The rise of Arab Gulf agro-capital: continuity and change in the corporate food regime

Abstract

The role of non-Northern capitals within the corporate food system is a matter of increasing debate within food regime literature. This article intervenes on this discussion by proposing that the Arab Gulf states are a new capital within the corporate food system. It argues that the emphasis on the role of the state, which has drawn definitions of mercantilism, has led to the exceptional and reifying treatment of this entrant. As a result, this analytical focus has obfuscated the manner that new capitals such as the Gulf states have acted as a force of continuity, as well as change.

Life on the land: new lives for agrarian questions

“…Compounding this, a handful of countries are responsible for the world's production of staple food, grains, and fertilizer, rendering food-importing countries vulnerable not only to interruptions of supply but also to price volatility and inflationas the war in Ukraine shows. Yet even as nodes of concentration intensify at the firm level, there is some notable diffusion beyond the traditional North-Atlantic geographic centers of contemporary agro-capital, with China, India, Brazil, and the Gulf states now all major players (ETC 2022;Henderson 2022;McMichael 2020). Concentration, however, is an outcome of other processes even if it also produces effects itself, and for this reason it demands closer inspection.…”

The power of food security

“…This orientation towards the private sector led the food security complex to a form of governmentality, through which concerns of supply are managed by the market. This was an instantiation of the shift toward the corporate food system in the Gulf states, a manifestation of the global trend of the increasing power of the market and the privatization of agriculture and food (Henderson, 2021). However in the Gulf states, the corporate system has some particular features; the relationship between the state and the private sector is close.…”