Trading on Pork and Beans: Agribusiness and the Construction of the Brazil-China-Soy-Pork Commodity Complex

Abstract

As “food crises” appear to increase in both frequency and severity around the world, renewed attention is focused on the political economy of the global food system. Specifically, the emerging production and consumption powerhouses of Latin America and China are drawing attention to the reconfiguration of trade flows and the role of powerful multinational agribusinesses in that process. This chapter examines the emergence of the Brazil-China-soy-pork commodity complex as a lens on global agro-food restructuring. As China has shifted pork production to an intensified, industrial model, its demand for imported soy to feed hogs has skyrocketed. Brazil has largely stepped in to meet that demand, which has led to the integration of the Chinese pork sector and the Brazilian soy sector in a highly interdependent commodity complex. The emergence of this commodity complex signals a shift away from the traditional production and consumption centers of soy (the US and EU/Japan, respectively) towards new South-South trade flows. What has remained the same—at least to this point—is the control exercised over that commodity complex by the four primary transnational soybean brokers and processers: Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis-Dreyfus. The level of control wielded by these four companies is not without challenges from farmers, governments, and NGOs in both China and Brazil. However, because of the structure of the industry and the extent of their reach down the supply chain, these firms maintain significant influence over the governance of this global commodity complex. This chapter addresses the structuring of the global soy market through the interaction of policy and the private sector in Brazil and China, and concludes with a discussion of the consequences of this new commodity system for food, farmers, and the environment.