ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to shed light on the distorted global food market and its underlying fundamentals. It argues that the ‘free market rhetoric’ of the Western world has largely benefited certain corporations in the world agro-food system. The chapter explores the power dynamics in the global agro-food system in order to position the investments in land and water resources in a global political economy context, illustrating how distorted global market conditions have led to imbalances in global food and water security. At a time of increasing global food security concerns, investments may also be perceived as an attempt to counter Western-inflicted trade relations and, as a result, concentrated corporate power within the private agribusiness sector by emerging economies as a form of ‘inverse globalisation’. In the global economy of agriculture, the comparative advantages of African food producers are neglected as a consequence of Western protectionist policies.