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Economy of Agriculture and Food

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Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics
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Synonyms

Food regimes; Global food economy; Globalization of agriculture and food; Political economy of agriculture and food

Introduction

Food systems – the web of relations through which human beings organize food provisioning and consumption – are the foundation of all societies. For most of human history, food systems were organized on a local or regional scale and were deeply embedded in the ecologies and cultures of particular times and places. Today, however, nearly all food systems are integrated, albeit to different degrees, into the international circuits of production and distribution of the capitalist global food economy. Although societies have engaged in long-distance food trade for millennia, the scale, scope, and logic of organization of today’s global food economy differ radically from historical patterns. In the global food economy, food producers and consumers are more geographically and socially distant than ever before, new technologies are revolutionizing food...

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Correspondence to André Magnan .

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© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Magnan, A. (2012). Economy of Agriculture and Food. In: Thompson, P., Kaplan, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_189-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_189-5

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  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6167-4

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