Area, 2016, 48.1, 84–91, doi: 10.1111/area.12240

The politico-ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness: displacement, financialisation and mystification

Antonio A R Ioris School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XP Email: [email protected]

Revised manuscript received 23 September 2015

The intricacy of global agri-food business today is, at once, product and also co-producer of the hegemonic modernisation of capitalism according to the discourse and the strategies of neoliberalism. The expansion of neoliberal agribusiness, situated in the wider context of the politico-ecological economy of contemporary capitalism, is considered with the assistance of an original analytical frame- work structured around three explanatory categories: displacement (sectoral and spatial transforma- tions), financialisation (the priority of making money over agriculture outcomes) and mystification (dissimulation of the neoliberalising trends and of associated risks and disputes). The proposed analytical framework has significant implications for research in human geography, especially within politico- economy and neoliberalism studies, to the extent that it encapsulates interdependent processes that are together responsible for the revitalisation of agribusiness and for the legitimisation of global agri- food markets. The framework is then used to highlight the historico-geographical repercussions of neoliberalised agribusiness in Brazil, which was an element of the conservative responses to the crisis of accumulation caused by the exhaustion of developmentalist policies and state-led entrepreneurialism. Brazilian agribusiness seems to thrive on a peculiar combination of tradition and modernity, as its apparent success betrays a clear attempt to temporarily placate the structural contradictions of capitalist agriculture while tensions and reactions become increasingly evident.

Key words: agribusiness, neoliberalism, Brazil, rural development, soybean, Mato Grosso

is easily affordable and even taken for granted, despite the Introduction fact that food supply depends on the well-functioning of a Agriculture and food production have achieved incredible highly vulnerable distribution network controlled by a feats in recent decades. However these are also activities small number of transnational companies and supermar- fraught with serious contradictions, failures and limita- ket chains (Clapp and Fuchs 2009). The asymmetries and tions. Never before has so much food been produced and uncertainties of the agri-food sector are directly and indi- so much space used for farming. At the same time, record rectly related to the instabilities of the contemporary amounts of foodstuff are wasted each day, a significant economy, characterised by global speculation, structural proportion of the global population struggle to maintain inequalities, renewed forms of exploitation and wasteful minimum levels of nutrition and a comparable percentage patterns of production and consumption. Ultimately, the suffer from the consequences of obesity (Heasman and consolidation of a global society centred on market prin- Lang 2004). Still, food and agriculture problems are often ciples has increasingly undermined individual and collec- silent and can sometimes go unnoticed in a world domi- tive rights as well as subdued other, even more important, nated by many other concerns and, more importantly, due socio-ecological demands. to the false sense of security offered by intensive technolo- Today’s hegemonic politico-economic model is com- gies and extensive global trade. Particularly in the North monly described as neoliberalism, which is considered by and among high-income groups in the Global South, food authors like Harvey (2005) as a political, class-based

The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). The politico‐ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness 85 project of flexible capital accumulation. The aggressive large landowners and of their elected representatives in neoliberalisation of economy and society necessarily the national congress, which we witnessed in our field- incorporated adjustments in agro-industrial production work research in the States of Mato Grosso, Pará and and in the business of agriculture more widely (i.e. Goiás between 2009 and 2014. The research comprised agribusiness). For the purpose of the present discussion, visits to cropping areas, attending public meetings, semi- neoliberalised agribusiness comprises a range of pro- structured interviews (46) and informal conversations cesses (rather than an isolated phenomenon with clear-cut with farmers, indigenous groups and leaders of different boundaries) required for the maximisation of surplus from sectors, communities and organisations. Such an interac- agri-food operations according to the market-friendly ide- tive approach was complemented by discourse analysis of ology of neoliberalism. Neoliberalised agribusiness is less documents, websites, leaflets, presentations and newspa- concerned with rural development policies (as promoted per of national and regional coverage (in the main pro- by state agencies during most of the 20th century), but it duction areas). Before moving to the proposed analytical prioritises short-term capital accumulation strategies and framework, it is necessary to briefly inspect the foremost the globalisation of agri-food markets. If the ‘agribusiness’ aspects of neoliberalised agribusiness. concept emerged in the 1950s in the context of Fordist agriculture and under the influence of developmentalist policies, in recent decades it has evolved into a true The neoliberal translation of agribusiness neoliberalised version that combines old and new capi- Agrarian studies have come a long way in the last 100 talist practices, as much as ancient and novel forms of years, from a focus on rural communities around the turn violence, risks and insecurity. Because of those complex of the 20th century, to the dominant functionalist theory transformations and the range of antagonistic interests and the exaltation of technological innovation in the post- involved, the internal tendencies of the contemporary War years and, eventually, to the critical, neo-Marxist agri-food sector are not easily identifiable. Departing from approaches introduced since the 1970s (Buttel et al. the existing academic literature, an original analytical 1990). Critical authors started to question traditional framework will be proposed in the following pages – scholarship – typically anchored in the supposed stability, structured around three explanatory categories: displace- desirability and constant progress of the American and ment, financialisation and mystification – and is intended wider capitalist society (see Wolf and Bonanno 2014) – to summarise and facilitate the understanding of the mul- with new interpretations of the rural economy, reasons for tiple processes of politico-ecological change. the unexpected survival of the peasantry and the growing The aim of this article is to apply the analytical frame- commodification of labour and nature. With the collapse work to the neoliberalisation of Brazilian agribusiness, of the Berlin Wall and socio-political adjustments associ- which has been an intense national experience with inter- ated with the less polarised world order, the focus shifted national repercussions. Because of new production areas from location, context and diversity to a range of and productivity gains, the country has consolidated its approaches informed by behavioural research, actor- position as a global leader and even as a ‘model’ of network theories, food regimes and regulation theory commercial, integrated crop production (Collier 2008). (Robinson 2004). More than merely a technical-economic The relevance of agribusiness for the national economy is issue, this reconfiguration of agriculture in recent decades undeniable, as it accounts now for approximately 25 per has been described as a sociopolitical project that cent of GDP, 35 per cent of exports and 40 per cent of happens through the struggle between different class frac- jobs (MAPA 2012). Particularly with the slowdown of the tions of capital (Potter and Tilzey 2007). An especially economy since 2010, agribusiness is an island of prosper- important part of the discussion has focused on the tran- ity and dynamism in a context of corporate losses and lack sition from a Fordist agriculture into an alleged post- of investment. As a consequence, Brazil has been a strong productivist and multifunctional arrangement that advocate of free market globalisation and has pushed for followed the introduction of post-Keynesian policies the liberalisation of agri-food trade (Hopewell 2013). (Ilbery and Bowler 1998). However, as in other parts of the globe, neoliberalised However, post-productivist and multifunctional tenden- agribusiness in Brazil has sparked huge criticism about its cies represent only part of the neoliberalising pressures actual beneficiaries and ambiguous prospects. In particu- that have reshaped contemporary agriculture and sub- lar, the advance of modern farming towards the centre and jected it to the imperatives of flexible accumulation, the north of the country has been fiercely questioned market globalisation and the systematic concealment of because of environmental, cultural and social impacts. class-based tensions. The intricacies of global agri-food Agribusiness in Brazil seems to thrive on a peculiar activities today are, at once, product and also co-producer combination of tradition and modernity, which is vividly of the dominant modernisation of capitalism according present in the ambivalent discourse and in the attitudes of to the discourse and strategies of neoliberalism.

Area 2016 48.1, 84–91 doi: 10.1111/area.12240 © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) 86 The politico‐ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness

Neoliberalism is not only an economic and social phe- aimed at facilitating capital accumulation and class domi- nomenon, but constitutes an assertive programme aimed nation. In other words, the complexity and shortcomings at dislodging the politico-economic approaches adopted of the neoliberal regime are even more evident when before the 1980s (Connell and Dados 2014). It has meant positioned in relation to the uneven geographical devel- a (partial and complex) evolution from the post-War opment and the world-ecology of the global capitalist regime, which was defined by the flows of (surplus) food economy (Moore 2010). At any rate, it has been an only from the USA to its informal empire of postcolonial states partially fulfilled politico-ecological project given that, (according to the strategic perimeters of the Cold War), although the neoliberalisation of food and agriculture was towards agri-food liberalisation via structural adjustments, a deliberate attempt to fix the systemic crisis of Fordist lower national barriers, the dismantling of farm sector agri-food, it failed to prevent the reappearance of insta- protections and new intellectual property relations bility, protest, socio-ecological degradation and, ulti- (McMichael 2012). In practice, neoliberal strategies have mately, legitimacy deficits (Wolf and Bonanno 2014). The tried both to win new markets and to placate political central claim here is that the politico-ecological economy resistance through a discourse of multi-activity, environ- and the controversies related to neoliberalised agriculture mental responsibility and supposed food security (Dibden have three defining dimensions, namely: the intercon- et al. 2009). Neoliberalised agriculture has also evolved nected process of displacement, financialisation and mys- through an inconsistent argument about the virtues of free tification. These crucial driving forces are also core market transactions, whereas there are simultaneous calls elements in the production of space (in the Lefebvrian for sustained state interventions expected to regulate price sense) that follows the neoliberalisation of agriculture and oscillations and avoid over-production. that can be observed next in relation to the Brazilian case. The geography of neoliberalised agribusiness is charac- terised by a plurality of production and consumption activities, extending and connecting locales, regions and Displacement nations. It has involved, in particular, the enforcement of Displacement is the first main dimension of neoliberalised free trade and other supranational agreements and the agribusiness to the extent that it has entailed the substitu- priority of the biotechnological production package tion of the previous emphasis on rural development, job (Pechlaner and Otero 2008). Contemporary rural devel- creation and infrastructure for a focus on market integra- opment had depended on the hegemony of transnational tion, cost reduction, efficiency gains and technological corporations, the integration of domestic production into intensification. The political strength of neoliberal agri- global trade, a number of free trade agreements and the business actually comes from the consolidation of new establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995. In economic strategies that supplanted developmentalist more general terms, rural development now happens policies that were hegemonic before the 1980s. Displace- through vertical (from rural spaces to the agri-food sector) ment has sectoral and spatial manifestations. It occurs, for and horizontal (rural spaces linked to other non- instance, due to technological developments (e.g. con- agricultural sectors) networks (Murdoch 2000). Yet, due to stant release of new agrochemicals, genetically modified its bio-economic properties, agriculture production seeds and sophisticated machinery and digital equip- cannot be integrated in the same way as the industrial ment), inter-country trade (often at the expense of national sector (Goodman and Watts 1997), which implies that and local food demand) and the facilitated interchange- globalised agribusiness necessarily retains the importance ability of different forms of capital in commodity and land of local sociocultural factors and socioecological condi- markets. The affirmation of neoliberal agri-food regime is tions. Likewise, the internationalisation and networking of also associated with the migration of farmers and compa- agri-food under the hegemonic influence of transnational nies to new areas and the incorporation of regions previ- corporations has not been without resistance and reac- ously out of production or beyond the reach of global tions. Protests grow through different scales and have markets. Although local food production remains an resulted in a variety of political, symbolic and material important segment (particularly practices by family consequences (Stock et al. 2014), although these are often farming and peasant communities), southern countries unreflexive and superficial (Harris 2009). have been encouraged to expand the export of high-value Considering the intricate evolution of agriculture, it is foods (e.g. expensive soft fruits, out-of-season vegetables, important to situate the expansion, and the resilience, of luxury crops) to northern markets, as well as to cultivate neoliberal agri-food sector in the wider context of the biofuel crops under the influence, for example, of north- politico-ecological economy of contemporary capitalism. ern environmental agendas. Neoliberalised agribusiness is more than just a range of Displacement is particularly demonstrated by the fact techno-economic improvements, but it encompasses that agriculture continues to be enacted in the localised thought-structures and politico-ecological approaches context of farms and regions, but management,

Area 2016 48.1, 84–91 doi: 10.1111/area.12240 © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) The politico‐ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness 87 technologies and trade relations increasingly happen in With the introduction of liberalising reforms since 1990 accordance with transnational interactions and priorities. (see below), there were again favourable conditions for The displacement associated with agribusiness is, thus, the recovery of agribusiness as a dynamic economic dialectically related to the transnationalisation of the rural sector. The neoliberalisation of agribusiness benefited economy, in the sense that activities and processes are from, and contributed to, a wider process of sectoral (partially) altered at the local or horizontal level only to be displacement due to an emphasis on the import of inter- then (partially and problematically) integrated into mediate inputs and capital goods (to contain inflation globalised phenomena. It means that the neoliberal agri- and appease consumer demand) and ill-conceived food regime attempts to maximise production and profit- deindustrialisation policies. The country actually has lost ability through a web of relations that reconstruct part of its industrial capacity, as manufacturing dropped agriculture as a ‘world farm’ (McMichael 2010). Rural from 55.0 per cent to 38.4 per cent of GDP from 2004 to localities are therefore ‘reproduced, and the social rela- 2013, while primary production (agribusiness and miner- tions therein recomposed, by virtue of their contemporary als) increased from 29.5 per cent to 46.7 per cent (MDIC magnetism for relocation due to the wider discontinuities 2013). In addition, spatial displacement occurred through of capital activity’ (Cloke et al. 1990, 15). The search for the migration of production to the Centre-Western and efficiency and the emphasis on competitive advantages Northern regions and the concentration of the activity in result in the dispossession of the less successful small- large estates with thousands (in some cases, tens of thou- holders by commercial smallholders and by large estates sands) of hectares. The most emblematic experience was that are vertically integrated into agribusiness marketing the conversion of millions of hectares of savannahs chains (Amanor 2012). At the same time, the removal of (cerrado) in the central region of the country (considered public subsidies and the dismantling of state-owned enter- as ‘spare farmland’) into soybean plantations and cattle prises have significantly affected rural populations and ranches in close coordination with ever bigger increased their level of vulnerability, often prompting agroindustries (Barretto et al. 2013). Such neoliberal ‘land domestic and international migration as a negotiated reform’ (in effect, an anti-agrarian reform similar to the response to the emerging problems (Torres and Carte one adopted by the military governments) was based on 2014). the sacrosanct ownership of private land in the name of In the case of Brazil, large areas have been transformed democratising capitalism and, more importantly, to avoid by the advance of neoliberal agribusiness due to the inten- now the excesses of the state. Sizeable commercial part- sification, and joint operation, of public and private capital nerships have been established between Brazil and other investments. The country had historically been a supplier Southern countries (and China in particular) that to a of foodstuffs since early colonial times, which only degree replaced the established north–south flow of agri- increased with the conservative modernisation of agricul- culture goods (e.g. the export of soybean from Brazil to ture promoted during the long military dictatorship (1964– the European Union was particularly relevant in the pre- 1985). Agriculture modernisation implemented by the vious decades). Overall, neoliberalised agribusiness not generals happened through the aggressive expansion of only reinforced previous developmentalist policies, but credit, integration of farming and industry and dedicated worked through a combination of physical, social and rural development policies. Priority was then given to the political shifts that displaced, but in some cases also reaf- Fordist expansion of production through the adoption of firmed, old tendencies of agrarian capitalism and trans- new technologies, fiscal incentives and subsidised loans formed Brazil into the first tropical ‘food giant’ on the (Graziano da Silva 1988). The political motivation was the planet. need to weaken the political debate about agrarian reforms and to replace it with a technocratic emphasis on food production and regional development. Such conservative Financialisation modernisation of Brazilian agriculture was based on the The second main aspect of neoliberalised agribusiness is integration of different capitals in large agro-industrial the prominence of financialisation as a decisive force chains. After achieving remarkable rates of growth in the behind politico-ecological changes. Financialisation is a 1960s and 1970s, the state-centralised model started to process whereby transnational corporations, commercial show its serious limitations due to the debt crisis, escalating elites and financial institutions acquire an even greater rates of inflation and macroeconomic instability. The Bra- influence over rural policymaking and agriculture out- zilian agriculture sector consequently suffered a period of comes (at the expense of the more traditional players of turbulence and uncertainty from the mid-1980s, aggra- the previous developmentalist phase). Since the crisis of vated by the reduction of support schemes (e.g. guaranteed Keynesian policies (typically based on direct state entre- prices), higher interest rates, scarcity of bank lending and preneurship), agribusiness has operated through a gradual devaluation of land prices. shift from the production side to the retail side and

Area 2016 48.1, 84–91 doi: 10.1111/area.12240 © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) 88 The politico‐ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness towards novel mechanisms of capital circulation and traded CRAs reached R$1.2 billion (around US$450 accumulation. As a result, the entrenched financialisation million), but there is an expectation that this could of food and farming ends up penetrating everyday life and increase more than 30-fold (Isto É Dinheiro 2013). pervading the local, regional and global scales of interac- The growing financialisation of agribusiness and the tion. It is not restricted to adjustments in the productive related dependence of the Brazilian economy on the agri- and commercial sectors (including the role of asset man- food sector steadily increased in recent years (FIESP agement companies, private equity consortia and other 2008). In effect, agribusiness in Brazil is the economic financial institutions in acquiring and managing farm- sector with more export surplus potential and plays a land), but has been presented along the whole agri-food crucial role now in terms of the reserve of foreign cur- supply chain, at macro and micro levels (see Burch and rency and macroeconomic stability (Serigati 2013). Lawrence 2013). In historico-geographical terms, the Between 2012 and 2103, national exports fell by 0.2 per financialisation of the agri-food sector has represented an cent, but agribusiness exports increased by 4.3 per cent; accommodating solution to the always problematic com- national imports grew by 7.4 per cent in the same period bination of the production and plunder spheres of capi- and agribusiness imports increased by 4.0 per cent talism (Moore 2010). Financialisation is also organically (CONAB 2014). Interestingly, in recent years agribusiness associated with spatial displacement, especially consider- grew less than the national economy and its participation ing that neoliberalised agriculture is, above all, about the in the national economy has actually decreased from redistribution of value from the under-reproduced global 2007 to 2013, but its contribution to national surplus (in periphery to the over-consuming Western core (Araghi dollar terms) has proved vital (Barros et al. 2014). In 2013 2009). the trade balance showed the worst result since 2000 Sharing the turbulent experience of most other Latin (reduction of 86% in the surplus due to the weakening American countries, the Brazilian national state initiated a export of minerals and industrialised goods), with the programme of neoliberal reforms from 1990 that was agribusiness consolidating its role as the main money- centred on monetary stabilisation, privatisation and making sector of the economy. Agriculture exports in budget controls (Ioris and Ioris 2013). A well-crafted mac- 2013 reached US$99.97 billion (4.3% more than the roeconomic programme of inflation targeting – known as previous year) with a net surplus (i.e. minus imports) of Real Plan, launched in 1994 – strengthened the national US$82.91 billion (including US$30.96 billion from currency but had the negative effect of facilitating the soybean complex exports) and the prospects for the next importation of foreign goods and reducing the competi- few years are a continuation along similar lines tiveness of Brazilian agriculture. Trade imbalances, (Agroanalysis 2014). The soybean agribusiness complex together with high interest rates, produced the circum- alone has increased 8.2 per cent between 2011 and 2012, stantial reduction of agriculture profitability, but were and 18.5 per cent between 2012 and 2013, accounting then considered necessary to reorganise the national for almost US$31 billion of export revenues. The global economy. With significant currency devaluation in 1999 trade of soybean was expected to increase by 10.5 per (increased in subsequent years), favourable commodity cent from 2013 to 2014, with Brazil becoming the main prices and a surge in demand, Brazil was ready to return exporter (44 million tons of a global total of 105.1 million to international markets and transform its agribusiness tons) (CEPEA 2014). China emerged as the main trade into a highly transnationalised sector gradually more partner for the import of agriculture commodities and for dominated by large (foreign and national) capital- the simultaneous export of industrial goods to Brazil. intensive firms (Petras and Veltmeyer 2003). The ‘end’ of Commercial exchanges between Brazil and China cheap food (demonstrated by the 2008 ‘food crisis’ and a reached US$77 billion in 2011 (Brazil exported US$44.3 commodity boom between 2003 and 2011) further dis- billion and imported US$32.8 billion), with agriculture couraged productive investment in industries and infra- increasing from US$1.7 billion in 2003 to US$14.6 billion structure in favour of speculative activities that produced in 2011 (the ‘soybean complex’ corresponds to 80 per a massive flow of capital into agriculture (Moore 2010). A cent of agricultural exports to China), according to MAPA range of novel financial instruments, such as self- (2012). financing, private banks, input supplier companies and trading companies filled the gap created by the reduction of the conventional schemes of the federal government. A Mystification notable demonstration of that was the 2004 legislation As discussed above, the crucial role of neoliberalised that created Agribusiness Receivables Certificates (CRAs), agribusiness in global trade and market speculation today a registered instrument of credit that represents a promise has meant a decline of the relative importance of the of future payment in cash linked to the debt claim issued material properties of agri-food in favour of more explicit by the securitisation company. Until 2013, the amount of financial goals. Despite the rhetoric of food security and

Area 2016 48.1, 84–91 doi: 10.1111/area.12240 © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) The politico‐ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness 89 the publicity of the major agribusiness corporations agriculture practices and re-launches it in the circles of claiming to ‘feed the world’, agribusiness is increasingly transnational capitalism. about business in and for itself, and it is less concerned At the same time, the mystification of the success with rural development, nourishment or food production. achieved by the agribusiness sector helps to conceal inter- Yet, those money-making objectives are shrouded in the nal disputes, particularly between the majority of the agri- mist of consumer satisfaction and lower price discourses business farmers and the stronger players (larger farmers that mystify the real impacts of the neoliberalisation of and transnational companies). During her research in agribusiness. Together with its important technological areas of agribusiness expansion, Bruno (2009) verified the and economic components (Ioris 2012), neoliberalised construction of a discourse around modernity, wealth agribusiness has evolved through a constant political creation and the value of agribusiness (at the expense of effort to disguise and simultaneously justify changes in other forms of agriculture), but behind closed doors there the contemporary agri-food sector. Even the alleged are signs of disunity and often uneasiness with the way multifunctionality of today’s agriculture (i.e. a range of farmers are treated by corporations, banks and other economic and non-economic outputs beyond traditional urban sectors. Another important element of mystification farming production) often serves to conceal the neoliberal is the confusion about the role of the federal Brazilian features of agribusiness (Potter and Tilzey 2007) and mask state, which has both created additional space for the fact that agribusiness has not produced a new tech- national and international corporations, but also retained nological ‘revolution’ or any significant improvement in the control of a myriad of mechanisms aimed to promote productivity or technological improvement (Moore 2010). agribusiness. The transformation of the state apparatus Entrepreneurialism and innovation discourses have even under pressures for flexible regulation and lower market appropriated the language of food sovereignty to justify constraints led to a new pattern of socionatural interac- preferential treatment by governments and priority invest- tions, increasingly characterised by associations between ments (Eakin et al. 2014). state agencies, financial capital and the stronger eco- In the case of Brazil, the mystification of the nomic sectors (Ioris 2014). Although there have been neoliberalisation of agribusiness has followed a dynamic massive increases in land prices and an intensification of of continuity and change, in which practices, interper- market transactions, the neoliberalisation of rural devel- sonal relations and political strategies have been only opment since 1990 maintained the national state firmly in partially transformed. Although the sector makes use of charge of economic flexibilisation. It all corroborates the the appealing symbolism of triumph and modernisation, claim that neoliberalised agribusiness is less focused on the evolution of agribusiness has served to unify the inter- farm production than during the previous phases of the ests of rural conservative groups and renovate processes of capitalist economy (Whatmore 1995), but it is centred on political hegemony and class domination (Bruno 2009). off-farm financial activities that increasingly dominate Agribusiness farmers emphasise their contribution to supply chains, logistics and distribution systems (Delgado regional development and economic growth, but only 2012) coordinated and supported by the state. from the perspective of an intense financialisation of agri- culture and calling for the removal of environmental, social and regulatory constraints. The sector has demon- Conclusion strated a competent ability to lobby and promote its The previous pages discussed the impacts of, and the interests, particularly via the Brazilian Agribusiness synergies between, neoliberalising institutional reforms Association (ABAG) created in 1993. Likewise, regular on the evolution of agribusiness from the conventional technical visits to production areas coordinated by the model adopted in the middle of the last century (Fordist Round Table on Responsible Soy Association [http:// production in the Global North and Green Revolution in www.responsiblesoy.org], established in 2006, have tried the Global South) to the current insertion of the agri-food to improve the image of the Brazilian agri-food sector sector in globalised markets and flexible mechanisms of with a colourful rhetoric of sustainability, certification and capital accumulation. This partial and turbulent transition environmental commitment. However, the rhetoric of reveals a great deal about the politico-ecological basis of entrepreneurialism, competence and environmental the neoliberalised economy and about the class-based responsibility obscures the fact the results of agribusiness tensions of socio-ecological changes that followed the have more to do with the flexibilisation of domestic modernisation of agriculture in recent decades. The markets and the deeper insertion of Brazil in global trade. neoliberalisation of agribusiness was examined making Neoliberalised agribusiness is intended to further subor- use of a conceptual framework developed from both dinate agriculture production to the extraction of surplus empirical observation and theoretical interpretations. In value (both from labour and from more-than-human synthetic terms, neoliberalised agribusiness unfolds in nature) as a creative phenomenon that reconfigures old three main dimensions, namely: displacement (sectoral

Area 2016 48.1, 84–91 doi: 10.1111/area.12240 © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) 90 The politico‐ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness and spatial transformations), financialisation (the priority Science without Borders Programme (Project PVE 055/2012) is of making money over agriculture outcomes) and mysti- also gratefully acknowledged. fication (dissimulation of the neoliberalising trends and associated risks and disputes). These three dimensions References complement and interact with each other across multiple geographical scales around the planet. It should be noted Agroanalysis 2014 Balança comercial: contribuição do that this synthetic framework is not without conceptual agronegócio Agroanalysis 34 21 and methodological limitations, but it should be consid- Amanor K S 2012 Global resource grabs, agribusiness concen- tration and the smallholder: two West African case studies ered as the starting point for further academic investiga- Journal of Peasant Studies 39 731–49 tions and as a tool to foster critical thinking. Araghi F 2009 Accumulation by displacement: global enclosures, The proposed analytical framework has significant the food crisis, and the ecological contradictions of capitalism implications for research in human geography, especially Review 32 113–46 within politico-economy and neoliberalism studies, to the BarrettoAGOP,Berndes G, Sparovek G and Wirsenius S 2013 extent that it encapsulates interdependent processes that Agricultural intensification in Brazil and its effects on land-use are together responsible for the revitalisation of agribusi- patterns: an analysis of the 1975–2006 period Global Change ness and for the legitimisation of global agri-food markets. Biology 19 1804–15 The framework was then used to highlight the historico- BarrosGSC,AdamiACOandZandoná N F 2014 Faturamento geographical repercussions of neoliberalised agribusiness e volume exportado do agronegócio brasileiro são recordes em 2013 CEPEA, Piracicaba. in Brazil. The neoliberalisation of agribusiness was an Bruno R 2009 Um Brasil ambivalente: agronegócio, ruralismo e element of the conservative responses to the crisis of relações de poder Edur/Mauad, Rio de Janeiro accumulation caused by the exhaustion of developmental Burch D and Lawrence G 2013 Financialization in agri-food policies and state-led entrepreneurialism. Instead of agrar- supply chains: private equity and the transformation ian reform and local food, the hegemonic solution was to of the retail sector Agriculture and Human Values 30 247– intensify and revise production procedures according to 58 neoliberal priorities. The neoliberalisation of agribusiness Buttel F, Larson O F and Gillespie Jr G 1990 The sociology of in Brazil followed the displacement of traditional areas agriculture Greenwood Press, Westport CT and the industrial sectors in favour of the export of agri- CEPEA 2014 Agromensal – CEPEA/ESALQ: informações de culture commodities (soybean in particular), the growing mercado January CEPEA, Piracicaba Clapp J and Fuchs D eds 2009 Corporate power in global agrifood financialisation of production, distribution and consump- governance MIT Press, Cambridge MA tion (especially articulated by transnational companies Cloke P, Le Heron R and Roche M 1990 Towards a geography of and the need to generate dollars to stabilise national political economy perspective on rural change: the example of accounts) and numerous mystification strategies to dis- New Zealand Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geogra- guise manifold socio-ecological problems. The apparent phy 72 13–25 success of the neoliberalisation of agribusiness betrays a Collier P 2008 The politics of hunger: how illusion and greed fan clear attempt to temporarily placate the structural contra- the food crisis Foreign Affairs 87 67–79 dictions of capitalist agriculture while novel tensions and CONAB 2014 Balança comercial do agronegócio Indicadores da reactions become increasingly evident (such as the pro- Agropecuária 23 62 duction of cheap food to sustain capital accumulation Connell R and Dados N 2014 Where in the world does neoliberalism come from? The market agenda in southern per- from agriculture and other economic sectors at the spective Theory and Society 43 117–38 expense of an actual blackmailing of the national Delgado G D 2012 Do capital financeiro na agricultura à economy by agri-food exports and mounting rates of envi- economia do agronegócio: mudanças cíclicas em meio século ronmental degradation and social conflicts). Agribusiness (1965–2012) UFRGS, Porto Alegre production in Brazil has been a privileged arena for the Dibden J, Potter C and Cocklin C 2009 Contesting the neoliberal consolidation of the flexible capital accumulation project for agriculture: productivist and multifunctional trajec- approaches, at the same time that it has been significantly tories in the European Union and Australia Journal of Rural shaped by the direct state interventions, widespread forms Studies 25 299–308 of violence and the subordination of agriculture to wider, Eakin H, Bausch J C and Sweeney S 2014 Agrarian winners of globalised politico-ecological demands. neoliberal reform: the ‘maize boom’ of Sinaloa, Mexico Journal of Agrarian Change 14 26–51 FIESP 2008 Brazilian agribusiness: characteristics, performance, Acknowledgements products and markets FIESP, São Paulo Goodman D and Watts M J eds 1997 Globalising food: agrarian The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers for their questions and global restructuring Routledge, London support and constructive comments on previous versions of this Graziano da Silva J F 1988 Estrutura agrária e produção de paper. Financial support received from CAPES, through the subsistência na agricultura brasileira Hucitec, São Paulo

Area 2016 48.1, 84–91 doi: 10.1111/area.12240 © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) The politico‐ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness 91

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Area 2016 48.1, 84–91 doi: 10.1111/area.12240 © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)