The corporate food regime in conflict zones: Armed violence and agriculture in the Zona de Reserva Campesina-Valle del Río Cimitarra, Colombia

Abstract

Conflict is the number one driver of hunger globally but few studies reflect on the role of global agribusiness in the proliferation of conflictive dynamics. This article explores the Corporate Food Regime in a local conflict setting in Colombia, arguing that instability is a condition for capital accumulation in conflict zones. It offers a novel methodological and conceptual approach to traditional food regime studies that are global historical and based on periods of stable capital accumulation, with tensions pushing for regime change. Contrarily, in the Zona de Reserva Campesina-Valle del Río Cimitarra (ZRC-VRC) case study, violence and instability are central mechanisms for undermining campesino (peasant) agriculture and opening new market frontiers, therefore, central to solidifying the Corporate Food Regime. Here, corporations are both directly (through land purchase and cultivation of cash crops) and indirectly (through the intensive production model used in both illicit and licit crops by campesinos and the eradication of coca by the military) involved in violent dynamics, which ultimately supports corporate profiteering. The Corporate Food Regime not only profits from conflict but drives it, as wider macro-economic policies undermine campesino farming, incentivise coca cultivation and violent socio-ecological dynamics. This paper uses a data set of 47 semi-structured interviews, observation, and field notes from the ZRC-VRC, to underline the different routes through which corporate power is articulated at a local level.