Reading Summaries (2): The Neoliberal Food Regime

The most significant factor in the globalization of agriculture and food is national and international regulation for trade liberalization. We need a theorization of state-facilitated reorganization into Neoregulation because Neoliberal globalism are depends centrally on the state to play a central role in neoliberal ideology. Furthermore, Pechlaner & Otero also hypothesize that the globalization of agriculture and food will be tempered not only by the differential interests and abilities of the individual nation-state but also by the resistance to Neoregulation that arise within them (p. 182). The authors offer an empirical analysis of Neoregulation using the food-regime perspective in the three countries of NAFTA: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. 

According to McMichael (2004), the basis of the neoliberal food regime is centered on the political elimination of barriers to capital in social and natural relations (p. 183). This concept is coherence with the goals of NAFTA and WTO to the trade liberalization and promoting free trade internationally. However, in the conclusion of this article, the transnational mobilization also depends on the sociopolitical dynamics at the local and national level that could limit the activity of WTO. From another point of view, this article has different emphasis, not only focus on the global food politics but also acknowledge the tension in the formation of the third contemporary food regime;

• food security vs. food sovereignty,
• WTO vs. Via Campesina,
• the centrality of knowledge intensive technology (genetic engineering/GE) vs. protections to the small-holder agricultures,
• high-value agricultural goods in developing countries vs. food vulnerability and its resistance at the level of the nation-state, and
• uniform rules for all vs. protectionism.

Reaction:

In the context of colonization and the relation of power (Foucaldian perspectives), it is clear that liberal capitalism/neoliberal ideology are zero-sum-games. The United States and Canada were the winners in NAFTA and Mexico as the developing/poor countries are the losers. This system empirically reformulated the colonial formations. On the other word, Neoliberalism is another name of Neocolonialism itself.

Questions:

Gerardo Otero on the Journal of Poverty (2011) also wrote about “Mexico Lost of Food and Labor Sovereignty.” He underlined the most important point in his article that Mexico’s asymmetrical integration into the NAFTA had a detrimental impact on its food self-sufficiency, its labor sovereignty, and substantially increased its out-migration rates. How can we explain the future economic and political relationship between Mexico and the US under current presidency, particularly on “building wall” policy to reduce the “illegal” migration/worker? Where is the position of Canada at this political tension?

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source of reading/article:

The Neoliberal Food Regime: Neoregulation and the New Division of Labor in North America

Gabriel Pechlaner & Gerardo Otero

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