Agricultural Industrialization and the Presence of the “Local” in the Global Food World

Abstract

Since the Neolithic Era, agriculture has been the main economic activity in most societies, and, more importantly, this activity remained essentially unchanged until the nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution emerged (Higman, 2012; Standage, 2009). Agriculture became an unavoidable source of raw materials for industrial processes, and rural populations began migrating to cities, where industries and new opportunities were developing. At the same time, an abundant supply of cheap food and ingredients for food production contributed significantly to keeping urban wages low enough to warrant high and continuous profits to the capital invested in industrial activities. These developments established a geographical division of labor between the cities and their rural surroundings. With some exceptions, such as “exotic” and luxury goods for the upper urban social classes, the bulk of food was produced in rural areas surrounding the cities. This meant that the places of food production and food consumption were close, not just geographically, but culturally. As a consequence, there were strong differences in food patterns between places around the world. This scenario changed dramatically due to globalization, namely since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, but it was particularly accelerated by the industrialization of agriculture due to the Green Revolution following World War II (Pilcher, 2006).