ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses structural problems of the global capitalist agri-food system. It suggests that these problems are intertwined with neo-classical economics and neo-liberal ideologies, which makes such theoretical perspectives unsuitable for this research. The chapter also discusses an alternative neo-Marxist framework which conceptualises the mainstream global agri-food system as part of capital accumulation, riddled with structural political-economic and ecological problems. It describes Gramscian concepts of hegemony, counter-hegemony, and co-optation of oppositions in the agri-food system. The chapter provides supplementary insights from poststructuralist and feminist perspectives. It also briefly discusses how the industrial agricultural production methods are ecologically unsustainable and work against small-scale farmer. Neo-liberal structural adjustment policies imposed by institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also intensified the reduction in farmer-support mechanisms. The exploitation of both humans and the ecological system can be observed through the study of linkages between agriculture, food and capital accumulation.
