ABSTRACT
In recent decades, the governing of agricultural production has been profoundly transformed. Where, in the past, primary producers and their associated rural communities were protected from the vagaries of the world market through state-based regulatory frameworks of trade tariffs, pricing subsidies and quota protection, now these frameworks are being progressively dismantled, forcing farmers to compete on a global scale for increasingly fickle markets. In spite of these shifts being executed under the banner of free trade (McMichael and Lawrence 2001: 154; see also Peine and McMichael, Chapter 2, this volume), and, with farmers being promised increased freedom in the marketplace, the reality for many producers has been their subjection to new demands from transnational corporations, supranational organizations such as the European Union, environmental bodies, and a host of groups which contest claims that rural spaces are exclusively sites of production. Unable, or unwilling, to regulate the interactions of these various stakeholders, the nation state has come under much scrutiny as questions are raised about its continued relevance in an era where non-state actors at the global, national and local levels are increasingly influential in shaping the activities of agri-food producers. While few would argue that nation states have been rendered meaningless or powerless by these changes, it is worth considering how the emergence of these new actors into the agri-political arena have changed our understanding of the modern state and, by implication, the way in which agricultural production is governed in contemporary societies.
