In Speculative Harvests, Clapp and Isakson investigate the evolving relationship between the agrifood and financial sectors, paying particular attention to how the contemporary process of financialization is reshaping agrarian development and food systems. Understood as the growing prevalence of financial actors, markets, motives and profits in an economy, financialization is a defining feature of modern-day capitalism that is reconfiguring the distribution of wealth and economic power in a variety of contexts across the globe. In a clear and accessible manner, Clapp and Isakson explain the character and ramifications of these changes for the world food economy and systematically detail how different elements of agrifood provisioning — including commodity trading, farmland tenure, the management of agricultural risk, and food trading, processing, and retailing — have been reconfigured for financial purposes.

Clapp and Isakson highlight the importance of confronting the financialization of food and agriculture, identify the challenges of conventional approaches to food system reform and consider innovative alternatives. Speculative Harvests is essential reading for food scholars and activists who not only seek a better understanding of the problems inherent to the contemporary food system but also are also in search of effective interventions towards its positive transformation.

Jennifer Clapp
Jennifer Clapp is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Canada.

S. Ryan Isakson
S. Ryan Isakson is an Assistant Professor of International Development Studies and Geography at the University of Toronto, Canada.

The Financialization of Land and Agriculture: Mechanisms, Implications and Responses

Ferrando, Tomaso

(2017)

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2916112 [Citations: 0]

Unpacking the finance-farmland nexus: circles of cooperation and intermediaries in Brazil

Spadotto, Bruno Rezende

Martenauer Saweljew, Yuri

Frederico, Samuel

Teixeira Pitta, Fábio

Globalizations, Vol. 18 (2021), Iss. 3 P.461

https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1766918 [Citations: 7]

Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems

Financing food system regeneration?

Stephens, Phoebe

Clapp, Jennifer

2020

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429466823-16 [Citations: 1]

Converging social justice issues and movements: implications for political actions and research

Borras Jr., Saturnino M.

Moreda, Tsegaye

Alonso-Fradejas, Alberto

Brent, Zoe W.

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 39 (2018), Iss. 7 P.1227

https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1491301 [Citations: 19]

Symposium introduction—ethics and sustainable agri-food governance: appraisal and new directions

Brunori, Gianluca

Maye, Damian

Galli, Francesca

Barling, David

Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. 36 (2019), Iss. 2 P.257

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09929-y [Citations: 2]

Beyond land grabs: new insights on land struggles and global agrarian change

Oliveira, Gustavo de L. T.

McKay, Ben M.

Liu, Juan

Globalizations, Vol. 18 (2021), Iss. 3 P.321

https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1843842 [Citations: 15]

The hidden costs of global supply chain solutions

LeBaron, Genevieve

Lister, Jane

Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 29 (2022), Iss. 3 P.669

https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2021.1956993 [Citations: 2]

Global Health

Challenging the Global Extractive Order

Schrecker, Ted

Birn, Anne-Emanuelle

Aguilera, Mariajosé

2021

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108692137.020 [Citations: 0]

In vino veritas, in aqua lucrum: Farmland investment, environmental uncertainty, and groundwater access in California’s Cuyama Valley

Fairbairn, Madeleine

LaChance, Jim

De Master, Kathryn Teigen

Ashwood, Loka

Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. 38 (2021), Iss. 1 P.285

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10157-y [Citations: 3]

The Rural Problem: Justice in the Countryside

Carolan, Michael

Rural Sociology, Vol. 85 (2020), Iss. 1 P.22

https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12278 [Citations: 20]

When Land Becomes a Burden: An Analysis of an Underperforming Zambian Land Deal

Salverda, Tijo

Nkonde, Chewe

African Studies Review, Vol. 64 (2021), Iss. 3 P.653

https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2021.65 [Citations: 1]

Agrarian social movements: The absurdly difficult but not impossible agenda of defeating right‐wing populism and exploring a socialist future

Borras, Saturnino M.

Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 20 (2020), Iss. 1 P.3

https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12311 [Citations: 51]

Network companies, land grabbing, and financialization in South America

Sosa Varrotti, Andrea P.

Gras, Carla

Globalizations, Vol. 18 (2021), Iss. 3 P.482

https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1794208 [Citations: 3]

What kind of labour regime is contract farming? Contracting and sharecropping in Java compared

White, Ben

Wijaya, Hanny

Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 22 (2022), Iss. 1 P.19

https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12459 [Citations: 3]

Mobilizing Networks and Relationships Through Indigenous Food Sovereignty: The Indigenous Food Circle’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Northwestern Ontario

Levkoe, Charles Z.

McLaughlin, Jessica

Strutt, Courtney

Frontiers in Communication, Vol. 6 (2021), Iss.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.672458 [Citations: 2]

Cultivating vulnerability: oil palm expansion and the socio-ecological food system in the Lachuá Ecoregion, Guatemala

Hervas, Anastasia

Regional Environmental Change, Vol. 20 (2020), Iss. 2

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-020-01630-9 [Citations: 7]

What owns the land: the corporate organization of farmland investment

Ashwood, Loka

Canfield, John

Fairbairn, Madeleine

De Master, Kathryn

The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 49 (2022), Iss. 2 P.233

https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1786813 [Citations: 1]

Understanding the decline of smallholders in contemporary Russia

Wegren, Stephen K

Outlook on Agriculture, Vol. 50 (2021), Iss. 1 P.72

https://doi.org/10.1177/0030727020969201 [Citations: 2]

The rise of financial investment and common ownership in global agrifood firms

Clapp, Jennifer

Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 26 (2019), Iss. 4 P.604

https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2019.1597755 [Citations: 28]

Global Health

Benatar, Solomon

Brock, Gillian

2021

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108692137 [Citations: 1]

The global climate of land politics

Franco, Jennifer C.

Borras, Saturnino M.

Globalizations, Vol. 18 (2021), Iss. 7 P.1277

https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2021.1979717 [Citations: 4]

The fragility of Russia’s agricultural production and implications for food security

Wegren, Stephen K.

Nikulin, Alexander M.

Trotsuk, Irina

(2021) P.1

https://doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2021.2002170 [Citations: 0]

On the Significance of Alternative Economic Practices: Reconceptualizing Alterity in Alternative Food Networks

Rosol, Marit

Economic Geography, Vol. 96 (2020), Iss. 1 P.52

https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2019.1701430 [Citations: 16]

Food security and the contested visions of agrarian change in Africa

Moorsom, Toby Leon

Rao, Sheila

Gengenbach, Heidi

Huggins, Christopher

Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'études du développement, Vol. 41 (2020), Iss. 2 P.212

https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2020.1786356 [Citations: 2]

The political economy of distillers’ grains and the frictions of consumption

Martin, Sarah J.

Environmental Politics, Vol. 29 (2020), Iss. 2 P.297

https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2019.1565461 [Citations: 2]

Climate change and agrarian struggles: an invitation to contribute to a JPS Forum

Borras Jr., Saturnino M.

Scoones, Ian

Baviskar, Amita

Edelman, Marc

Peluso, Nancy Lee

Wolford, Wendy

The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 49 (2022), Iss. 1 P.1

https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2021.1956473 [Citations: 1]

Financing agrarian change: Geographies of credit and debt in the global south

Green, W. Nathan

Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 46 (2022), Iss. 3 P.849

https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325221083211 [Citations: 0]

Contract Farming, Capital and State

Stating the (Not So) Obvious: The ‘Interventionist Neoliberal State’ in India

Shrimali, Ritika

2021

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1934-2_4 [Citations: 0]

Peasants' rights and agrarian violence in transitional settings: From transitional justice to transformative agrarian justice

Hoddy, Eric T.

Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 20 (2021), Iss. 1 P.91

https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2020.1850242 [Citations: 3]

This food crisis is different: COVID-19 and the fragility of the neoliberal food security order

Clapp, Jennifer

Moseley, William G.

The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 47 (2020), Iss. 7 P.1393

https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1823838 [Citations: 76]

Stefan Ouma, Farming as financial asset—global finance and the making of institutional landscapes, 2020, Columbia University Press

Ducastel, Antoine

(2022)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41130-021-00154-y [Citations: 0]

The ties that bind? Agroecology and the agrarian question in the twenty-first century

Akram-Lodhi, A. Haroon

The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 48 (2021), Iss. 4 P.687

https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2021.1923010 [Citations: 6]

Steering towards reglobalization: can a reformed G20 rise to the occasion?

Bishop, Matthew Louis

Payne, Anthony

Globalizations, Vol. 18 (2021), Iss. 1 P.120

https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1779964 [Citations: 7]

Transnational land investment web: land grabs, TNCs, and the challenge of global governance

Borras Jr., Saturnino M.

Mills, Elyse N.

Seufert, Philip

Backes, Stephan

Fyfe, Daniel

Herre, Roman

Michéle, Laura

Globalizations, Vol. 17 (2020), Iss. 4 P.608

https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2019.1669384 [Citations: 12]