This article highlighting the political and ideological conditions necessary for globalization and the role of the technologies associated with this process is an attempt to explain the nature and dynamics of change in food chains. In this text, a political-economic perspective is employed, relying on well-known theoretical and empirical examples that abound in the literature about globalization of food, and on the underlying theoretical explanation of the structural changes brought about or intensified by the globalization process. It seeks to understand the logic and dynamic that explains why the corporate retailers became the main economic motors of deep and rapid changes in food chains and after a short appraisal of the effects of the changes it seeks to identify the winners and losers of the process.
The objective of this article is to reflect on three basic questions concerning globalization and its effects on agriculture and food: 1) what are the major characteristics of globalization; 2) who are its major actors and 3) what are the future trends? Globalization continues to be a disputed concept despite the immense literature dedicated to it. I will focus on features of the current globalization process that can be employed to better understand the direction and reach of changes, particularly in agriculture and food.1 It is not my goal to produce original contributions about the theoretical relevance and accuracy of globalization or about its scale and scope. I will use a theoretical framework based on a political economy perspective focusing on the global agents, their logic and dynamics. However, this must be tempered by calling attention to the agencies and contingencies involved in the process. In fact, political economy insights suggesting global lines of evolution are not contradictory but rather complementary to actor-oriented, actor-network theory and social constructivist approaches, which acknowledge the social agencies and the complex articulations of the different spaces involved in agro-food production and consumption (Llambí et al. 1999, Goodman and Watts 1997). The second section deals with the major characteristics of globalization. Since this is a subject that has been treated extensively in the globalization literature, I will avoid unnecessary repetitions and concentrate on highlighting features focusing on the economic and political dimensions of globalization that I consider indispensable, in order that the importance of the phenomenon may be better understood. Focusing on the global agro-food system in the third section, the relevant features of the major actors of the globalization process will be identified along with their different logics and dynamics and their relationships with local actors. In the fourth section a framework is proposed to consider future trends in agriculture and food based on the concepts of substitutionism, appropriationism and the technological treadmill by using a two-scenario approach: one that explores the deepening of the current trends and another, considering a globalization backlash. In addition, some conclusive remarks will be drawn in the fourth section.
The paper presents the processes of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation and its impact on rural business growth. Data are derived from four surveys on rural businesses in mountainous and less favoured areas in Southern Europe. Formal pathways of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation refer to education and training, while informal pathways include the cognitive processes of work and managerial experience acquisition and the non-cognitive processes of being raised within an entrepreneurial family environment and/or being raised in the area within which the business is later set-up. The studies reveal that there is a variety of processes of entrepreneurial human capital and knowledge accumulation that are case study specific. Human capital accumulation processes related to education and training or to work and managerial experience still plays the prime role in predicting successful businesses. Results indicate the need for decentralised, flexible and selective entrepreneurial human capital accumulation support programmes that take into account local idiosyncrasies and needs.
European biodiversity significantly depends on large-scale livestock systems with low input levels. In most countries forms of grazing are organized in permanent or seasonal cooperations (land-owner/land-user agents) and covers different landscape such as alpine areas, forest, grasslands, mires, and even arable land. Today, the existence of these structures is threatened due to changes in agricultural land use practices and erratic governmental policies. The present chapter investigates six low-input livestock systems of grassland management with varying degrees of arrangements in different European countries and landscapes. These large-scale grazing systems (LSGS) are reindeer husbandry in Northern Sapmi (Fennoscandia), sheep grazing in the Polish Tatra mountains, cattle grazing in the Swiss and German Alps, cattle, sheep, and pig grazing in Baixo Alentejo, Southern Portugal, and sedentary sheep grazing in Central Spain. These systems showed very heterogeneous organizational patterns in their way of exploiting the pastoral resources. At the same time, these LSGS showed at least some of the following weaknesses such as poor economic performance, social fragility, and structural shortcomings for proper grazing management. Lack of proper mobility of herds/flocks or accession to specific grazing grounds can be a cause of environmental hazards. The surveyed LSGS are mostly dependent on public handouts for survival, but successive policy schemes have only showed mixed effects and, in particular study areas, clear inconsistencies in their aim to stop the general declining trend of LSGS.
