Agri-food restructuring: A synthesis of recent Australian research

Globalizing tendencies within capitalism are leading to important alteratio ns in the structure of agricultural production and the ways food companies are involving themselves in processing and marketing. Increasingly, finance capital and transnational agribusiness have sought ways to influence, and in some cases redirect, farming activities in Australia. The penetration of farming structures by corporate capital has been hastened by state deregul ation. Rather than providing detailed empirical evidence, this paper presen ts a broad synthesis of recent Australian research with the aim of informin g readers otherwise unaware of events in the Antipodes of the forms and imp acts of agri-food change in Australia.