Frontiers and New Agricultural Countries

• In Event: 473 - Section on Political Economy of the World-System Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Political Economy of the World-System Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Environment

Abstract

In this paper I argue that frontiers or socio-ecological spaces for intensified agriculture production have been central to the emergence of ‘new agricultural countries’, or countries with growing agroexport economies in the global South. The ecological and spatial dimensions of industrial agriculture’s global spread are often missed in the literature on agribusiness and agri-food industries in the global South. Following Jason Moore’s concept of ‘frontier’, I capture the relationship between ‘old’ agricultural lands that are not (or no longer) fit for intensive agriculture and ‘new’ lands that are reclaimed, or made fit, for intensive agricultural systems. The new lands are often in semi-arid or arid regions that are more amenable to biosecuritization – that is, on-farm practice and organization for the control of pests, diseases, soil erosion, and other recurring threats to ‘working capital’. This finding is based on extensive research on the agri-food industry in Egypt as well as preliminary research on the US, Argentina, Brazil, Jordan, Morocco, and Peru.

Author

• Marion W Dixon, Cornell University