**2. The neoliberal food regime**

In order to uncover the peculiar traits of the neoliberal food policy it is important to explore the links between the development of the food system and capitalism itself. The history of food and food policy closely follows the history of the Industrial Revolution and of twentieth century capitalism. To understand how the international division of labor in agriculture as well as food policy depend strictly on processes of capitalistic accumulation, one can depart from the concept of food regime. According to this concept, developed within the world-system research strain, the organization of food production and distribution is explained better by political rather than economic factors. Friedman's basic definition of food regime is 'a rule-governed structure of production and consumption on a world scale' (Friedmann, 1993). A particular food regime is characterized by a hegemonic power which is able "to dictate the rules". Literature on food regime, inaugurated by Friedmann (Friedmann, 1987, 1993, 2004; Friedmann and McMichael, 1989) is anchored to the theories of world system and of regulation, and was first elaborated within the research field of international relations and international political economy. Currently it is an interdisciplinary approach, encompassing the fields of economics, history, politics, sociology and law.

So far, three food regimes have been described. In the first period, spanning between 1870 and 1914 and designated as " Settler-Colonial", Britain inaugurated the policy of 'cheap food' for the industrial working class, based on the imports of basic grains and livestock from settler colonies. In this period the imposed mono-cultural agriculture, while feeding industrialization and capital accumulation in the mother countries, compromised food systems and ecological resources in colonies. In Africa and Latin America, many regions moved from a situation of food self-sufficiency to a situation of food scarcity and famine, paving the way for the successive food regime, the "Surplus" regime, between 1945 and 1973. In this period the Unites States, under the umbrella of food aid programs, invaded their informal empire of postcolonial states with their food surpluses, clutching them in the grip of the external debt. This was the effect of the high-level support that the US had to give to their enterprises in order to maintain an international economic hegemony by backing the value of the dollar to which other currencies were anchored in the Bretton Woods system. Moreover, at that time the profits of American companies that came from the favorable terms of trade with the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) were used to finance growth in Europe, itself a market for imported American products. Partly because of the changed scenario of international trade (with Europe emerging as an important food exporter), partly because of the end of the US monetary hegemony (and the associated world monetary stability), and partly because of the new corporate interests within the system (with

The last section, dealing with the obstacles faced by opponents to neoliberalism, analyzes the limits of the specific ethical and political theories endorsed by the standard economic model and shows the difficulties experimented by alternative approaches in drawing new theoretical paradigms. Given its theoretical scope, the paper does not however address the political obstacles arising from concrete political practices in real institutional contexts.

The main outcome of the paper is that, in order to overcome the neoliberal policies, one must enable processes of participatory democracy by appealing to the distinctive character

In order to uncover the peculiar traits of the neoliberal food policy it is important to explore the links between the development of the food system and capitalism itself. The history of food and food policy closely follows the history of the Industrial Revolution and of twentieth century capitalism. To understand how the international division of labor in agriculture as well as food policy depend strictly on processes of capitalistic accumulation, one can depart from the concept of food regime. According to this concept, developed within the world-system research strain, the organization of food production and distribution is explained better by political rather than economic factors. Friedman's basic definition of food regime is 'a rule-governed structure of production and consumption on a world scale' (Friedmann, 1993). A particular food regime is characterized by a hegemonic power which is able "to dictate the rules". Literature on food regime, inaugurated by Friedmann (Friedmann, 1987, 1993, 2004; Friedmann and McMichael, 1989) is anchored to the theories of world system and of regulation, and was first elaborated within the research field of international relations and international political economy. Currently it is an interdisciplinary approach, encompassing the fields of economics, history, politics, sociology

So far, three food regimes have been described. In the first period, spanning between 1870 and 1914 and designated as " Settler-Colonial", Britain inaugurated the policy of 'cheap food' for the industrial working class, based on the imports of basic grains and livestock from settler colonies. In this period the imposed mono-cultural agriculture, while feeding industrialization and capital accumulation in the mother countries, compromised food systems and ecological resources in colonies. In Africa and Latin America, many regions moved from a situation of food self-sufficiency to a situation of food scarcity and famine, paving the way for the successive food regime, the "Surplus" regime, between 1945 and 1973. In this period the Unites States, under the umbrella of food aid programs, invaded their informal empire of postcolonial states with their food surpluses, clutching them in the grip of the external debt. This was the effect of the high-level support that the US had to give to their enterprises in order to maintain an international economic hegemony by backing the value of the dollar to which other currencies were anchored in the Bretton Woods system. Moreover, at that time the profits of American companies that came from the favorable terms of trade with the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) were used to finance growth in Europe, itself a market for imported American products. Partly because of the changed scenario of international trade (with Europe emerging as an important food exporter), partly because of the end of the US monetary hegemony (and the associated world monetary stability), and partly because of the new corporate interests within the system (with

of the human being, namely reflexive deliberation.

**2. The neoliberal food regime** 

and law.

corporations seeking new investments and market opportunities offered by trade liberalization and by the growing demand in emergent countries), the second food regime actually ends with the demise of Bretton Woods. Since then a third food regime has initiated which, notwithstanding its still blurred contours, may be termed neoliberal or corporate regime1.

The neoliberal food regime (sometimes also referred to as 'food from nowhere' regime or 'corporate' food regime, as reported by McMichael, 2009) is the product of neoliberalism, which has been shaping global economy over the last thirty years. The four credos of neoliberalism - deregulation, international trade liberalization, reduction of public expenditure and privatization - have produced a new international food order, characterized, inter alia, by: 1) a high level of consolidation at the manufacturer and retail level, with a dramatic rise of corporate power; 2) an international division of labor based on the organizational features of global food commodity chains, with the rise of export zones in the global south and the displacement of independent producers and small scale agriculture; 3) an increasing market differentiation, with low-quality mass products alongside with "high-tech/high quality" rich products; 4) bio-nano technologies and intellectual property rights as the new frontiers for profit extraction; 5) the accelerated depletion of natural resources, with a global food system increasingly dependent on oil and massively contributing to climate change (Garnett, 2008; Shiva, 2008).

The specific traits of the three food regimes are very different and in each of them food has had a different role in the economic as well in the political and socio-cultural sphere. This paper does not intend to review the concept and the history, and the related theoretical and political controversies, of food regime and therefore such differences are not explored. What is important here, in order to analyze the neoliberal food policy, is to highlight only the main common trait and the main difference between the neoliberal food regime and its predecessors. This will help to shed light on the core elements of the current economic and political dynamics within the world food system.

The red thread which unifies the three food regimes is the integration of the food production and consumption activities into the processes of industrialization and capitalistic accumulation. As stressed by McMichael (2009), "the food regime concept is not about food per se, but about the relations within which food is produced, and through which capitalism is produced and reproduced". Since the beginning of the first food regime (which coincides with the second industrial revolution, 1870-1914) the capitalistic development has entailed:

1. The commodification of food, that is to say, in current terminology, that food production and distribution have entered the formal sector of the economy (i.e. that regulated by formal markets, whose sales and turnovers compose the GNP). Food markets have replaced self-sustained peasant communities, where production systems are governed by an array of institutions which range from authoritative feudal and family organizations to gift and community-based systems of reciprocal systems of exchange. In this way not only alternative ways of economic organization have been destroyed, but also entire cultures and societies.

 1 The debate on the identification and definition of the third food regime is reported by McMichael (2009). See also: Burch and Lawrence, 2009; Pechlaner and Otero, 2010.

Food Policy Beyond Neo-Liberalism 379

As a generally intended term food policy refers to the two fields of intervention of food safety and food security. Moreover, a third field may be added concerning the control of the environmental impact of food production and distribution; this component may be called food sustainability. As an institutionalized field of state intervention food policy emerged at the beginning of the third food regime. The term *food security* was coined for the first time following the First World Food Conference in 1974 in Rome. The term food safety was used first in the United States in 1977 when naming the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).2 During the previous food regimes the only institutionalized field of public intervention was agricultural policy, which was part of the general economic development policy, and was often subordinated to industrial policy. The first World Food Summit was convened under the emotional boost of the global economic crisis, -consequent to the concomitant food, financial and oil crisis-, of the 1971-73. Nevertheless, it was also the culmination of decades of protests (summarized by the demand for a New International Economic Order) expressed by the "third world" countries due to the exploitation of their

natural resources and the consequent persistent hunger and poverty they faced.

In 1974, governments attending the World Food Conference had proclaimed that "every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties." This statement reflects the prevalent politically economic view of the time, which, under the general label of "welfare state", endorsed an active role of states in the economy in order to fulfill their commitment to uphold human rights and promote social justice. In 1974 the declared goal of governments was to completely eradicate hunger on a world scale. Two decades later, when the neoliberal wind had already passed into oblivion the policy attitudes of the embedded liberalism, the Rome Declaration, at the 1996 World Food Summit, set the far less ambitious target of reducing by half the number of undernourished people by no later than the year

Therefore, as a matter of fact, food policy so far has suffered from a severe internal inconsistency: while its goals were set in the political era antecedent neo-liberalism, its instruments have been developed together with the consolidation of neoliberal ideology.

Neoliberalism represents a new particular political economic approach in liberal systems of modern capitalist societies, which has replaced the previous approach of embedded liberalism (Harvey, 2005). According to embedded liberalism, to which the experience of welfare states in the thirty years 1950-1970 has been linked, the economic sphere is embedded in the social and political spheres, and the state has the mandate to intervene in the economy with regard to a variety of goals beyond the allocative efficiency; such as distributional and political goals. On the contrary, according to neoliberalism, the economic sphere is independent from the social and political one and states ought to abstain from intervening in the economy, allowing individuals to participate in free and self-regulating markets. In the case of food policy, these two perspectives lead to a very different choice of

<sup>2</sup> The concept of food safety has been incorporated in the more complex definition adopted at the 1996 World Food Summit: "Food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels [is achieved] when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and

nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life".

**3. The unsustainable neoliberal food policy** 

2015.


Besides these similarities, there is a profound difference between the previous and the third food regimes. Unlike the previous food regimes, where the hegemonic powers were nation states (the UK first followed by the U.S.A.) in the third regime hegemonic power is exercised by the large TNCs which control the global food chains. In other words, with the rising of the neoliberal regime, there has been a shift from state to private food governance. That is not to say that in the first and second regimes state strategies did not accommodate the private interests of the capitalist ruling class. They did indeed but in an institutional framework where states and corporations still operated in two separate spheres, namely the political and the economic sphere, which remained separate even when the political sphere succumbed to corporate power. With neoliberalism, private interests no longer "capture" (Stigler, 1971) state regulation, but in fact they substitute the state by becoming themselves the regulators of the economy (and of society). The process through which this shift has occurred, widely described by literature on globalization and neoliberalism (Sassen , 1995, 2006; Strange, 1996; Hall, Biersteker, 2002), has relied at least on the following five concomitant factors which to an extent have had mutual knock-on effects: 1- the end of the Bretton Wood system and the deregulation/liberalization of capital markets, 2- the finacialization of the economy, spurred, inter alia, by the radical innovations in the financial sector (Strange, 1998); 3- the upsurge of The Chicago School of Economics as a dominant mainstream academic "credo", also contaminating politics and laws with its blind faith in the rational choice model (as witnessed by the public choice theory and the research field of law and economics.); 4- the new strategies of corporate internazionalization based on the organizational architecture of global supply (commodity/value) chains; 4- the demise of socialist economies and the integration of new powers, such as China, in the world capitalistic system; 5- the end, as far as international relations are concerned, of the Westphalian order, and the consequent weakening of the concept of state sovereignty.

Literature on food regime extensively describes the negative results of the long wave of inclusion of food in processes of capitalistic accumulation, such as chronic world hunger and poverty, the depletion of natural resources, the destruction of peasant cultures, the growing wealth inequality and social injustice. Obviously, a good deal of literature confutes this view and applauds the outstanding achievements of the Green Revolution and biotechnologies, international market integration and peasantry upgrading. This paper does not specifically enter into the debate concerning these two contrasting views (and does not even offer a brief overview of the debate), but nonetheless introduces new arguments in favor of the view of food regime literature. The next section demonstrates, starting from the list of the main malfunctions of the current world food system, how an effective policy aimed at improving the system should repudiate the mechanisms that keep food production and consumption in the clutches of capitalist system.

378 Sociological Landscape – Theories, Realities and Trends

2. An increasing dependence of agriculture on other economic sectors, including the

4. A pattern of technological innovations which have rendered the food sector not only increasingly dependent on non-renewable energy sources but also increasingly harmful

Besides these similarities, there is a profound difference between the previous and the third food regimes. Unlike the previous food regimes, where the hegemonic powers were nation states (the UK first followed by the U.S.A.) in the third regime hegemonic power is exercised by the large TNCs which control the global food chains. In other words, with the rising of the neoliberal regime, there has been a shift from state to private food governance. That is not to say that in the first and second regimes state strategies did not accommodate the private interests of the capitalist ruling class. They did indeed but in an institutional framework where states and corporations still operated in two separate spheres, namely the political and the economic sphere, which remained separate even when the political sphere succumbed to corporate power. With neoliberalism, private interests no longer "capture" (Stigler, 1971) state regulation, but in fact they substitute the state by becoming themselves the regulators of the economy (and of society). The process through which this shift has occurred, widely described by literature on globalization and neoliberalism (Sassen , 1995, 2006; Strange, 1996; Hall, Biersteker, 2002), has relied at least on the following five concomitant factors which to an extent have had mutual knock-on effects: 1- the end of the Bretton Wood system and the deregulation/liberalization of capital markets, 2- the finacialization of the economy, spurred, inter alia, by the radical innovations in the financial sector (Strange, 1998); 3- the upsurge of The Chicago School of Economics as a dominant mainstream academic "credo", also contaminating politics and laws with its blind faith in the rational choice model (as witnessed by the public choice theory and the research field of law and economics.); 4- the new strategies of corporate internazionalization based on the organizational architecture of global supply (commodity/value) chains; 4- the demise of socialist economies and the integration of new powers, such as China, in the world capitalistic system; 5- the end, as far as international relations are concerned, of the Westphalian order, and the consequent

Literature on food regime extensively describes the negative results of the long wave of inclusion of food in processes of capitalistic accumulation, such as chronic world hunger and poverty, the depletion of natural resources, the destruction of peasant cultures, the growing wealth inequality and social injustice. Obviously, a good deal of literature confutes this view and applauds the outstanding achievements of the Green Revolution and biotechnologies, international market integration and peasantry upgrading. This paper does not specifically enter into the debate concerning these two contrasting views (and does not even offer a brief overview of the debate), but nonetheless introduces new arguments in favor of the view of food regime literature. The next section demonstrates, starting from the list of the main malfunctions of the current world food system, how an effective policy aimed at improving the system should repudiate the mechanisms that keep food production

3. The international integration of agricultural systems and markets.

financial sector.

to the environment.

weakening of the concept of state sovereignty.

and consumption in the clutches of capitalist system.
