Agribusiness rent extraction

Abstract

AbstractThe article discusses the political‐economy of agribusiness, making use of the category of rent that is considered as a proportion of exchange value diverted from production for the payment to the landowners and, crucially, its class‐based allies. Rent is therefore more than just the extraction of value from the use of land, but there is a wider, deeply politicised capture of value from the network of relations that maintain land in production. Agribusiness rent primarily derives from the appropriation of land through the formation of a powerful network involving ‘state‐landowners‐private agroindustrial sector’, and this network provides the necessary conditions for the extraction of rent and the accumulation of capital.