of sociology, 1984-89; Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, professor of sociology, 1990-96, University Distinguished Professor, 1997—. University of Trondheim, visiting professor, 1994, 1995, 1996. International Grain Sorghum/Pearl Millet Collaborative Research Support Program, vice chair, 1980-81; French Institute of Scientific Research for Development and Cooperation (ORSTOM), Paris, director of research, 1988-89; Center of International Cooperation and Agronomic Research for Development, Paris, member of scientific council, 1990-96; Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, member of board of directors, 1990-93. Guest on television and radio programs in the United States and Canada, including Nova.

MEMBER: International Sociological Association (chair of Research Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture, 1986-90), American Association for the Advancement of Science (fellow), American Sociological Association, Rural Sociological Society (chair of Social Organization of Agriculture Research Group, 1978-79; president, 1997-98), Society for Social Studies of Science, Society for Agriculture, Food, and Human Values (president, 1988-89), Association for the Study of Food and Society.

AWARDS, HONORS: Certificate of appreciation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1987; Thome Poe Cooper Award, 1988; award from Rural Sociological Society, 1990; E. A. Southee traveling scholar, University of Western Sydney, 1991; award for professional excellence, American Agricultural Economics Association, 1992; grants and fellowships from National Agricultural Research, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Embassy of Canada, Ford Foundation, and U.S. Agency for International Development.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and contributor) Science and Agricultural Development, Allanheld, Osmun (Montclair, NJ), 1981.

(With W. B. Lacy) Science, Agriculture, and the Politics of Research, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1983.

(Editor, with W. B. Lacy, and contributor) Food Security in the United States, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1984.

(Editor, with W. B. Lacy) The Agricultural Scientific Enterprise: A System in Transition, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1986.

(With W. B. Lacy, L. R. Lacy, and J. Burkhardt) Plants, Power, and Profit: Social, Economic, and Ethnical Consequences of the New Biotechnologies, Basil Blackwell (Cambridge, MA), 1991.

(Editor, with W. H. Friedland, F. H. Buttel, and A. Rudy) Toward a New Political Economy of Agriculture, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1991.

(Editor, with W. H. Friedland, A. Bonanno, and others) From Columbus to Conagra: The Globalization of Agriculture, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 1994.

(With W. B. Lacy, J. Burkhardt, and others) Making Nature, Shaping Culture: Plant Biodiversity in Global Context, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1995.

The Eclipse of Morality: Science, State, and Market, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 2000.

Contributor to books, including The Impact of Biotechnology on Food Production and Processing, edited by Dietrich Knorr, Marcel Dekker (New York, NY), 1986; Biotechnology and the New Agricultural Revolution, edited by Joseph J. Molnar and Henry Kinnucan, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1988; The Future of Rural America: Anticipating Policies for Constructive Change, edited by Kenneth E. Pigg, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1991; Visions of American Agriculture,edited by W. Lockeretz, Iowa State University Press, 1997; and The Privatization of Information and Agricultural Industrialization, edited by Steven A. Wolf, CRC Press (Boca Raton, FL), 1997. Contributor to numerous academic journals, including Diversity, BioScience, Urban Life, Public Opinion Quarterly, Sociological Practice, Socioeconomic Planning Practices, Sociological Focus, Science and Public Policy, Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, and Policy Studies Journal. Editor, Agrarian Questions, 1987-91; associate editor, Rural Sociology, 1981-85, Agriculture and Human Values, 1984—, and Nature, Sciences, Societies, 1991—; member of scientific board,Science Tribune, 1996—; advisory editor, Sociological Quarterly, 1986-88.

SIDELIGHTS: Lawrence Busch once told CA: "Most of my work revolves around agriculture and agricultural research. Although I was born in New York City, three-and-a-half years in West Africa in the Peace Corps convinced me of the importance of food and agriculture to all of us. I am particularly interested in ethical issues associated with the growth of a global agriculture. However, I put that into the context of the last 300 years of Western civilization, including both the values of the Enlightenment and the tragedies of colonialism and world wars. I see myself as pulled by philosophy, history, and social theory on one side, while concerned about practical issues of hunger and malnutrition on the other. Thus, my work has taken me to West Africa, India, China, Brazil, Norway, and France, among other places.

"My most recent project is a book on what I see as the three great themes of modernity—science, state, and market—as initially described by Bacon, Hobbes, and Smith respectively. I argue that in our search for social order, we have used these three themes as justifications for relieving individuals of moral responsibility. Only by expanding our understanding and application of democracy to include spheres currently defined as outside the political—science, education, health care, the workplace, the family—can we recapture the moral responsibility we have inappropriately delegated to others."