Suchergebnisse

Abstract In the decades following the Second World War supermarkets and retail outlets in North America, Western Europe, and Australasia became the most important sites for the sale of food products. This dominance in food sales was generally confined to the retail sector as supermarkets tended to act as a nexus or distribution point between agri‐food producers and consumers. In the 1970s this relationship began to break down as supermarkets moved up the chain of production. Supermarkets began to directly source materials from producers to use in "own" brand and generic products, which soon came to compete with the branded products of agri‐food manufacturers. This paper traces the beginnings of these shifts and investigates the consequences of globally‐sourced supermarket goods in the context of the Australian agri‐food system, with pineapples and wine as case studies. The paper concludes that the increasing size and scope of supermarket buying power and the presence and growth of "own" brands suggests that capital organized through retail channels is coming to rival manufacturing capital as a significant fraction of the Australian agri‐food system.

Agriculture has been central to accounts of Thailand's modernisation and the rise of the national development project between the 1940s and the 1970s. However, the role of agriculture in the waning of national development is rarely explored critically in the Thai context. This paper focuses on agriculture and the role of the state in the shift from national development to globalisation. (DSE/DÜI)

First published in 1999, this collection of papers represents the latest thinking on the effects of globalisation and agri-food restructuring from a regional and peripheral perspective. The book breaks new ground in our understanding of the relationship between the global, regional and local levels in the sphere of agri-food production. While Australia and New Zealand are important components of the agri-food system, the economic and political decisions which impact at the regional and local level are usually made elsewhere - often in the boardrooms of global companies and the political institutions of Europe and North America. At the same time, however, Australia and New Zealand have sought to establish some independent room for manoeuvre. In Australia this can be seen in the targeting of consumers in South East Asia, and New Zealand has experienced both sweeping deregulation and niche marketing of goods such as organic produce. The success or failure of these strategies cannot currently be determined, but this invaluable collection presents and discusses some possible future scenarios. Featuring 31 specialists in sociology, geography, social anthropology, veterinary science, environmental studies and sustainable development, it is a product of the Agri-Food Research Network. The volume includes 19 essays which attempt to conceptualise a series of global trends and their local ramifications, explore Australian and New Zealand experiences of agri-food restructuring in historic, ideological and discursive terms, and analyse local policy and politics and the influence on rural producers, along with studying four key concepts underpinning agri-food research and the possibilities for their application in new areas.