ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a horizontal look at how the different players involved with food are linked with one another. Transnational corporations (TNCs) dominate three strategic segments of the world food economy, provision of inputs, trade in agricultural commodities and food processing, and food retailing, and impinge on production as well. The corporate-led food regime would not be able to function without a global market organized in a way that favors its operations. Contract farming is being promoted in the Global South, as well, as an allegedly more inclusive way of linking small-scale producers into value chains than plantation farming. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the most contentious aspect of the corporate seed market because of their impact on the world's biogenetic and germplasm reserves. GMOs are touted by their manufacturers as a solution to hunger since they are claimed to increase crop yields.
