Agribusiness and the Neoliberal Food System in Brazil: Frontiers and Fissures of Agro-neoliberalism

by Antonio Augusto Rossotto Ioris

Overview

Due to new production areas and persistent productivity gains, Brazil has consolidated its position as a global leader and even as a ‘model’ of commercial, integrated crop production. The country is now seen as an agricultural powerhouse that has a lot to offer in terms of reducing the prospect of a looming, increasingly global, food crisis.

Agribusiness and the Neoliberal Food System in Brazil focuses on the intensification of Brazilian agribusiness as a privileged entry point into the politicised geography of globalised agri-food. Drawing on rich empirical analysis based around three fieldwork campaigns in the state of Mato Grosso, the book examines the connections between farming, markets and the apparatus of the state. The importance of agribusiness expansion within the wider politico-economic context of Brazilian neoliberalism is demonstrated, thus drawing broader conclusions about the main trends of agribusiness in the world today and providing recommendations for future research.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of agribusiness, neoliberalism and global food production, as well as those interested in Brazil and Latin America more generally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367248765
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/06/2019
Series:	Earthscan Food and Agriculture
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Antonio Augusto Rossotto Ioris is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University, UK.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Political Ecology of Agri-Food Systems
2. Realising Agro-neoliberalism in Brazil
3. Push and Hold the Agribusiness Frontier
4. The Rent of Agribusiness
5. Displacement, Replacement and Misplacement
6. Poverty in Rich Amazonian Ecosystems
7. Conclusions: Fields of Empty Grains

Editorial Reviews

"Ioris’ theoretically and empirically informed analysis of neoliberal agrifood in Brazil highlights the power, folly, and injustice of contemporary capitalism. The book presents the socioecological implications - both local and global - of bringing central Amazonia into the core of the global economy with disturbing clarity and urgency, leaving chunks stuck in your throat." – Steven Wolf, Professor of Environmental Social Science, Cornell University, USA

"Back from a reporting trip in the Brazilian Amazon, where agribusiness is expanding at a savage pace, I was delighted to discover this book. Ioris is one of the few voices to be analysing from a radical perspective the horrendous social and environmental costs of the commodification of our food." – Sue Branford, former Latin America analyst at the BBC World Service, UK

"This is a book of immense importance to anyone seeking to understand the influence, the rationale and the limitations of agribusiness in the word today. It is a powerful and insightful text that should be read by anyone interested in the neoliberal turn of the agri-food systems and the related agrarian, environmental and socio-ecological problems which particularly characterise the new agricultural frontiers of Brazil." – Bernardo M. Fernandes, chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in Territorial Development and Education for the Countryside and geography professor at São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil

From the Publisher