Journal of Agrarian Change最新文献

Henry Bernstein has criticized the research agenda of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), and the publications linked to it, for, among other things, not having specified which classes are supposed to comprise the proposed emancipatory rural politics. The Journal of Agrarian Change organized a special issue (published in January 2023) that takes Bernstein's critique as its point of departure. It emphasized the importance of movements of the working class that straddle the rural–urban corridor. I agree, but this should not be done by de-valuing the agrarian and the rural. The key challenge is in building agrarian, rural and rural–urban anti-capitalist movements and alliances within and between these spheres. This calls for more—not less—attention to agrarian movements seen from the inseparable domains of the agrarian, rural and rural–urban continuum in terms of academic research and political action. A starting point, and implication, of this broader unit of analysis and political intervention is an argument against a ‘too agrarian-centric’, or ‘merely agrarian’, mass movement-building and political mobilization to counter regressive populism and struggle against capitalism.

Migrant farmworkers are a ubiquitous but invisibilised, expropriated and exploited component of the global agricultural economy. Their conditions took centre-stage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fear of production disruption in the migrant labour-intensive sectors led to foreign workers being deemed ‘essential’ in many countries, and exceptional procedures and regulations were instituted that further increased their exploitation, illnesses and deaths. However, the pandemic has not merely exposed the long-established structures of racialised exploitation and expropriation in the domain of farm work. Although it exacerbated the precariousness of the living and working conditions defining the reality of migrant farm workers, there is evidence that the pandemic also strengthened farmworkers' individual and collective consciousness, along with forms of organisation and resistance. The symposium ‘Migrant Farmworkers: Resisting and Organizing before, during and after COVID-19’ explores two dimensions reflected in migrant farmworkers' realities during the pandemic. First, the contributions look at the general conditions defining power structures and material outcomes within the political economy of agriculture before and during the pandemic. Second, they explore the conditions under which resistance and solidarity emerged to question established structures of exploitation.

The current agrarian and food crisis in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has been interpreted through a number of tropes. Within the dominant mainstream discourse, the MENA region is often depicted as a homogenous geographical area characterized by dryness, infertile lands and poor water resources. How did imperialism, colonialism and the Cold War influence the MENA food systems? What were the effects of trade liberalization and neoliberalism on the agricultural systems in the region? These are some questions that this paper will try to answer using a geographical and historical-comparative analysis, through a food regimes lens. Understanding contemporary social relations dynamics cannot be limited to the recent period. Agriculture and food in the MENA region are anchored in the history of power relations ruled by flows of capital and the shaping of ecological transformations during the longue durée of capitalism and its corresponding modes of control and regulation.

A global transition towards diets increasingly dominated by ultra-processed foods (UPFs) has occurred in recent decades to the detriment of public health and the environment. This study aimed to examine long-term trends in the structure and market dynamics of the global UPF manufacturing industry as part of broader efforts to understand the drivers of this transition. Using diverse methods, metrics and data sources, we examined several dimensions (e.g., industry concentration and profitability) according to an adapted structure–conduct–performance model. We found that the global UPF manufacturing industry has evolved to become a major component of global food systems, with its longstanding dominant corporations becoming some of the system's largest accumulators of profit and distributors of capital. It follows that reversing the global UPF dietary transition will require structural and regulatory changes to ensure that population diets, and food systems more broadly, are not subordinated to the interests of powerful for-profit business corporations.

This paper looks at a case of rural-to-rural movement of agrarian capital in southern India and the ways in which capital–labour relations are reworked to maintain oppressive forms of exploitation. Faced with an agrarian crisis, capitalist farmers from affluent communities of Wayanad, Kerala, take large tracts of land for lease in the neighbouring state of Karnataka and grow ginger based on price speculation. Landless Adivasis from Wayanad have served as labourers on these ginger farmlands for the past three decades. Recently, farmers have shifted to employing labourers from a Scheduled Caste (SC) from Karnataka. The change happened not just because of the lower wages the SC labourers were willing to work for but also because of the farmers' inclination to move away from Adivasis who have been resisting the poor working conditions on the farm. The story resonates with the broader dynamics of agrarian–labour relations amidst capitalist expansion and highlights the centrality of socio-political factors at play.

COVID-19 has had deep impacts on a wide range of vulnerable communities in Canada. Migrant agricultural workers in the southwestern region of Ontario were particularly impacted. Fearing the threat of the ‘racialized foreign other’, the Canadian state produced myriad securitization responses with heightened surveillance. This paper will examine both state and non-state forms of securitization and the response from both workers and activists such as the advocacy group Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW). While there has been ample discussion of how vulnerable migrant agricultural workers were affected during the pandemic, there has been less attention paid to how state policies have heightened and targeted specific groups such as migrant agricultural workers through modes of securitization. Central to this was to ensure that labour needs would be met to ensure the viability of Canada's multi-billion agricultural industry. This paper shows how securitization and control were vital to ensure no disruptions to production levels and Canada's role as a leading agricultural export producer.

Under what conditions are some small-scale agricultural producers able to overcome challenges associated with shifting to organic production, whereas most are not? The answers are vital for the global effort to encourage more sustainable, pro-poor forms of agriculture—more organic farming, more sustainable production; more smallholders engaged in green production, more income and better livelihoods. Yet, answering this question is challenging in part because previous analyses of global production networks, such as those associated with organic agriculture, focus more on broad governance patterns than the specific factors and actors that help smallholders shift to organic production and link to far-flung markets. To fill in these gaps, we conducted fieldwork in Isan, Thailand, a major rice-producing area in which many groups of smallholders have attempted to shift into organic production. Doing so allows us to identify the critical challenges associated with upgrading into organic production and analyse how specific actors enabled some groups to overcome these challenges. Our findings provide a generalizable theoretical approach to understanding how to link small-scale farmers to global value chains in ways that can potentially enhance smallholders' livelihoods, spark rural development and encourage more sustainable practices in agriculture.

Based on an empirical exercise carried out in five villages of Odisha in eastern India, the paper looks into ageing of the farm population and the experiences and responses of farmers of various age groups to farming. The findings of the study indicate that agriculture is greying, farmers are getting older and the youth, particularly of higher and cultivating castes, are averse to farming. The unwillingness of these youths to join farming is mainly attributed to loss of social status, declining profitability in agriculture and discouragement of immediate ‘mentors’, the middle-aged farmers, caused by the perpetual decline of farm income and loss of social recognition. The hitherto nonfarming youths, belonging to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and service-rendering castes, especially the female youths, are joining farming to fill this gap, mostly as leased-in cultivators.