ABSTRACT
Political economy offers one approach to understanding the development of nationally and globally orientated food systems that replaced, subsistence agriculture and then commercial agriculture geared to regional markets. The central concern of political economy with the capitalist world economy locates economic analysis within specific social formations and explains the development process in terms of the benefits and costs they carry for different social classes. Political economy focuses attention on the roles of capital and the state in the restructuring of economy and society, together with the consequences for different social groupings. When used in a study of the agro-food system, a political economy approach takes the analysis beyond the farm gate to consider financial institutions, food processors and food retailers, along with food trade and transport, and intervention by the state. The role of processors/manufacturers in the production of food is examined, taking a food systems approach to uncover the varied power relations within the vertical structure of commodity chains.
