ABSTRACT
This book examines the structural transformation in Turkey’s food-provisioning system, including producer–distributor–retailer relationships, from a comparative global political economy perspective. The remaking of agriculture and food in Turkey is taking place through intensified commodification of land, food and labour; the expansion of a supermarket model; and concomitant changes in, as well as the simultaneous co-existence of, traditional methods of production and marketing. This remaking is consistent with what the World Bank (WB), in its 2008 World Development Report, calls a ‘new agriculture for development’ – a policy that advocates the ascendancy of large-scale commercial farmers and a profit-driven orientation in global agriculture (World Bank 2007) tied to national economic growth (Li 2009; McMichael 2009). While the report anticipates a gradual disappearance of small-scale farming, it also encourages the integration of small producers into out-grower schemes as suppliers for large commercial farms through contract farming (White et al. 2012, 625–6). The WB presents a largely linear perspective on the remaking of food and agriculture that posits an inexorable tendency toward commodification. Alternatively, this book offers a systematic presentation of the tensions, ambiguities and diversities that simultaneously affect the changing conditions of food and agriculture in Turkey.
