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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the heterogeneity of regional grain production distribution in China, by examining the regional heterogeneity of absolute and relative changes in grain planting acreage, and explain it in terms of increasing labor costs and difficulties in agricultural inputs adjustment.

The study uses data from official statistical yearbooks and the satellite remote sensing image data of Landsat TM 30 m. Multivariate analysis is conducted to examine the effect of labor cost, difficulty in replacing agricultural input factors and other factors underpinning changes in grain acreage and grain structure adjustment.

The heterogeneity of changes in grain acreage and proportion of arable area for grain production are mainly determined using the labor cost and difficulties in the replacement of agricultural input factors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to systematically analyze the heterogeneity in restructuring grain production at provincial level and its causes. The results not only provide evidence of grain production restructuring at regional level, but also contribute to the understanding of the law of structural change in agricultural production.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the heterogeneity and correlations of agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions among provinces in China, and then policy implications are proposed.

After agricultural GHG accounting and a pre-analysis of inter-provincial heterogeneity, improved gravity model and the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methods are introduced to construct the network, being carried out from three aspects of the whole network, individual provincial characteristics and cluster analysis.

(1) There are significant regional variations in agricultural GHG scale among provinces owing to the layout of agricultural production, and the temporal trends show that the direction and speed of agricultural GHG scale change vary among provinces; (2) In terms of inter-provincial correlations, there exists a complex spatial network of agricultural GHG among provinces, which tends to be more complex, intensive and stable, while the status of the provinces in the network also has gradually become more balanced. All provinces played their respective roles in the four clusters of the network with agricultural layout and comparative advantages, and the distribution has continuously optimized.

The inter-provincial network characteristics of agricultural GHG emissions and its evolution have practical implications for differentiated and coordinated agricultural GHG reduction policies at the provincial levels.

This paper innovatively study inter-provincial agricultural GHG correlations in China with the SNA methods used to study economic and social connections in the past. There is some originality in the introduction of network theory and application of the SNA methods, which can provide some reference for researches in similar fields.

We examine the national regulatory framework in Turkey and its interactions with actors at various levels that set the stage for the shift from a Fordist economy to a post-Fordist one. Industrial maize production expanded in the 2000s in the face of a decline in agricultural employment and state-supported conventional crop production. We use the corporate maize industry as a case to demonstrate the change in regulation and its impacts.

Utilizing a strategic-relational approach, we analyze descriptive statistics on agricultural markets, news, sector reports, and archives of national regulation related to agricultural production and the agri-food industry to identify key actors shaping the transformation of maize production.

Actors influencing the national regulatory framework come from international and national regulatory institutions, and transnational and national agri-food corporations. Local maize farmers have actively participated in the transformation, thereby offering consent to the process. The Turkish state manages maize production through its national regulatory regime, but the agri-food industry drives the trajectory.

Adopting a strategic-relational approach contributes to our understanding of the dynamics at work in economic restructuring by shedding light on the interactions between political authorities and economic actors. Following a post-Fordist mode of regulation, the Turkish government uses particular political devices in a strategically selective manner, not overtly to enhance the short-term interests of the agri-food industry, but according to the long-term goal of promoting adaptation of agricultural commodity producers to the post-Fordist capitalist accumulation regime.

State institutions utilize the tools of political intervention in markets to ensure the long-term sociopolitical consolidation and legitimation of the post-Fordist accumulation regime.

Purpose – This chapter discusses farmers' and policy responses to global shocks, specifically in terms of soaring prices for agricultural products in 2007. We discuss whether these shocks influenced Norwegian agricultural policy and Norwegian farmers perceptions of their situation.

Design/methodology/approach – As a background, we review trends in agricultural policy post-World War II both globally and in Norway, including empirical evidence for the changing global situation of agriculture. This chapter also analyses farmers' perceptions of their situation from 2002 to 2010 in light of these changing reality and policy response.

Findings – One immediate effect of increasing food prices was increasing incomes for food exporters and food exporting countries, an increase which also trickled down to the producers. Simultaneously, production costs rose as many input-factors became more expensive. In Norway, we saw the emergence of more optimism among farmers, more willingness to invest in farming (as opposed to a focus on cost reduction), and clear signs of a ‘repositioned productivism’.

Originality/value – In this chapter, we present an analysis of the relationship between global events, agricultural restructuring and local responses. The chapter also discusses the case of productivism along the lines drawn by Burton and Wilson (this volume), and argues that in the Norwegian system we can indeed see traces of an emerging ‘repositioned productivism’.

This paper attempts to understand how the interaction of natural disasters and human behaviour during wartime led to famines in three regions under imperial control around the Indian Ocean. The socio-economic structure of these regions had been increasingly differentiated over the period of imperial rule, with large proportions of their populations relying on agricultural labour for their subsistence.

Before the war, food crises in each of the regions had been met by the private importation of grain from national or overseas surplus regions: the grain had been made available through a range of systems, the most complex of which was the Bengal Famine Code in which the able-bodied had to work before receiving money to buy food in the market.

During the Second World War, the loss of control of normal sources of imported grain, the destruction of shipping in the Indian Ocean (by both sides) and the military demands on internal transport systems prevented the use of traditional famine responses when natural events affected grain supply in each of the regions. These circumstances drew the governments into attempts to control their own grain markets.

The food crises raised complex ethical and practical issues for the governments charged with their solution. The most significant of these was that the British Government could have attempted to ship wheat to Bengal but, having lost naval control of the Indian Ocean in 1942 and needing warships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean in 1943 chose to ignore the needs of the people of Bengal, focussing instead on winning the war.

In each of the regions governments allowed/encouraged the balkanisation of the grain supply – at times down to the sub-district level – which at times served to produce waste and corruption, and opened the way for black markets as various groups (inside and outside government ranks) manipulated the local supply.

People were affected in different ways by the changes brought about by the war: some benefitted if their role was important to the war-effort; others suffered. The effect of this was multiplied by the way each government ‘solved’ its financial problems by – in essence – printing money.

Because of the natural events of the period, there would have been food crises in these regions without World War II, but decisions made in the light of wartime exigencies and opportunities turned crises into famines, causing the loss of millions of lives.

This paper suggests that a corporate-environmental food regime is emerging as part of a larger restructuring of capitalism. Like past food regimes, it reflects specific social and political compromises, which I interpret through the social movement concept of interpretive frames. The diasporic-colonial food regime of 1870–1914 grew up in response to working class movements in Europe, and created a historically unprecedent class of commercial family farmers. When world markets collapsed, those farmers entered into new alliances, including one that led to the mercantile-industrial food regime of 1947–1973. Lineaments of a new food regime based on quality audited supply chains seems to be emerging in the space opened by impasse in international negotiations over food standards. Led by food retailers, agrofood corporations are selectively appropriating demands of environmental, food safety, animal welfare, fair trade, and other social movements that arose in the interstices of the second food regime. If it consolidates, the new food regime promises to shift the historical balance between public and private regulation, and to widen the gap between privileged and poor consumers as it deepens commodification and marginalizes existing peasants. Social movements are already regrouping and consolidation of the regime remains uncertain.

This paper assesses the projected growth of food supply relative to population growth and estimated food demand growth over the next four decades.

World population projections are analyzed for the main developed and developing regions. Implied food demand growth is then compared to grain and oilseed supply projections from a few of the most reliable sources. Three of these are 10-year projections and two extend to 2030 and 2050. To the extent possible, comparisons are made among the alternative projections. Conclusions about food availability and prices are finally drawn.

Meeting the growth in demand for food, feed, and biofuels to 2050 will not be a steep hill to climb, but there will need to be continued private and public investment in technology to induce increased production growth rates through productivity enhancements and increased purchased inputs.

The main food security challenge of the future, as in the present, is not insufficient production but rather increasing access and reducing vulnerability for food insecure households. The dominance of future population growth in the food insecure regions of Africa makes this challenge even more critical between now and 2050 and even more so in the years beyond 2050 when climate change effects on resource constraints will be more severe.

During the process of reform and opening-up, the structural transformations of the Chinese economy have two significant leaps forward and demonstrate a process of “rural area–industrialization (urban industry and rural industry)–urbanization” development powered by the main engine of economic growth.

These two leaps forward resulted in transitions of economic structure in China. In the author’s view, structural transformations are closely related to China's economic reforms and can be divided into clear phases.

The structural transformations have two significant leaps forward and demonstrate a process of “rural area–industry (urban industry and rural industry)–urban area development” powered by the main engine of economic growth.

This paper reviews and summarizes the development and structural transformations in China’s economy over the last 40 years. The author believes that China’s economic miracle is accompanied by dramatic changes in its economic structure, which is particularly characterized by the ongoing process of transition from a traditional agricultural economy into a country with high industrial output, from industrialization into urbanization and from a planned economy into a market economy.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the agribusinesses of corn production in Mexico is analyzed, taking into special consideration the policy of encouragement to small producers, productive restructuring and identification of positive and negative effects. Second, the evolution of the US–Mexican maize belts (1994–2017) is analyzed, establishing the economic and political impacts with respect to NAFTA.

The paper opted for a documentary meta-analysis study using data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the System of Agricultural and Fishery Information (SIAP) in Mexico. The data were completed with documentary analysis of research on maize productivity.

Provided is the information about the impacts of maize belts in the United States (US) and Mexico, where it was determined that the leading states maintained productive hegemony to a greater and lesser extent and that Mexico experienced a productive reorientation. The findings show that it is a myth that there are losers in the maize agroindustry of Mexico and the United States as it is suggested that after twenty-four years they have become complementary.

Summarized is the state of knowledge from 1994 to 2017, aligned to the databases of the United States and Mexico.

A need to study the relation between the productive evolution of maize production and NAFTA is identified.

This paper reviews the socioeconomic reform policies employed by the China’s party-state between the early 1980s and mid-2000s. Unlike conventional frameworks viewing the reform as an economic development project designed for “national interests” or “ruling elites” personal interests’, this paper interprets the reform as a political attempt of the state made in response to the crisis of dominance over the working class. In the face of the crisis of class dominance expressed as economic and political unrests related to low growth of labor productivity, the state managers of the post-Mao era embarked on the reform as a way of restoring the state’s ability to impose work upon the workers. As is well known, the reform was “market-oriented” with the state relinquishing some of the control over economic managements, and this paper sees it as the state’s strategy of reducing political risks arising from a highly politicized form of class confrontation. By making pressures upon producers look like a purely economic matter arising from private relations, that is, by depoliticizing exploitative social relations of production, the market-oriented reform helped the party-state effectively repress workers without a serious damage to political legitimacy. From this perspective, this paper examines the reform policies in management of labor, firms, and money, and how those policies contributed to the state’s ability to discipline class relations of production in China. This paper, however, does not conclude that the reform as a depoliticization strategy of class dominance was successful and nonproblematic. It is argued that beneath the success of the reform was a growing necessity of crisis; faced with re-burgeoning workers’ struggles, growing problems of overproduction/overaccumulation, and the resultant looming banking system crisis, the party-state came to find it more and more necessary to bring the economic managements back into political ambit with the related political risks also growing.