ABSTRACT
Between 1940 and 2000, world agriculture underwent two periods of transition to create the modern world agro-food system. During the Second World War and the following decades, the United States came to dominate world agriculture and shape the world food system. From the 1970s, many countries became major farm producers, competing successfully with the U.S., and destabilizing world markets. Transnational corporations used their wealth, market power, and technological expertise to control food consumption. This in turn made it difficult for farmers to escape the production requirements these firms impose on farm production, and the role of farmers in the global food system. In the context of this transformation of world food regimes, five processes
have shaped agrarian life. These included the rise and decline of communist agrarian systems, the Green Revolution and the increased food production it brought in many developing countries, the industrialization of farming and decline of farmers in the developed world, the emergence of Africa as a region of agrarian crisis, and the unanticipated repercussions of agrarian technological advancement. By the early twenty-first century, world agriculture produced vast amounts of food, but its dependence on fossil fuels, and environmental changes like global warming, threaten to undermine world food security. These developments in contemporary farming have changed the old dual
subordination. Governments, international organizations, and businesses all over the world have worked to support farmers, conduct research and shape policies in farmers’ interests, and produce products that make farming more efficient. At no time in human history have there been such concerted efforts to weaken the dual subordination, to help farmers overcome environmental difficulties, and empower farmers politically. Yet many of these efforts have ironically relegated farmers to new and different forms of subordination. Consequently, in no previous period have so many farmers left farming, so that for the first time in history farmers are no longer the majority of the world’s people.
