The Kidney and the Cane Planetary Health and Plantation Labor in Nicaragua

“In the past twenty years, the sugarcane industry in Nicaragua has grown at an unprecedented rate. This growth has been overshadowed by an epidemic of chronic kidney disease of non-traditional causes (CKDnt). Unknown to science before the late 1990s, CKDnt has sickened and killed thousands of sugarcane plantation workers. Scientific studies now link the disease to rises in mean average annual temperatures, chronic water scarcity, and the overuse of toxic agrochemicals. The epidemic has spawned a series of corporate, state, and transnational initiatives to reconcile agro-industrial growth with ecological stewardship, under the banner of the new interdisciplinary science of “planetary health.” CKDnt began as a localized medical crisis, but it is now understood as a consequence of global climate change. Situating the CKDnt epidemic within a deeper history of sugarcane plantation violence, The Kidney and the Cane suggests that what is happening to the kidneys of sugarcane workers is not a result of climate change. It is climate change. Outlining a place-based approach to planetary health, the book follows activists, scientists, and sugarcane zone residents wrestling with the consequences of plantation life. Along the way, it raises critical questions about the capacity of corporations and states to care for people and ecosystems; the ability of citizens and experts to regulate the circulation of toxic substances; and the future of work on a warming planet”–