The globalization of agriculture

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY, Vol. 12, No. 3, May 1993,194-197

The globalization of agriculture FRANCESM.

Department

UFKES

of Geography, 316 Jessup Hall, Univmiy

of Iowa, Iowa City, IA~52242, USA

In a departure from traditional secular or sectoral approaches in which farm crises or farm problems are viewed in isolation from broader dynamics of capitalist accumulation, the confluence of recent thought in rural sociology, geography and other fields addresses issues of agricultural production As first articulated by the French

and trade in light of the current regime of accumulation, regulationist school, structures of capitalist accumulation

in the world economy are associated with particular alignments of production relations, class relations and consumption patterns (Aglietta, 1979; Lipietz, 1987). Forms of agricultural organization, agricultural trade flows and food commodity chains serve as windows on these broader processes. Agrarian forms are socially and historically defined and are linked to movements in the larger economy (Friedmann, 1982; Kenney et al.,

1989). An integrated

approach to the study of agricultural development includes forging linkages among the crises facing capital accumulation in the world economy, changing forms of global regulation that reconstruct flows of international commodity exchange, alterations in central and local state-society relations, change in the structure of agro-food capital that integrates systems of food production and consumption transnationally and evolving power dynamics within the multistate system. Framing issues of farm production and agricultural trade within regimes of accumulation dichotomies such as ‘production’ and ‘consumption’,

’rural’ and ‘urban’ and ‘agriculture’

and ‘industry’

approaches

and a serious

questioning

of deductivist

warrants

a dispelling

of persistent

to the study of agrarian

change. Capitalist restructuring since the mid 1970s mirrored in the breakdown of forms of national and global regulation associated with US hegemony in the post-World War II order and the rise of a multipolar world economy, ushers in heightened pressure for liberalizing agricultural trade. Efforts to liberalize agricultural trade are indicative of the shift from state to capital as the major force shaping regional agricultures (Friedmann and McMichael, 1989). Liberalization represents the dismantling of national forms of agricultural regulation and the development of structures facilitating global accumulation and globalization in the agricultural and food order. Recent struggles evident within the GATT Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations express and contribute to this dynamic. Transnational agro-food capital is becoming the dominant force structuring and restructuring agricultural sectors (Goodman et al., 1987). In recent years, dynamics of capitalist restructuring have resulted in new intensizJe accumulation processes, the development of highly-differentiated global food commodity chains, industrial

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FRANCES M. UFKES

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consolidation ‘across the food chain’ and heightened use of multiple-sourcing strategies by transnational agro-food capital. In the wake, ‘new’ world agricultural areas are being formed (McMichael, 1993) and ‘traditional’ agricultural areas are being radically transformed by means of agro-industrial influences on the farm production process. Via global sourcing strategies and allocation of various aspects of food commodity chains across core, peripheral and semi-peripheral countries, agro-food transnationals link the complex and variegated patterns of world food consumption to regional agricultural production systems across the globe. Accordingly, there is a net international division of labor in agriculture which accompanies the broader processes of economic, political and social restructuring in the world economy. Challenges to the power of extant agrarian regimes in core countries, and to the alliance between farmers and the state since World War II, are also evident within the movement toward further globalization in the agricultural and food order. Understanding this dynamic involves ‘bringing the state back in’ to examine how national institutions established in another historical moment are refashioned to respond to the uncertainties and exigencies of post-fordist accumulation and legitimation. Since the development of structures facilitating global accumulation involves manoeuvers within transnational institutions such as the GATT and IMF, struggles at this level must also be examined. Furthermore, at the regional level of geographical inquiry, it is important to delve into the nature of discourse and forms of resistance within the movement toward what John

(1990) calls ‘fordism’s unknown successor’. Papers in this special issue represent a significant

Lovering exciting

research

agenda.

McMichael

deals directly

contribution to this complex and with the re-regulation of agricultural

trade within the dynamics of the GATT Uruguay Round. In distinguishing between formal and substantive dimensions of the trade talks, he describes how proposals to re-regulate agriculture-such as efforts to reduce national subsidies to farm production and trade-create an environment that greatly enhances the geographical scope of agro-food capital. Efforts to create ‘a level playing field’ in agricultural trade free core industrial countries of the North from their historic (and expensive) alliance with national farm sectors, while simultaneously loosening the reins on the investment and sourcing activities of transnational agro-food capital. In the development of a global regime of accumulation, McMichael sees a devolution of nationally-based farm sectors, further North-North rivalry over agricultural regulation and world food market share and increasing food import dependence of the South. At the level of pmxis, global accumulation involves a shift from national to international politics, further insulating from public scrutiny the processes and institutions central in charting the fortunes of natiOnallybaSed U&es examines the role of trade liberalization in advancing of labor in agriculture. In a study of bilateral trade negotiations

farm sectors. new international divisions between the US and Japan

that led to the opening of the Japanese beef market in 1988, she shows how liberalization has intensified processes of globalization in the beef commodity chain. Liberalization resulted in the dismantling of national regulatory structures supporting Japan’s domestic beef industry and the creation of vertically-integrated beef export ‘production platforms’ in the 17s and Australia, established by Japanese and LJS agro-food capital, which cater to supplying grain-fed beef toJapan and other high-income Asian markets. Ufkes suggests that the bilateral trade negotiations cannot be understood apart from rapid industrial restructuring in the US and Australian meat industries, cleavages among US farm and food industry organizations regarding the pursuit of a liberal agricultural trade regime, linkages between agricultural trade and broader US-Japan trade relations and changing patterns of Japanese food consumption.

196

The globalization of agriculture

Kodras reveals the foreign policy objectives guiding the allocation of US food aid as illustrating the shifting role of the state within and between regimes of accumulation. The US executive, not subject to Congressional or public scrutiny in allocating governmentstored food reserves, may use food aid to garner specific foreign policy results. Although the common perception is that food aid is given to needy countries, the fact of the matter is that aid often goes to less deserving countries for reasons other than humanitarian. During the first and second Cold Wars, Kodras shows how food aid was targeted to countries central to theaters of Soviet containment. In the waning of the Cold War and the development of a global regime of accumulation, Kodras suggests that food aid may be used increasingly for ,geo-economic saturation and intense intercapitalist

rather than geopolitical ends. In an era of market rivalry over world food market share, food aid may be

used to establish a foothold in new or growing commercial globalization of agriculture has implications for the geography

markets. Accordingly, the of world hunger, as food

aid is channelled by the US and other food-donor countries to places with the greatest ‘market potential’. Grant examines domestic constraints on the commercial agricultural trade policies of the US, the EC andJapan. In all these industrialized countries, the state has had a strong and historical role in structuring and supporting their agricultural sectors. Although farm populations have declined dramatically in recent decades, farmers and farm lobbies in these countries still wield considerable influence on agricultural trade policy. Grant suggests products

that the IJS, EC and Japan use tariff structures in which they do not have a comparative advantage

to protect those while concurrently

agricultural advancing

‘free trade’ in products in which they do have an advantage. Contemporary discourse on agricultural trade includes both currents of liberalism and protectionism. Such contradictions are not illogical, but reflect nationalisms at work which may serve as a barrier to globalization and aspects of mutual legitimation among states that may enhance processes of global accumulation. Grant makes a convincing plea for re-examining the role of the nation-state in constraining the globalization of agriculture. In a time of global sourcing and allocation of various parts of food commodity chains across national boundaries, it is important to understand how national borders become ‘open’ to the import of some commodities yet ‘closed’ to the import of others. Moran examines legislation and commercial litigation relating to appellation systems and geographical indications, an often-ignored arena of struggle in the globalization of agriculture. Moran presents a compelling account of how EC rules for the naming and labelling of wines are becoming institutionalized as the global standard for wine trade. To gain access to the EC market, other wine-exporting countries are imitating EC appellation standards. Although this leads to the homogenization of appellation stana’anh, divergent elements countering globalization are also exposed. European wine producers assert a unique level of individuality within the institutional recognition and protection of exclusive rights to the use of regional place-names in the marketing of wine. Seemingly, this insulates European wine producers from being a direct link in the multiple-sourcing nexus of agro-food capital. There has yet to be a ‘world wine’ comparable to the ‘world steer’ (see Sanderson, 1986; Ufkes, this issue), or to transnational sourcing as found in fruit and vegetable trade (Friedland, 1992). Moran makes a solid contribution by showing how processes of globalization and localization rnaJj operate concurrently. Moore deals directly with issues of structure and agency and resistance to ideological hegemony in his study of protest against Japanese state rice policy by large-scale, full-time farmers in the HaChirogata model farm project. Hachirogata, engineered as the prototype for ‘high-tech’ rice farming in the late 196Os, became the focal point of producer protest

197

FRANCESM. UFKES

against the state during the 1970s and 1980s when agricultural diversification programs were instituted. Moore presents these expressions of agrarian resistance within the context of the transformation of the Japanese economy, domestic pressures to reduce farm subsidies and external pressure on Japan to liberalize rice trade in light of its export-led industrial success. Several forms of resistance are evident within Hachirogata producer protest as illustrated by the emergence of a protectionist faction, with ties to grass-roots farm organizations in the US and Europe, and another ‘free market’ faction that actively engages in the black marketing of rice. Moore reveals how Japanese farm policy (and producer resistance to it) is couched within broader religious/cultural values and how symbolic and sentimental elements are embodied in contemporav farm protest. Issues of empowerment/disempowerment and the discourse of resistance to globalization are central to understanding how central and local state-society relations are realigned within the movement toward a new regime of accumulation.

Acknowledgements I would

like to thank

Political

Geography

Trade’

and ‘The Politics

American

Geographers

and Philip McMichael Roberts Mary

McDonald,

of Global

for reading

as well

System

papers

for

the sessions, Restructuring’

on various

the project.

as those

O’Loughlin

and Rural Land

Use Specialty

their who

during

Special insightful

served

drafts thanks

of this introduction

as reviewers.

Association

of

I thank Janet Kodras

go to Margaret on

and the

of Agricultural

at the San Diego

comments

the development

Group

‘The Politics

in this issue were first presented.

and comments

discussants,

of John

Agriculture for co-sponsoring

Agro-food where

throughout

session

to this issue

and support

Group

meetings

for encouragement

contributors interest

the Contemporary Specialty

and Rebecca

FitzSimmons

the

I also greatly

papers.

and

I thank

appreciate

the

of this issue.

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