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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: PRS - Polity Resources series
- Sprache: Englisch
We all need food to survive, and forty percent of the world's population relies on agriculture for their livelihood. Yet control over food is concentrated in relatively few hands. Turmoil in the world food economy in recent decades has highlighted a number of vulnerabilities and contradictions inherent in the way we currently organize this vital sector. Extremes of both undernourishment and overnourishment affect a significant proportion of humanity. And attempts to increase production through the spread of an industrial model of agriculture has resulted in serious ecological consequences. The fully revised and expanded third edition of this popular book explores how the rise of industrial agriculture, corporate control, inequitable agricultural trade rules, and the financialization of food have each enabled powerful actors to gain fundamental influence over the practices that dominate the world food economy and result in uneven consequences for both people and planet. A variety of movements have emerged that are making important progress in establishing alternative food systems, but, as Clapp's penetrating analysis ably shows, significant challenges remain.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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CONTENTS
Cover
Front Matter
Abbreviations
1 Unpacking the World Food Economy
Going Global
How Did We Get Here?
With What Impact?
Conclusion
References and Notes
2 The Rise of a Global Industrial Food Market
Surplus Production and the Expansion of Export Markets
Exporting the Industrial Agricultural Model
Multiple Crises: Shifts in the Order
Conclusion
References and Notes
3 Expanding Food Trade
Structural Adjustment Programs
The 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture
The Doha Round: A Failed Attempt to Rectify Imbalances
Shifts in Global Agricultural Trade Norms
Trade and Food Security
Conclusion
References and Notes
4 Growing Corporate Control
The Emergence of Global Food Corporations
Modern Day Corporate Concentration
Sources of Corporate Influence
Conclusion
References and Notes
5 The Financialization of Food
The Food Crisis Heightens Awareness of Financial Actors in Food Systems
Financial Speculation in Agricultural Commodities
Financialization of Farmland, Agricultural Production, and Agribusiness
Conclusion
References and Notes
6 Justice and Sustainability in the World Food
Climate Change Complicates Ongoing Challenges
The Dominant Vision for Reform
Alternative Models
Which Way Forward?
References and Notes
Selected Readings
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1
Major Forces in the Dominant Food System in the Past Century
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1
Food Aid Deliveries, 1970–2011
Figure 2.2
Global Area of Biotech Crops, 1996–2018
Figure 2.3
Global Glyphosate Use, 1990–2014
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1
Value of Food Imports and Exports of the Least Developed Countries, 1961–2016
Figure 3.2
Food and Agriculture Subsidies in OECD Countries, 1986–2018
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1
TNCs Along the Global Agrifood Value Chain
Figure 4.2
Food System Hourglass
Figure 4.3
Cargill’s Vertical Integration in Meat Production
Figure 4.4
Global Adoption of Agricultural Biotechnology by Trait, 2017
Figure 4.5
Global Seed Market Share, 2018
Figure 4.6
Global Agrochemical Market Share, 2018
Figure 4.7
Market Share of the Top Four Firms in the Global Seed and Agrochemical Markets, …
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1
FAO Food Price Index, 1990–2019
Figure 5.2
US Corn (Maize) Production and Use for Fuel Ethanol, 1986–2018
Figure 5.3
Percentage of Hedging vs. Speculation in Chicago Wheat Futures Market, June 1996…
Figure 5.4
Percentage Ownership of Large Agrifood Companies by Large Asset Management Firms…
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1
Share of Official Development Assistance to Food and Agriculture, 1980–2016
Figure 6.2
Size of Different Segments of the World Food Economy, 2017–2018
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1
Major CGIAR Research Institutes
Table 2.2
Main GM Crops Grown Globally, 2018
Chapter 3
Table 3.1
The WTO Agricultural Subsidy Boxes
Chapter 5
Table 5.1
Top Fifteen Target Countries for Large-Scale Land Acquisitions
Chapter 6
Table 6.1
SDG 2: Zero Hunger, Specific Targets
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Resources
Michael Bradshaw and Tim Boersma, Natural Gas
Gavin Bridge and Philippe Le Billon, Oil, 2nd edition
Anthony Burke, Uranium
Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister, Timber
Elizabeth R. DeSombre and J. Samuel Barkin, Fish
Kate Ervine, Carbon
Gavin Fridell, Coffee
Derek Hall, Land
Andrew Herod, Labor
Kristy Leissle, Cocoa
David Lewis Feldman, Water
Michael Nest, Coltan
Kate O’Neill, Waste
Bronwyn Parry and Beth Greenhough, Bioinformation
Ben Richardson, Sugar
Ian Smillie, Diamonds
Adam Sneyd, Cotton
Bill Winders, Grains
Food
Third edition
JENNIFER CLAPP
polity
Copyright © Jennifer Clapp 2020First edition published in 2012 by Polity PressSecond edition published in 2016 by Polity PressThis third edition first published in 2020 by Polity Press
The right of Jennifer Clapp to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press101 Station LandingSuite 300Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4178-2
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clapp, Jennifer, 1963- author.Title: Food / Jennifer Clapp.Other titles: Resources (Polity Press)Description: 3rd edition | Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Series: Resources series | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “New edition of the leading introduction to the global food trade”-- Provided by publisher.Identifiers: LCCN 2019050906 (print) | LCCN 2019050907 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509541768 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509541775 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509541782 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Food supply--Economic aspects. | Agriculture--Economic aspects. | Agricultural industries.Classification: LCC HD9000.5 .C545 2020 (print) | LCC HD9000.5 (ebook) | DDC 338.1/9--dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050906LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050907
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Dedication
For my students, past and present, from whom I have learned a great deal.
Acknowledgments
I owe enormous gratitude to many people for their assistance and support as I wrote this third edition and earlier versions of this book. Special thanks go to Rachel McQuail, who provided outstanding research and editorial assistance throughout the project. Thanks are also due to Taarini Chopra, Brittney Martin, Tomas Szuchewycz, and Linda Swanston who provided invaluable research assistance on earlier editions. For very helpful discussion of ideas and positive encouragement during the course of writing and revising this and previous editions, I am also grateful to Kim Burnett, Andrea Collins, Peter Dauvergne, Andres Garcia, Matt Gaudreau, Derek Hall, Eric Helleiner, Lucy Hinton, Ryan Isakson, Genevieve LeBaron, Sarah J. Martin, Sophia Murphy, Navin Ramankutty, Sarah-Louise Ruder, Theresa Schumilas, Caitlin Scott, Steffanie Scott, Gyorgy Scrinis, Phoebe Stephens, Helena Shilomboleni, Boyd Swinburn, Beth Timmers, Wesley Tourangeau, Tim Wise, and Hannah Wittman. I am grateful to the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia, for providing infrastructural support as I completed this most recent edition. My children, Zoe and Nels, and my partner, Eric, deserve a medal for listening to me go on about the world food economy at the dinner table and for putting up with me while I worked long hours to complete this book. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful feedback and suggestions on this and previous editions. For their enthusiasm and for shepherding this project through the publications process, I am grateful to Louise Knight, Inès Boxman, and Susan Beer at Polity Press. And last, but not least, I also owe thanks to all of my “foodie” students for their inspiration over the years – the ideas we discussed in the various versions of food and agriculture-related courses I taught at both Trent University and the University of Waterloo over the past two decades have had immeasurable influence on my thinking and analysis on this topic. I take sole responsibility for any errors or omissions.
Waterloo, Ontario
Abbreviations
ABCD
Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus
ADM
Archer Daniels Midland
AGRA
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
AoA
Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture
BIO
Biotechnology Innovation Organization
Bt
Bacillus thuringiensis
CAP
European Community Common Agricultural Policy
CFS
Committee on World Food Security
CFTC
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
CGIAR
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
CIF
Commodity index fund
CIMMYT
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
COFCO
China’s Government-Controlled Agricultural Commodity Trading Firm
CR
Concentration Ratio
CRISPR
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats
EC
European Community
ETC Group
Erosion, Technology and Concentration Group
ETF
Exchange traded fund
EU
European Union
FAC
Food Aid Convention
FAO
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FDI
Foreign direct investment
FIAN
FoodFirst Information and Action Network
FLO
Fairtrade Labelling Organization
G8
Group of Eight
G20
Group of 20 (leading economies)
G-20
WTO Group of 20 (agriculture)
G-33
WTO Group of 33 (agriculture)
GATT
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP
Gross domestic product
GHG
Greenhouse gas
GM
Genetically modified
GMOs
Genetically modified organisms
GPS
Global Positioning System
IADP
Intensive Agricultural Development Program
IATP
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
IFAD
International Fund for Agricultural Development
IFI
International Financial Institution
IFPRI
International Food Policy Research Institute
IMF
International Monetary Fund
IP
Intellectual property
IPC
International Planning Committee
IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IPES Food
International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems
IRRI
International Rice Research Institute
ISAAA
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications
LDCs
Least Developed Countries
NAFTA
North American Free Trade Agreement
NAMA
North American Millers’ Association
NDCs
Nationally Determined Contributions
NGO
Non-Governmental Organization
ODA
Official Development Assistance
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OPEC
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
OTC
Over-the-Counter
PAN
Pesticide Action Network
PCBs
Polychlorinated biphenyls
PL
Public Law
POPs
Persistent organic pollutants
PRAI
Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment
PRIAFS
The Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems
RSPO
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
RTRS
Round Table on Responsible Soy
SAP
Structural adjustment program
SDGs
Sustainable Development Goals
SDT
Special and Differential Treatment
SP
Special Products
SPS
Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
SSM
Special Safeguard Mechanism
TNC
Transnational corporation
TPP
Trans-Pacific Partnership
TRIPS
Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement
UNCTAD
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
USAID
United States Agency for International Development
USDA
United States Department of Agriculture
USMCA
US–Mexico–Canada free trade agreement
USTR
United States Trade Representative
VGGT
Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security
WARDA
West African Rice Development Association
WFP
World Food Programme
WTO
World Trade Organization
CHAPTER ONEUnpacking the World Food Economy
Pause for a minute to reflect on how much you know about the path followed by the food you ate this morning as it made its way to your breakfast table. Of course, your understanding and knowledge depends very much on what exactly you had to eat. Some may know almost every detail of the production, transport, processing, and exchange relationships involved in the preparation of that meal – particularly those who choose to consume foods such as fresh eggs, oats, and strawberries from a local organic farm, or ethically traded shade-grown coffee from Nicaragua. Others may know very little, especially when they consume pre-packaged and highly processed foods like boxed cereal, frozen waffles, or instant hot chocolate. These latter items, most likely purchased from a neighborhood supermarket, made their way to your table after a long and winding journey through the global industrial food system. Most of us probably have a vague idea of our food’s origins and travels, as well as the power relationships that might be associated with it along the way, but we are not 100 percent sure.
The gap in our knowledge about the global food system can be understood as a kind of “distance” – which is often, but not always, related to the physical distance food travels from farm to table. Today, the average plate of food eaten in Europe and North America travels around 1,500 miles before it is consumed. The concept of “food miles,” picking up on the notion of physical distance, has attracted widespread attention in recent years, particularly because of growing concern about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with transporting food across great stretches of land and water. The distance between consumers and food can also be mental, as in the gap in knowledge we have about the social, ecological, and economic relationships associated with the foods we eat. And it can come in the form of power differentials between actors in the food system, where some experience its benefits while others absorb a disproportionate share of its costs. We often lack a full understanding of the natural and human conditions under which our food is produced and are only somewhat aware of who controls the various steps along the supply chains of the most basic and intimate resources necessary for human survival.1 In these various ways, we have become increasingly distanced from much of the food we consume.
Some say it’s not necessarily important for people to know all of the details of the functioning of the global food system – the web of relationships that span the production, processing, trade, and marketing of the food we eat. If that system conveniently provides safe, abundant supplies of food at affordable prices, then many consider that it is doing its job. Indeed, as the global reach of the industrial food system has expanded, with foods being traded across long distances, a greater variety of foods from around the world have become increasingly available to global consumers through the rapidly growing retail grocery market. This broader range of foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables available year-round, can bring nutritional benefits to consumers. As scientific methods are employed to make foods last longer and better able to handle the journey to areas of the world that lack sufficient food supplies, wastage can be reduced. For the better part of the past fifty years, the system has outwardly appeared to provide the advantages of a truly global and stable food supply that could be accessed by an ever larger range of people. Its stability and abundance brought lower prices in addition to expanding its geographical reach. So long as the system is providing cheap and readily available food, why question it?
But questions have been raised about the benefits and costs associated with the way food is grown, processed, and marketed in the global industrial food system. Recent decades have seen heightened awareness of the ecological and social consequences of the current organization of that system. The increasingly obvious environmental side effects of large-scale industrial agricultural production, including biodiversity loss and exposure to toxins from the use of pesticides, have been of widespread concern since at least the 1970s. The commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) crops since the 1990s has raised questions about their potential ecological consequences. The reality of a warming climate, as demonstrated by extreme weather patterns in recent years, has added uncertainty to the productive capacity of the agricultural sector and has drawn attention to the fact that around one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions is associated with the food and agriculture sector. As temperatures rise, analysts have stepped up warnings about potential food shortages in the not too distant future. These concerns have prompted calls for change, not just in production methods, but also toward more sustainable diets that move away from consumption of animal protein, such as eggs, dairy, and meat, which place a much higher ecological toll on the planet than plant-based foods. Meanwhile, approximately one third of the world’s food production is lost or wasted.
Uncertainty about the impact of environmental change on food is layered on top of what is seen by many to be unfair conditions for farmers in both rich and poor countries, as corporate actors have become more and more powerful in determining the circumstances of their livelihoods. There are 2.5 billion people – including 350 million indigenous peoples – engaged in small-scale agriculture and food production, who collectively manage approximately 500 million small farms. Estimates vary on the proportion of the world’s food supply that these small-scale farmers produce, ranging from 30–35 percent on the lower end, and up to 70–80 percent on the higher end. While it is difficult to know their precise production levels due to data limitations, there is growing understanding that small-scale and family farming is a major contribution to global food production, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. At the same time, these small-scale producers have access to only around 30 percent of the resources devoted to the sector. Many of these farmers practice sustainable forms of agricultural production, but their livelihoods are under threat.
At the same time, a “triple burden” of malnutrition has emerged that threatens human wellbeing. These are: (1) chronic undernutrition (inadequate intake of sufficient calories, affecting over 820 million people); (2) overnutrition (excessive intake of calories, affecting over two billion people in the form of overweight and obesity); and (3) micronutrient deficiencies (inadequate intake of vitamins and minerals, affecting over 1.5 billion people). One or more of these categories of malnutrition affect a significant proportion of the world’s population, in rich and poor countries alike.2
Worries about these issues have spurred a small but growing movement that seeks to promote alternative food systems that maximize the ecological, social, and health benefits of food, rather than profits. These movements highlight the fact that there are, in fact, many food systems that operate at local and national levels, many of which have different priorities. These food systems, however, are still dwarfed by the size of the global industrial food system, which affects both producers and consumers in myriad ways, even if they participate almost exclusively in alternative food systems.
Further impetus for questioning the current global food system came with the sharp increase in food prices on global markets in 2007–2008 and again in 2011–2013. These price spikes served as a stark reminder of the gap in our knowledge about the forces that control outcomes in the global food system. When food prices began to rise quickly and dramatically, there was a great deal of uncertainty, even among experts, as to what exactly caused these major disruptions in global food markets. Some cited a misalignment of supply and demand fundamentals as the principal culprit. But others dismissed those explanations and pointed to other factors, including macroeconomic conditions, biofuel policies, trade practices, and financial speculation on commodity markets.
That food prices could change so abruptly, and immediately affect access to food for people across the world, was remarkable. The impact of these price spikes were felt most intensely in the world’s poorest countries – countries that had once been agricultural exporters, but which had gradually become net importers of food over the previous fifty years. The poorest members of society in developing countries often spend upwards of 50–80 percent of their income on food. When prices shot sky high, many people’s access to food immediately became severely restricted. The food riots that broke out across the developing world in early 2008 – from Haiti to Egypt to the Philippines – illustrated their frustration. Food prices continued to be high and volatile, with prices reaching new record highs in 2011 and 2012, exacerbated by drought in North America, a major grain-producing region. For those affected by this crisis, particularly young children, the impacts are likely to be lifelong, as even short periods of severe malnutrition in the very young (in the first 1,000 days of life) can have a permanently negative impact on human health, wellbeing, and long-term livelihood potential.
This jarring disruption to the global food system was highly unusual. After all, food prices on world markets had been low and falling for most of the previous thirty years. An earlier sharp spike in food prices occurred in the mid 1970s, but this episode had gradually faded in people’s minds as the problem of low farm incomes persisted for decades. The major concern of the 1980s to early 2000s was with ensuring decent farmer incomes and food security for agricultural producers, especially those in less industrialized countries who, although they produced food, were still net buyers of food and often did not have enough income to secure their own nutrition at adequate levels. To suddenly see such a dramatic new trend of rapidly rising food prices, which so deeply affected many people’s food security, underscores the importance of gaining a better understanding of the way in which the global food system functions and its impact on people around the world. Food prices stabilized somewhat after 2014, but stayed higher than they were before the crisis and the threat of a return to more volatile food prices remains.
More recently, world agricultural markets experienced fresh turmoil in 2018 and 2019, due to growing trade tensions between two of the world’s largest economies – the United States and China. In 2018, US President Donald Trump began to impose tariffs on imports from China, seeking to reduce the US trade deficit with that country. China, which had been importing significant amounts of soybeans from the United States over the past decade, retaliated with its own tariffs against products it imports from the United States, with a particular focus on agricultural goods. As a result, US exports of soybeans plummeted, as did prices for US soybeans on world markets, while China shifted its soy purchases to alternative suppliers – mainly to Brazil and Argentina, which have both been expanding soy production in recent years. Meanwhile, the rapid increase in the spread of the deadly African Swine Fever virus after 2018 resulted in the deaths of a quarter of all pigs globally, including hundreds of millions of pigs in Asia and Europe. The epidemic contributed to an increase in meat prices not seen since 2014 and growing demand for imported meat into affected regions.
These shifts in the global trade of major commodities in the past several years have had not only economic repercussions – in some cases positive, and in some cases negative – for farmers and agricultural traders, but have also been associated with ecological impacts. For example, pressure for further expansion of soy production in South America has been associated with deforestation, climate change, soil exhaustion, and the heavy use of agricultural chemicals.3
Together, the ecological, economic, and social dynamics of the global food system have profound impacts on both producers and consumers around the world. This book aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of some of the key forces that influence and shape the current global food system. It focuses in particular on the interface between the international political and economic dimensions of the global industrial food system – what I refer to as the “world food economy.” This world food economy is characterized by an increasingly global market for food, with more and more of it traveling through global production, trade, and processing supply chains, influenced by myriad international economic and political forces. Much has been written in recent years on the theme of food systems, particularly on movements that promote alternatives at the local level, as noted above. But the ways in which even alternative food systems are influenced and shaped by the global political and economic forces that have given rise to the dominant global food system are often left unpacked, only partially examined, or are ignored altogether.4
Yet the international economics and politics of food have significant implications for other scales and dimensions of food systems – from access to food for hungry people in specific locations such as a small, remote village in Africa, Latin America, or Asia; to local sustainable food movements in Europe or North America; to diet-related nutrition and health issues more broadly. Taking a step back to the bigger picture, to look at the wider forces that shape the world food economy and how they reinforce one another, helps to build a richer understanding of these other important dimensions of food systems. While there is always a risk of missing the specificity of the dynamics in particular locations or the impact on certain groups when stepping back to take a global perspective, gaining an understanding of the big picture helps to contextualize the local. Indeed, diverse local level food initiatives that seek to provide alternatives may be difficult to scale up and out precisely because the world food economy creates conditions that push against those efforts. In other words, both place-based local studies and global overviews of broader structural dynamics are needed to gain a comprehensive picture. This book aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the global political and economic dimensions of food, with the hope that it will complement studies that are grounded in more local case studies or which are more focused on specific issues or groups.
As outlined in the chapters of this book, the expansion of the world food economy did not just emerge on its own overnight. It was shaped by a variety of forces over an extended period of time. Although global food markets emerged well over a century ago, they were given a further push by industrialized countries, and the United States in particular, from the 1940s and 1950s onwards. This phase of expansion in the world food economy saw the promotion of a global adoption of the industrial agricultural model, as well as the development of major international markets for foodstuffs. These developments paved the way for subsequent forces that reinforced the spread of the world food economy in more recent decades. These additional forces include the establishment of new global norms for the liberalization of international agricultural trade; the rise of transnational corporations (TNCs) as dominant agents of global food production, processing, trade, and distribution; and the dramatic increase in the transformation of agricultural commodities, farmland, and agrifood firm shares into financial products bought and sold by investors.
But the expansion of the world food economy is not the entire story. These forces, as they have unfolded, have opened up a greater number of what I call “middle spaces” within that economy, where control and influence over how it operates has become concentrated in the hands of powerful actors who have an interest in seeing that system expand. More intermediaries in the world food economy have become involved in a multitude of activities related to the business of food along expanded food supply chains. It is within these middle spaces of activity where norms, practices, and rules that govern the world food economy are shaped by the very forces and actors that are leading to its expansion. The economic forces and powerful actors that shape the governance systems that guide the expansion of the global food system may seem far removed from the big questions of compensation to agricultural producers; who has access to food in a particular location; and with what effect ecologically and socially. But understanding the influence of global economic forces and the middle spaces they have opened up for powerful intermediaries to set the rules of the game is essential for explaining food outcomes in rich and poor countries alike.
The world food economy today is characterized by growing distance, as powerful actors in its middle spaces increasingly treat food like any other commodity, where its profit generating abilities are prioritized over its other essential functions such as nourishment, livelihood, and culture. It is also characterized by asymmetry and volatility, and as a result is susceptible to crises where the world’s poorest and most marginalized people are typically affected the most. Finally, it is also characterized by increasing ecological fragility, putting at risk the very foundation on which food and agriculture is based. These features of the world food economy have not gone unnoticed. Resistance movements that seek to promote alternatives to the current world food economy are on the rise. Although still small in scale compared to the global trend in world food markets, these movements signal a momentous shift in thinking on a broad scale about the implications of the food we eat every day.
Going Global
Before providing a more detailed overview of the key forces that shape the world food economy, it is important first to outline some of its basic facts and features. Most estimates put global food sales at around US$8.7 trillion in 2018. The world market for food, in other words, is huge. Indeed, the food and agriculture sector accounts for some 10 percent of global GDP (which was approximately US$80 trillion in 2018) and around one third of the world’s active workforce depends on it for their livelihood. The weight of agriculture in national economies varies widely between countries, however. In developing countries as a whole, agriculture accounts for around 10 percent of GDP. In poorer agriculture-based developing countries, it accounts for a much higher proportion of GDP, often over 30 percent and as much as 50 percent or higher for some countries, such as Sierra Leone or Chad. In these poorer agriculture-based economies, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa, typically over 60 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture as part of their livelihood. This contrasts sharply with industrialized countries where agriculture averages less than two percent of GDP, with the percentage of the population working in the sector averaging around three percent. Again there is variation, with agriculture accounting for less than one percent of GDP in Germany, for example, and three percent in Australia.5
Throughout history, world food markets have had an international dimension to them. Salt, sugar, and spices have been traded over long distances for centuries. Colonial powers invested in plantation agriculture for certain key crops – such as sugar, coffee, tea, and tropical fruits – in their colonies, and established international trade routes for food and agriculture items in the 1800s – mainly as imports to wealthy nations. In some cases, such as the United Kingdom (as is discussed in more depth in Chapter 2), the import of food items from the colonies provided an important source of its calories, particularly as the country industrialized and needed to feed an expanding urban population with affordable grains and other foodstuffs.
After the Second World War, the United States sought to dominate international food trade flows as a major exporter of food to countries around the world that were short of sufficient food supplies. As Chapter 2 outlines, the United States sought to export its agricultural surpluses to Europe and then to Africa, Asia, and Latin America in this period, a practice followed by other countries that grew surplus food, including Canada, Australia, and eventually Europe once it recovered from the war. The globalization of the food system began to intensify in the post-war period, with recent decades seeing particularly heightened global integration including trade within and among major agrifood companies.
The total volume and value of agrifood trade has increased dramatically in the past thirty years. Agricultural trade as a percentage of total trade in goods and services has declined from around 20 percent in 1980 to around 10 percent today, but this is largely because trade in other items has grown more than trade in agricultural products. Food trade, however, has grown significantly in absolute terms, from around US$315 billion in 1990 to approximately US$1.5 trillion in 2017, experiencing a nine percent increase in 2017 alone. Food trade has also grown faster than food production in recent years, signaling the increased importance of global markets in the food system.6
The share of agricultural production that is exported varies by country and by crop. The United States, for example, exports about half of its wheat and rice production and Canada exports three quarters of the wheat and 90 percent of the canola it produces. While overall rich industrialized countries tend to export a high proportion of their agricultural production, some less industrialized countries also export significant amounts of the crops they grow. Latin American countries, for example, export around a quarter of their agricultural production. This compares with Asia, which exports around six percent of its agricultural production. These figures, however, mask wide variation and the fact that some countries rely heavily on agricultural exports for their income. Although agricultural exports average around 10 percent of all exports, in many developing countries agriculture makes up a very large percentage of total exports. In 2017, for example, 94 percent of Guinea-Bissau’s exports, 64 percent of the Central African Republic’s exports, and 49 percent of Nicaragua’s exports were agricultural products. Some rich industrialized countries are also heavily dependent on agricultural exports, such as New Zealand, where around 70 percent of all exports are agricultural products.7
A particularly high percentage of some key commodities enter world markets, and some countries rely heavily on a single commodity for most of their agricultural exports. According to the FAO, over forty developing countries are dependent on a single agricultural product for over 20 percent of their total exports, with the crops that they are dependent on typically being coffee, cocoa, sugar, and bananas. For these crops, a very high percentage of global production is traded internationally, with around 80 percent of coffee, 70 percent of cocoa, 30 percent of sugar, and 18 percent of bananas entering world markets. Palm oil is also a highly traded agricultural commodity, with over 70 percent of production entering world markets. Just two countries – Indonesia and Malaysia – account for around 85 percent of all palm oil production. It is not just tropical crops that see a high percentage of production enter world markets. The export share of wheat is around 25 percent globally and for soy it is approximately 40 percent.8
At the same time that food and agriculture exports are growing, so are imports, particularly in developing countries, as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. The least developed countries as a group, for example, were net agricultural exporters in the 1960s, but are now net agricultural importers. Between 2000 and 2015, this group of countries saw their agricultural import bill increase from US$2.5 billion to around US$33 billion, while their agricultural exports lagged behind, leaving them with an agricultural trade deficit of around US$15 billion. African countries in particular have become dependent on food imports, especially cereals, in recent decades.9
Foreign direct investment (FDI) by transnational corporations has also intensified in the food and agriculture sector, serving as another indicator of the extent to which this market has become more global in recent years. FDI inflows in the food and beverage sector, for example, increased from approximately US$7 billion per year in the 1989–1991 period to US$35 billion in 2009, reflecting increased investment in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 food price crisis. FDI in the sector dropped to around US$20 billion in 2014, and then rose back up to US$30 billion in 2017. In some sectors of the food industry, just a few TNCs dominate production and trade, as is the case with some highly traded commodities such as grains, coffee, cocoa, and bananas. Investment by agricultural input corporations has also been on the rise, with growing market concentration in the seeds and agrochemicals industries, as well as the retail food sector, as will be discussed more fully in Chapter 4.10
As the food system has become more globalized, diets around the world have also changed. With the rise of global food trade and transnational food corporations, a growing proportion of diets are based on what are known as ultra-processed food products – foods that have multiple ingredients, and which have been processed in industrial facilities. These foods are typically energy dense with added sugars, and contain added fats, salt, emulsifiers, and preservatives. Around 50–60 percent of diets in many industrialized countries – for example, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom – are comprised of ultra-processed foods. Levels of ultra-processed food consumption are typically lower in less industrialized countries, although this is changing quickly with the globalization of the food system. Consumption of ultra-processed foods, such as sugar sweetened beverages and other highly processed snack foods, has risen faster in middle-income countries, such as Brazil and India, than it has in industrialized countries in recent years. Meat consumption has also been on the rise. Global average meat consumption per annum climbed from approximately 23 kg per person in 1961 to 43 kg per person by 2013. This average masks huge differences. Over that same period, China’s meat consumption per person per year rose from 4 kg to 60 kg, while Guinea’s rose from 4.5 kg to 10 kg and the United States increased its consumption from 90 kg to 115 kg.11
How Did We Get Here?
Four key forces have been behind the expansion of the world food economy: (1) state-led global expansion of both the industrial agricultural model and transnational food trade; (2) agricultural trade liberalization; (3) the rise of transnational corporate actors in all aspects of the food and agricultural sector; and (4) the intensification of the financialization of food, which has resulted in food commodities becoming increasingly like any other financial product bought and sold by investors. Each of these forces, shown in Figure 1.1, has contributed to greater distancing in the food system. New middle spaces opened up by these forces have created opportunities for powerful actors to gain influence over the norms, practices, and governance processes that shape the world food economy. These forces, and the middle spaces they have opened up, will be discussed in more detail in the various chapters of this book. A brief overview is provided below.
State-led industrial agriculture and international market expansion
Industrialized country governments set the stage for the globalization of the world food economy by actively engaging in shaping agricultural development over the past century. Through national agricultural policies that had a global impact, these wealthy states promoted the adoption of an industrial agricultural model and encouraged production with farm subsidies and other forms of support. It was through these policies that rich country governments laid the groundwork for an intensification of international agricultural trade. The widespread adoption of large-scale industrial agricultural production generated food surpluses in a number of industrialized countries, particularly the United States, Canada, and Australia, which by the 1950s had become significant enough that they posed an economic problem due to the high cost of storage. The donation of those surpluses in the form of food aid dominated agricultural trade and aid in the 1950s–1960s, as surplus countries sought to dispose of their unwanted grain in a bid to support their domestic farm sectors and to develop new export markets.
Figure 1.1 Major Forces in the Dominant Food System in the Past Century
By the 1960s, these same rich countries – along with the support and encouragement of private foundations and international development agencies – also sought to export industrial agricultural production methods. The export of the agroindustrial model to developing countries is often referred to as the “Green Revolution.” Intensive agricultural development assistance dominated international aid programs in the 1960s–1970s and promoted the development and dissemination of new seeds and other agricultural inputs necessary for the installation of an industrial agricultural model on a global scale.
The increased dominance and spread of the industrial agricultural production model, and the creation of new patterns of international agricultural trade and development assistance, opened up new arenas of governance in the world food economy. The same actors that were driving these trends – rich country governments, international development agencies, agrifood TNCs, and private foundations – shaped these middle spaces. Despite the crises in the world food economy that emerged in the 1970s – soaring food prices and ecological fallout from the spread of industrial modes of agriculture – this type of farming and participation in global markets have become the dominant norms, especially for international agricultural assistance.
Uneven liberalization of agricultural trade
Most governments have long protected agriculture for national security reasons, but recent decades have seen growing moves to liberalize trade and investment in this sector. In the 1980s, many developing countries were strongly encouraged to liberalize their agricultural markets under structural adjustment programs (SAPs) imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Indeed, in many cases heavily indebted developing countries had little choice but to open up their agricultural trade policies under these programs, in particular to lower tariffs on imports. The widespread adoption of these policies across the developing world represented a new governance space where the rules for imports and exports in food and agriculture were set by international development agencies.
Liberalization of agricultural trade has been slower and more fitful for the rich industrialized countries. The cost for these countries of subsidizing their farm sectors had become untenable in the 1980s, leading to calls for global rules to lock in agricultural trade liberalization, including a reduction in farm subsidies. Agricultural trade had previously been exempt from international trade rules, but this changed with the 1994 Uruguay Round of trade talks which included the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) under the World Trade Organization (WTO). As yet another new agricultural governance arena, the WTO’s AoA has had enormous influence on agricultural trade outcomes. The agreement sought to liberalize agricultural trade by encouraging a reduction in farm subsidies in rich countries – including domestic support and export promotion subsidies – in return for further opening of markets in developing countries. This agreement made some steps toward liberalization in rich countries, but it ultimately resulted in an uneven playing field that disadvantaged developing countries while maintaining significant sums of rich world subsidies.
The Doha Round of trade talks, launched in 2001, initially sought to correct the biases built into the Agreement on Agriculture. But the talks did not result in any substantive agreement, and were eventually abandoned due to deep differences among rich countries and between rich and poor countries over both subsidy levels and special treatment for developing countries. The food crisis of 2007–2008 led many countries to question their reliance on global food markets. Recent trade tensions between the United States and China have also affected global food trade patterns, leading to what many see as an abandonment of the post-war liberal trading order. In this context, a number of countries have increased their interest in promoting food self-sufficiency in the face of what they see as unfair agricultural trade rules and practices.
The rise of transnational agrifood corporations
State support for international exports of grain and the spread of large-scale agricultural production throughout much of the developing world in the 1970s enabled large transnational corporations in the agrifood sector to expand their international operations. This expansion included not just marketing their products around the world, but also global-scale sourcing and processing operations. Already engaged in extensive international food trade since the 1800s, firms in the global grain industry began to expand their operations into new markets in the 1970s. At the same time, the grain companies also began to accelerate their expansion both horizontally and vertically – acquiring firms specializing in different food commodities, and expanding up and down along the food supply chain into shipping and food processing. With the spread of the agroindustrial production model, the agricultural input industry also began to market hybrid seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers in the developing world beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, and since the 1990s the sector has consolidated and is now dominated by just a handful of firms. From the 1990s and early 2000s, retail grocery firms also began to go global, not just marketing food to consumers, but also engaging increasingly in processing and the direct acquisition of fresh foods from around the world.
In extending their global reach in this way, these corporations have actively shaped the global food system to fit their own needs. Transnational agrifood firms have been able to influence the world food economy in ways that serve their own objectives via a variety of means and through new governance spaces. These range from pricing power – that is, the power to set the prices paid to their suppliers as well as the prices consumers pay in the marketplace – to lobbying and other means of influencing government regulations that affect their business. They also include the establishment of private sector regulations that govern the global food supply chain, and taking an active role in public debates in order to shape public discourse about the role of global firms in the world food economy. Using these strategies, global food sector TNCs have been able to shape the global food system around corporate needs – moving large amounts of agricultural inputs and foodstuffs through relatively few firms – with a large number of farmers on one side, and even more consumers on the other.
The financialization of food and agriculture
The world food economy has become increasingly “financialized” – that is, it is increasingly tied to activities and trends in the financial investment sector, even though that sector is not directly concerned with the food system other than as an arena in which to earn a profit. Agricultural commodity futures markets – markets that sell a set amount of a commodity for delivery at a future date – have historically played an important role in allowing farmers and other food system operators to hedge their risks in an uncertain market due to weather and other factors that can affect prices in between planting and harvest times. Speculators have also played a role in these markets, betting on price movements and providing liquidity – that is, cash flow – for other actors in the markets. The amount of speculation allowed in these markets has historically been subject to strict regulation in order to avoid “excessive speculation” that could cause huge price swings and have undue effects on access to food.
Recent decades, however, have seen the number of speculators on these markets rise dramatically, in effect creating a new middle space in the world food economy where new norms and practices are developed. This increase in financial trading in agricultural commodity futures markets is the product of a relaxation of the regulations in the 1980s and 1990s regarding speculation in futures markets. Banks began to sell new kinds of financial investment products linked directly to movements in commodity markets to a range of large-scale institutional investors, including hedge funds and pension funds. When these actors moved into agricultural commodity futures investments in large numbers in 2007–2008, there was a sudden sharp increase in prices of food commodities. While there is fierce debate over whether speculation on these markets was a leading cause or a consequence of food price rises, there is a growing consensus that such investment has exacerbated food price volatility trends in recent years. In other words, financial investors, through this new middle space in the world food economy, have enormous influence over food price trends, even though they have very little direct interest in the actual commodities they are trading. Further, the financialization of food has also fed into large-scale foreign land acquisitions and biofuel investments, in a new nexus of activity into which financial investors have actively tapped. Financial actors are also trading new kinds of financial investment products based on the share values of some of the largest agrifood TNCs.
With What Impact?
Despite their seeming distance from the realities of agricultural production and food consumption, the forces shaping the world food economy and the complex matrix of actors and rule systems have had enormous impact on both agricultural producers and consumers, as well as the natural environment. The world food economy itself is highly fragile. It is prone to crises that threaten farmer and producer livelihoods, people’s access to food, and the environment. Three key features, in particular, stand out as products of this system, and each has generated a disconnect – or growing distance – between the consumption of food and the important relationships associated with its production and trade.
