Six Decades of the Second Food Regime in Iran, the Trajectory of Iranian National Food Regime

Abstract

Since the 1980s, international corporations have curtailed the autonomy of national states and have developed a new form of global food regime. Although the nouvelle regime promoted a new level of economic exploitation of the Global South, there are still some countries which resist the globalist corporations’ penetration into their economies. This paper argues that the Iranian economy, due to a variety of reasons which were not necessarily endogenous, such as international sanctions, could not have been conquered by corporations. The Iranian revolutionary regime which had come up with the slogans of “Achieving Self-Sufficiency” and “Standing against Global Imperialism,” stepped towards liberalization and privatization in less than ten years. However, the political sensitivity of food, as well as various forms of sanctions against Iran, did not provide the possibility of complete integration of Iranian food sector into the global free trade system. Even the IMF’s prescription of economic reform did not lead to much deregulation, and just expanded the quasi-state sector of the Iranian economy. Therefore, the national regime, which is an evolved form of the former food regime, still overshadows the agricultural economy of Iran. The recent post-deal era also does not seem to bring a serious threat to the Iranian national food regime.