Queen of the fields in wartime: What can Ukrainian corn tell us about the resilience of the global food system?

Abstract

This article examines the corn-driven boom of Ukraine’s agriculture, the damage wrought by Russia’s war, and the adaptation strategies by Ukrainian corporate agribusinesses. It thereby contributes to debates on the resilience of the global food system: we confirm extant concerns that the neoliberal agricultural model is highly sensitive to external shocks. We show that export-oriented agribusinesses initially sustained significant losses, but learned to adapt to the dramatically changing economies of corn-growing. Finally, despite this remarkable resilience, we argue that military force, wielded by a state explicitly challenging Western hegemony, can significantly disrupt corporate power in the contemporary food regime.