ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the “base” of United States food power. It analyzes the scope of American agricultural resources, and how the supply of food commodities is determined by factors in both the domestic and international environments. The chapter provides a description of the means by which central state actors are able to exert control over agricultural resources, on those occasions where they seek to use food as an instrument to accomplish state objectives. The term “food power” is generally used to refer to the influence and control one state may exercise over another due to its position as an exporter of food resources to that state. A major area of investigation with regard to the potential implementation of food power by central decision-makers is how such policies can be administered within a so-called free market economy.
