Page 354 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

9781412934633-Chap-22 1/10/09 8:54 AM Page 325

HUNGER AND PLENTY 325

The first food regime (Atkins and Bowler, encouraged by the Western TNCs and inter-
2003; Friedmann and McMichael, 1989; national development agencies in the newly
Le Heron, 1993; McMichael, 1994) emerged emerging Third World colonial states,
in the pre-World War I period under British destroyed local farm economies. They also
hegemony. It was based on global exchange led to urbanization and reconstructed
of manufactured goods from European states urban diets fashioned according to Western
for tropical goods from the colonies. models. Emphasizing economies of scale,
Complementary product exchange gave way efficiency, productivity and profitability, a
to competitive product trade according to productionist paradigm prevailed throughout
comparative economic advantage. In the col- the first and second food regimes. For exam-
onized territories, land that was appropriated ple, Green Revolution schemes introduced
from aboriginal peoples was granted to a new during the second food regime were justified
class of settler farmers. Unlike peasant as the crucial tools to respond to increasing
economies of pre-capitalist societies that global population and hunger. Instead, the
were organized by the rules of subsistence destruction of rural peasant forms of produc-
and reproduction, the family farm special- tion led to rapid urbanization, increasing
ized in commodity production. As industrial poverty and more hunger while millions of
capital began to ‘appropriate’ parts of the unemployed, or marginally employed, urban
agricultural labour process, the same com- residents became increasingly dependent on
petitive dynamics that emerged among indus- foreign aid packages (Atkins and Bowler,
trial enterprises also determined the relations 2003; Friedmann, 1987; Le Heron, 1993;
among the rural simple commodity produc- McMichael, 1998).
ers. Cooperation among pioneers in early years The crisis of the second food regime and
of settler farming weakened under commodity the general accumulation crisis of Fordism in
pressures. On the other hand, in the newly the mid-1970s gave way to the third food
emerging nation-states new alliances formed regime. The collapse of Breton Woods, the
among wider social segments of the popula- oil crisis, global economic recession and
tion, bonded through nationalist ideologies. Third World debt led to corporate and state
Nationalism helped hegemonic social classes restructuring in the 1980s. Corporate response
to define boundaries of their home markets and to the crisis included measures, such as a
unify diverse segments of the society around a shift to new information technologies, decen-
new imaginary community. tralization and privatization, emphasis on
The second food regime corresponded increasing rationalization and efficiency;
roughly to the period following the World deskilling, cheap labour, intensification of
War II until the mid-1970s, shaped by the US the work process; global sourcing and
hegemony and the Cold War competition. shrinking of time and space. Globalization of
Reflecting the overriding Fordist accumula- industrial and agricultural production was
tion tendencies during this era, the restructur- accompanied by an even more dramatic
ing of agricultural sectors by agro-food globalization of the financial markets in this
capital aimed at mass production for mass era (Aglietta, 1982; Giddens, 2000; Hall and
consumption (Baca, 2004). Three factors: Jacques, 1989; Harvey, 1982; Lipietz, 1987;
namely direct investment through transna- Thornton, 2004).
tional corporations (TNCs), the development
of durable food and intensive meat commod-
ity complexes, and strong state protection for
agriculture – food and farm subsidies – THE GLOBAL FOOD REGIME
marked the general tendencies of the second
food regime. Food aid, commodification and The emerging global world order defined a
modernization policies, which were often historical conjuncture in the restructuring of