The sustainability of the agrifood system: determinants of the interaction between global and local agrifood governance

Abstract

"The sustainability of today’s global agrifood system is shaped by a complex web of global and local forces. These forces include local values and practices, transnational corporations (TNCs), agricultural policies and politics of the EU as well as the activities of the United Nations Development Program, for instance. This paper aims to develop a framework for analyzing the interaction of various global and local forces in shaping the agrifood system and its sustainability characteristics. This framework allows the systematic and comprehensive identification of the relative impact of global versus local, material versus normative, and actor-specific versus structural forces. In a second step, the paper illustrates the framework’s reach in an investigation of determinants of policies and practices regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in India. GMO practices and policies represent a contested ground where local and “international” values and interests frequently clash. In consequence, the commercial introduction of GMOs in India presents an excellent case study for the interaction of forces in the agrifood system." [author's abstract]