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This chapter opens the second part of the Volume, focusing on the small farms' role and dynamics within the evolving food system. Assessing small farmers' actual and potential contribution to the change towards a sustainable food and nutrition security requires a deep understanding of their strategic decision-making processes. These processes take place in a context highly conditioned by internal and external conditions, including the complex relations between farm and household, which are mapped and described. Building on an adaptation of Porter's model (Porter, 1990), the chapter investigates how farmers, given those conditions, define their strategies (in particular their innovation strategies) aimed at economic and financial sustainability through a multidisciplinary analysis of scientific literature. Internal conditions are identified in the light of the Agricultural Household Model (Singh & Subramanian, 1986) which emphasizes how family farming strategies aim at combining business-related objectives, and family welfare. Then, a comprehensive set of external conditions is identified and then grouped within eight categories: ‘Factors’, ‘Demand’, ‘Finance and Risk’, ‘Regulation and Policy’, ‘Technological’, ‘Ecological’, ‘Socio-institutional’ and ‘Socio-demographic’. Similarly, six types of strategies are identified: ‘Agro-industrial competitiveness’, ‘Blurring farm borders’, ‘Rural development’, ‘Risk management’, ‘Political support’ and ‘Coping with farming decline’.

An important feature of the political economy of 18th century Bengal was a system of land revenue administration characterized by a complex set of patrimonial arrangements that had developed out of hundreds of years’ experience with a series of foreign and indigenous rulers. The East India Company’s (EIC) administration of this fiscal system during the 18th and 19th centuries shows one path toward the development of modern capitalism in the imperial context. In an effort to extract resources and consolidate political power, the EIC bureaucratized elements of Bengal’s patrimonial order. The EIC carried out this process in part through the creation of property rights and contract enforcement institutions in the fiscal system.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

The late incorporation of Lao PDR in the globalized age as an agricultural producer and exporter has been created through the process of “peasantization” and restructuring of agricultural upland productive area. The chapter discusses the role of the state and cross-border markets through contract farming in three villages in northern Lao PDR. Contrary to the general belief that economic globalization will result in the weakening of the state, the chapter argues that the state still has a significant role to play. Being late in the corporation into the world market, the changes that take place become very intense.

The corporate food regime is presented here as a vector of the project of global development. As such, it expresses not only the social and ecological contradictions of capitalism, but also the world-historical conjuncture in which the deployment of price and credit relations are key mechanisms of ‘accumulation through dispossession.’ The global displacement of peasant cultures of provision by dumping, the supermarket revolution, and conversion of land for agro-exports, incubate ‘food sovereignty’ movements expressing alternative relationships to the land, farming and food.

While land management can be a subject of conflict in places where the composition of landowners is socially and culturally diverse, it also holds the potential of bringing landowners together across social groups. This chapter uses the case of a peri-urban area near Copenhagen, Denmark, to examine the relations landowners have through their use and management of land within and across social groups. To elaborate the analysis and discussion of social groups, social coherence and fragmentation, this chapter introduces the concepts of homophily and self-categorisation. Interviews with 40 landowners from two parishes addressed four types of land-based relations: (1) exchange of help and services; (2) debate of farming/management; (3) shared interests and (4) friendship. While the pattern of relations overall supported the idea that people interact more with their own social group, the analysis also showed areas of interaction across groups as well. Three overall themes summarise important areas of cohesion/fragmentation: (1) Rented land and contracting, (2) Common interests between landowners including hunting, farming and horses, (3) Urgency and geographic proximity.