ABSTRACT
Since the late 1970s capitalism has been reconfiguring farming systems around the world in order to increase the production of food and cash crops. In a classic formulation, a food regime can be defined as the 'international relations of food production and consumption' that can be directly linked 'to forms of accumulation'. The current food regime is widely labeled as 'corporate'. The corporate food regime is dominated by global agrofood transnational corporations, driven by world market prices and the financial imperatives of short-run profitability, and characterized by the relentless food commodification processes that underpin 'supermarketization'. A key need in addressing rural poverty and agrarian inequality is therefore sustained increases in agricultural surpluses. Sustainable pro-poor gender-responsive biotechnological change is predicated upon maintaining rural environmental and natural resources. The pro-poor gender-responsive redistributive agrarian reform can involve a plurality of social-property relations, including private and collective forms of property.
