The context

The global food system is undergoing rapid transformation. Ongoing crises endemic to both capitalism and industrial food production are giving rise to a constant clamor of social forces trying to prove that their crisis resolution strategy is best. Whether in response to the avian flu, trade competition from overseas, or StarLink™ corn, societies are increasingly presented with new technologies and forms of governance whose proponents claim can deliver safe, stable and profitable nourishment.

Such crises present numerous opportunities to create and capture new forms of value in the food supply chain. Starting with the seed, and ending with consumer branding, capital seeks to restructure itself according to the emergence of new markets. But these markets are anything but "free": they must be constructed for capital via juridical, legislative, and scientific means that disembed people and things from their social and ecological contexts, and privilege the positioning of certain stakeholders.

Meanwhile, social conflict and growing global inequality are increasingly obscured by the internal differentiation of product lines and transnational supply chains, such that the same food corporations can serve markets in diverse places and political climates, and even opposing social forces. The cooptation and commodification of political demands (which in themselves represent a response to crisis) through branding and market segmentation defer any solutions or approaches that take on the entire beast.

Together, all of these changes require epistemological shakedowns, as the old means of innovating and transferring knowledge become outmoded and non-competitive. For this, forces of capital seek to mobilize both private and public knowledge sectors so that they can achieve the ultimate goal: “locking in” buyers to their products.

This website seeks to dismantle all forms of corporate “lock-in” in the food system. By bringing together articles, recent research, industry gossip, analysis, multi-media and art to help provide academics and activists with an up-to-date understanding of emerging forms of governance of food and agriculture in the global economy, as well as the technologies, knowledge systems, and cultural norms associated to them.

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Contact Us

Get in touch with us through info {at} agfoodgovernance.org