Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions

by Philip McMichael

Overview

Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions extends the original conception of the food regime, formulated by Harriet Friedmann and Philip McMichael, detailing new dimensions of the succession of imperial, intensive and corporate food regimes. Developing the methodological contributions of food regime analysis, McMichael re-examines the agrarian question historically and its present-day implications, introduces regional interpretations of the food regime and incorporates gender, labour, financial, ecological and nutritional dimensions into his analysis. Finally, McMichael explores the relationships between contemporary food, energy, climate and financial crises and food regime restructuring, which includes agrofuels, land grabbing, the bioeconomy, agro-security mercantilism and the food sovereignty movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781552665756
Publisher:	Fernwood Publishing
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Series:	Agrarian Change , #1
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Philip McMichael is a professor in the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University and the author of Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective.

Table of Contents

ICAS Agrarian Change and Peasant Studies Series vii

Acknowledgements ix

Preface xi

1 The Food Regime Project 1

Food Regime Analysis 3

Food Regime Contours 5

Food Regime Method 7

Food Regime Specifications 9

Conclusion: A Post-Food Regime World? 17

2 Historical Forms of the Food Regime 21

Food Regime Pre-History 22

Food Regime Structuring, and Restructuring 24

Conclusion 40

3 The Corporate Food Regime 41

A Third Food Regime? 41

The Corporate Food Regime 47

Food Sovereignty 57

Conclusion 60

4 Food Regimes and the Agrarian Question 62

Agrarian Question Reformulation? 63

The Agrarian Question in the Food Regime 65

Agrarian Question or Agrarian Crisis? 69

Inverting Agrarian Question Politics 73

An Agrarian Question of Food 79

Conclusion 83

5 Food Regime Reformulations 84

Regional Food Regime Analysis 84

Food Regime Relations 96

Conclusion 108

6 Crisis and Restructuring 109

Crisis? Which Crisis? 109

Capital Accumulation Crisis 114

Corporate Food Regime Restructuring 117

Capital's Frontier 123

Agro-Security Mercantilism 125

Conclusion 129

7 The Food Regime and Value Relations: Which Values? 131

Value Relations 132

Revisiting the Agrarian Question 135

Social Reproduction vs. Capital Reproduction 138

Repeasantization: Revaluing the Agrarian Question? 145

Food Sovereignty 147

Scaling Up 153

Conclusion 156

Glossary 159

References 165

Index 189