With the proliferation of private standards many significant decisions regarding public health risks, food safety, and environmental impacts are increasingly taking place in the backstage of the global agro-food system. Using an analytical framework grounded in political economy, we explain the rise of private standards and specific actorsnotably supermarkets -in the restructuring of agro-food networks. We argue that the global, political-economic, capitalist transformation -globalization -is a transition from a Fordist regime to a regime of flexible accumulation (Harvey, 1989). We also argue that the standard making process of this new regulatory regime is increasingly moving from the front stage -where it is open to public debate and democratic decision-making bodies -to the backstagewhere it is dominated by large supermarket procurement offices. We assert that transnational supermarket chains are increasingly controlling what food is grown where, how, and by whom. We also contend that the decision-making processes of transnational supermarket chains are typically ''black-boxed.'' The Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) is presented as a case of private governance by transnational supermarket chains. We conclude by examining the limitations and long-term efficacy of a system of private governance in the global agro-food system. Jason Konefal is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His interests include environmental sociology, food and agriculture, social movements, and science and technology studies. His dissertation research examines the political economic restructuring of the global agrifood system and the implications for social and environmental movements.Michael Mascarenhas is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His interests include political economy, the sociology of science and technology, environmental and rural sociology, and globalization and development. His current research involves a critical analysis of neoliberal water policy reform and indigenous inequalities. As of September 2005, Michael has taken a position in the

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Seed saving is a historical cultural phenomenon that dates back to the beginning of agriculture itself. Seeds, because of their unique characteristics -the seed contains within itself the means for its own reproduction -have offered a particularly large stumbling block to capital accumulation. In the US, intellectual property rights legislation and Supreme Court decisions have played a profound role in overcoming these unique characteristics and have made it possible for input supply companies to extract more profit from the farm production process. Our analysis of the historical seed-saving practices of soybean farmers in the US indicates that large farms have consistently saved seed in the US -as much as 60 per cent in some years. However, with the introduction of Roundup Ready® soybeans the nature of seed saving was drastically changed. We argue that the combination of expanding intellectual property rights, 'new' GM technology, and the ideology of the technological treadmill have successfully overcome seeds' inherent obstacles to capitalist accumulation. In capitalising nature's production, Monsanto and other leading seed corporations have been able to incur massive profits from the licensing of commercial seed supplies. As a result, US farmers are facing further loss of control of the farm production process.

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