Power in Global Agriculture: Economics, Politics, and Natural Resources

Recent events, such as the 2008 food price crisis, have focussed global attention on the agriculture and food sectors. In particular, many countries have become increasingly concerned with the issue of ensuring the security of their food supply and one key element of this is who has power within the food supply chain. Through examining three dimensions of power – Economic, Political, and Natural Resources – this paper explores where power currently lies in world agriculture and how this might change in the future. Whilst recognising that power is a somewhat abstract concept, through a process of deriving potential indicators, a picture of the distribution of power is drawn. These indicators were also used to develop a simple ‘global power index’. The power index indicates that the US and the EU dominate world agriculture in terms of economics and politics, but are potentially vulnerable in terms of their possession of natural resources. On the other hand, the emerging economies have lower political and corporate power, but seem better placed in terms of natural resources. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for the main food producing regions.