Global agricultural trade and genetic resources as a point of contention

Abstract

International agricultural trade has greatly altered the way food is grown, negatively affecting peasant livelihood and the natural environment. While the literature on this is extensive, efforts to understand how genetic variety is effected within such a process is limited. Wherefore, in this paper we explore the factors that determine the place of genetic resources in international trade. This is done by creating a conceptual framework to analyse different forms of power, a process necessary due to its contemporary fungible nature, in an attempt to asses how biotechnology can disclose power’s other characteristics. We demonstrate how the instrumental use of biotechnology has become an apparatus to control food production globally and a means by which the international market homogenises food production. Through the use of a bio/geopolical gaze we identify that this course occurs within the realm of bioecnomics and geoeconomics. Keywords: international agricultural trade; genetic resources; bio/geopolitics.