Transnational Agribusiness Research Articles

Agri-bolsonarism: a movement led by agricultural elites and far-right politicians in Brazil

ABSTRACT As the balance of forces in Brazil shifted toward conservatism in the 2010s, regional agricultural elites and Jair Bolsonaro formed a political-economic movement. This article analyses the constitution and consolidation of this movement, here called agri-bolsonarism, considering its connections with national agricultural associations and transnational agribusiness corporations and its relations with agrarian and climate politics. The research is based on participant observation in business associations, corporate and state archives and interviews with private and political leaders.

Beyond Bananas

Abstract From 1926 to 1974, the United Fruit Company operated the Lancetilla Experiment Station near Tela, Honduras. As a laboratory and botanical garden where one of the world's largest living collections of tropical fruits could be found, it stood in apparent contrast to the vast banana monocultures of the surrounding area. While United Fruit's infamous plantations depended on the application of pesticides and chemical knowledge to produce a single commodity crop, its Lancetilla Experiment Station pursued a broad research program oriented toward agricultural diversification. This essay examines the history of Lancetilla to explore the company's sponsorship of science and the multiple, shifting meanings of “diversification” within this prototypical transnational agribusiness. The history of experimentation at Lancetilla reveals a range of contested visions of economic development in twentieth-century Latin America, and it is a history that has left surprising traces in both local Honduran landscapes and the face of global agribusiness today. Ultimately, by introducing oil palm to Central America, United Fruit's crop diversification project served to replace one monoculture with another.

Négocier la terre en attendant la ville: marchés fonciers et gouvernance périurbaine en Afrique subsaharienne

RÉSUMÉ Les franges des métropoles d’Afrique subsaharienne sont gagnées par un rapide étalement urbain, qui se caractérise par des changements massifs de l’usage des sols: des terres agricoles ou des pacages communautaires sont convertis en foncier urbain ou industriel. La compréhension des processus à l’œuvre demeure partielle, les acteurs de ces marchés fonciers étant trop souvent restreints aux impulsions des grands projets urbains, aux restructurations de grandes firmes agro-alimentaires ou aux mouvements centrifuges des habitants des villes. En comparant deux métropoles ouest- et est-africaines, Bamako et Nairobi, cet article met en lumière les transactions menées sur les terres, les diverses stratégies d’anticipation, de spéculation et d’intéressement immobilier, et la manière dont ces pratiques s’articulent aux régulations politiques nationales et locales des marchés fonciers. Cette approche nous permet de proposer trois critères de caractérisation et de comparaison des placements dans la terre, en lien avec les dynamiques d’urbanisation.

Donos da fala e a narrativa unidimensional no meio rural: análise do discurso sobre o projeto “Paraná 12 Meses”

This article analyzes published news about ‘Paraná 12 Meses’, a project developed for small rural producers, with the purpose of understanding the problem of the space occupied by the actors involved, since the proposal was for joint construction with the communities. Qualitative research was carried out based on discourse analysis in newspapers that cover the three historical regions of the territory of Paraná. The objective was to verify whether the horizontality that came from it was consolidated in articles and releases, through the identification of the protagonists of the narrative. The article also verifies the relationship between investments and agribusiness, possibly pointed out as an irreversible way for small farmers to remain in rural areas. This study is based on the concept of Marcusian one-dimensional, which accuses the modern world of trying to impose a unique path for development. The research demonstrated a verticalization of the narrative with the official voices presenting themselves in defense of transnational agribusiness

Chinese investment in the Brazilian soybean sector: Navigating relations of private governance

AbstractThis paper examines how Chinese agribusiness firms are engaging with established systems of private governance in the Brazilian soybean sector and how that engagement is variously accommodated, contested, and configured by local realities that reflect the uneven history of transnational agribusiness development across the Brazilian agro‐export region. Using qualitative data collected at three research sites that represent different historical moments in the Brazilian agro‐export region (Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Bahia), the paper argues that the social structures underlying the particular agrarian histories of these three subregions create unique contexts Chinese firms must navigate, which in turn shapes their engagement with the private agribusiness regime across space. Although the private agribusiness regime is often portrayed as a top‐down system of governance that subjugates the polity to the demands of capital, this framing neglects to understand how that system of power is contested, negotiated, and reshaped on the ground. These three cases serve to historicize the uneven penetration of Chinese firms across the Brazilian soybean sector.

農業資材産業における多国籍アグリビジネスのグローバル戦略(資材価格高止まり・農産物価格低迷下の農業市場と政策課題,2010年度大会シンポジウム報告)

農業資材産業における多国籍アグリビジネスのグローバル戦略(資材価格高止まり・農産物価格低迷下の農業市場と政策課題,2010年度大会シンポジウム報告)

Global-Local Actors and the Political Economy of Food Policy in Nigeria

Since independence in 1960, there have been several policies on food and agriculture in Nigeria. Each of these policy decisions with other associated initiatives and programmes were aimed at achieving food self-sufficiency and hence propel the country towards a food economy that is dependable and sustainable; which is a sine qua non for food security. However, lots of ambiguities and grail areas are imbedded in the Nigerian Agricultural and food Policies due to the inherent political and economic interests of the many actors involved in the policy making and implementation processes; in practical neglect of the people‟s desires and food preferences. This paper argues that actors at both global and local levels have had influences in the food policy making process in Nigeria with attendant unpleasant consequences on the country‟s food security. The identified actors within the context of this paper include: The World Bank, The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, and other transnational agri-business on one hand, and the government, political elites, and some influential farmers, on the other. The economic and political interests of these various actors had been a major stumbling block in the accomplishment of the food security in Nigeria.

Repeat Players, the Law, and Social Change: Redefining the Boundaries of Environmental and Labor Governance Through Preemptive and Authoritarian Legality

Powerful corporations leverage the law to shape the regulatory environments in which they operate. A key strategy for achieving this is litigation. I ask under what conditions corporations litigate, and specifically, what happens when two repeat players, transnational agribusiness firms and local governments, face each other in court. I compare outcomes of two cases—Hawaii and Arica, Chile—documenting how different sociopolitical contexts and legal systems shape how actors engage the law. Interviews with firm managers, unions, government officials, lawyers, and advocacy organization leaders and document analysis reveal that firms seize on existing institutional norms and politics to define their localized legal strategies. Through strategic legalism, a defensive legal strategy that is outcome-oriented and context-specific, firms accomplish legal compliance and political containment of their opposition. In Hawaii, firms rely on preemptive legality, a strategy that moves controversial issues like pesticide safety from one domain of democratic politics to another that is largely incontestable because it is preempted by a higher authority. In Chile, firms use authoritarian legality, an approach that draws on authoritarian structures and policies within the state, to sway legal outcomes. These cases reveal the mechanisms that corporations draw on to institutionalize their power advantages through the law, offering a typology for future scholars to better understand how the strategic behavior of corporations shapes regulatory outcomes.

Los nuevos frutos de oro. Aparato productivo de piña y naranja en la Zona Norte, Costa Rica (1974-2015)

Se analiza la evolución piñera y naranjera en la Zona Norte Norte, mediante la construcción del aparato productivo mediante la prosopografía y la metodología relacional de los derechos humanos. El modelo de desarrollo implementado desde los ochenta ha facilitado la instalación de compañías agroindustriales para la exportación, con unos US$101 millones de naranja y unos US$800 millones de piña para 2015, principalmente en el norte, y acumuladas en pocas élites-personas con gran influencia política y económica. Esto incide para que esta sea una de las zonas agroindustrialmente más productivas y, al mismo tiempo, una de las de mayor desigualdad y pobreza. Se vuelve necesario enfrentar las adversas situaciones con acompañamientos alternativos ligados a la autonomía alimentaria y laboral.

New rurality and the experience of place: the small rural locality of La Niña, Buenos Aires, Argentina

This paper presents a cultural geographic approach for understanding local social processes of territorial re-appropriation taking place in response to non-local forces and interests. This approach is applied to the small rural locality of La Nina, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. The small village of La Nina is currently in a locally-led process of recovering from a recent depopulation trend caused mainly by the irruption of transnational agribusiness. As economic opportunities have dwindled in the last decades, more recently local inhabitants and new settlers have set forth diverse strategies aimed at mitigating the effects of depopulation on the social structure. We focus our attention on the way the living experience of place is involved in all these strategies. We contend that despite economic and cultural homogenization caused by globalization, the experience of place is a permanent though ever-changing aspect of social life. Our research was based on archival and hemerographic surveys and ethnographic field techniques, encompassing participatory observation, semistructured and in-depth interviews with social and government leaders and local producers as well as field landscape appraisals.

An Eco-Egalitarian Solution to the Capitalist Consumer Paradox: Integrating Short Food Chains and Public Market Systems

Presently, alternative agri-food networks are in a renaissance, utilizing an economy of proximity to compete against transnational agri-business and food distributors. While this is positive ecologically and socioeconomically, the overreliance on market mechanisms in short food chains has led to class distinctions in food distribution and consumption. The result has been a capitalist consumer paradox exacerbating inequality in the alternative agri-food networks. To resolve this inequality, we focused on how public policy can leverage state investment in public markets to reduce or overcome the capitalist consumer paradox in short food chains. To clarify our argument, we began by examining the benefits of short food chains in the urban food system. Then, we explained how type of consumption and policy regime effect food access. After this, we utilized Mexico City and New York City’s public market systems as representative of an alternative policy regime and the effects of moving away from state-oriented development. We concluded by describing possible conflicts and complements to the integration of public markets into short urban food chains.

The Corporative Food Regime and Mexican Small Scale Agricultural Production Case Study: Tonatico, Estado De México

During a global corporative food regime (1980–2008), the creation of the international legal framework for trade liberalization, the protection of intellectual property rights, and consequently the implementation of neoliberal policies at a national level have drastically changed the conditions for Mexican agricultural production. In this article, the origin of these significant changes is identified with an explanation of the food system’s structural transformation at an international and national level, as well as illustrated with the transnational agribusiness’ dominance in agricultural production. Subsequently, in this context an example of subordinated Mexican small scale maize production in the rural municipality of Tonatico, Estado de Mexico, is analyzed. This is accomplished by illustrating the incremented exploitation of campesino production within the corporate food regime. The analysis at a local level is based on field work carried out while staying in the municipality.

The increasing appropriation of seed by transnational agribusiness corporations and the possibility of social movement

The increasing appropriation of seed by transnational agribusiness corporations and the possibility of social movement

Global Appetites: American Power and the Literature of Food

Global Appetites: American Power and the Literature of Food

Orden global, agricultura contractual y campesinado: el circuito tabacalero de la provincia de Misiones, Argentina (1990-2012)

Global order is synonymous with local disorder. The purpose of this paper is to study the dialectic between global and local order in Burley's tobacco circuit in Misiones province (Argentina), between 1990 and 2012. This study is based on a detailed analysis of the literature and information provided by public and private agencies. The new local social and territorial organization patterns are described based on scientization of agricultural labor, the subordination of peasants -through contract farming- via transnational agribusiness, and public policies functional to big tobacco dealers

Modelagem de redes logísticas com demandas sazonais: influência do custo de estoque e do crédito de ICMS

Este artigo apresenta uma abordagem para localização de instalações em redes logísticas globais, com foco especial no tratamento dos estoques e impostos, aplicada em grandes empresas transnacionais do segmento agrícola operando no Brasil. Os resultados mostram que a restrição de capacidade de armazenagem e o custo de carregamento dos estoques, normalmente desprezados na maioria dos modelos, estão fortemente correlacionados com a definição do número de Centros de Distribuição. A metodologia, a partir da instalação de Centros de Distribuição em diferentes estados e/ou países do Mercosul, permitiu melhorias no fluxo de caixa da ordem de US$ 22 milhões e mostrou o efeito negativo da legislação do ICMS que, para uma melhoria no fluxo de caixa, impõe um aumento nos custos logísticos. Mostra-se que, para a definição da rede logística em empresas credoras de ICMS, o modelo precisa contemplar pelo menos quatro elos da cadeia.

Financialization, distance and global food politics

This paper provides a new perspective on the political implications of intensified financialization in the global food system. There has been a growing recognition of the role of finance in the global food system, in particular the way in which financial markets have become a mode of accumulation for large transnational agribusiness players within the current food regime. This paper highlights a further political implication of agrifood system financialization, namely how it fosters ‘distancing’ in the food system and how that distance shapes the broader context of global food politics. Specifically, the paper advances two interrelated arguments. First, a new kind of distancing has emerged within the global food system as a result of financialization that has (a) increased the number of the number and type of actors involved in global agrifood commodity chains and (b) abstracted food from its physical form into highly complex agricultural commodity derivatives. Second, this distancing has obscured the links between financial actors and food system outcomes in ways that make the political context for opposition to financialization especially challenging.

Commoditizing Water Territories: The Clash between Andean Water Rights Cultures and Payment for Environmental Services Policies

In the Andean region, the growing water demand of expanding cities, extractive industries, and local and transnational agribusiness puts increasing pressure on the land and water resources of peasa...

Modified landscapes: vulnerabilities to genetically modified corn in northern Guatemala

From the countryside to the cubicle, this contribution explores vulnerabilities to genetically modified (GM) contamination of maize landraces in northern Guatemala following the DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement). Although some industrial farmers elsewhere in Guatemala might welcome GM seeds, in this lowland refuge zone, transnational agribusiness corporations would largely face a recalcitrant and risk-averse peasantry not easily converted into reliable customers. While the unpredictability of improvisational swidden systems in this dynamic frontier zone has protected small farmers from corporate seed marketers, it also leaves them vulnerable to informal (and invisible) GM gene flow into local maize landraces. Recent changes to Guatemala's biosafety regulatory structure may compound processes of involuntary contamination despite latent citizen opposition to GM corn.

Political Economy of Epidemic Kidney Disease in Sri Lanka

The Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), taking the lives of thousands in poor farming communities in Sri Lanka, is commonly seen as a problem peculiar to the island’s north central dry zone agricultural region. The prevailing bio-medical focus is on identifying one or more “environmental nephrotoxins.” While delineating important controversies on the etiology of the disease, this article seeks to broaden the discourse on the hitherto neglected political economy of CKD in Sri Lanka. In so doing, it seeks to bring together the bio-medical debate on the impact of widespread and unregulated use of agrochemicals on public health and kidney disease with broader global interdisciplinary perspectives on the industrialization of agriculture and the consolidation of food production by transnational agribusiness corporations. The article concludes pointing out environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development and organic agriculture as the long-term solutions to CKD in Sri Lanka and elsewhere.