Globalisation, Regionalisation and Quality:The Socio-economic Reconstitution of Food in the San Francisco Valley, Brazil

Abstract

This paper contributes to debates concerning the globalisation and regionalisation of agriculture and food with reference to the dynamic development of the San Francisco Valley in Brazil. The quantitative regulation of production of fruits is matched by international requirements for food quality. The regulation of food quality, operating in and through food networks, needs to be seen in the context of trade-offs with aspects of labour and environmental quality issues. By integrating these with the analysis, the paper begins to demonstrate how globalised food networks embed themselves into specific agrarian spaces. These processes begin to socially and environmentally shape agricultural regions. Hence, the social and the natural have to be examined as integrated dynamics in the shaping of such 'new agrarian spaces' as the San Francisco Valley.