Looking at complex agri-food systems from an actor perspective: The case of Northern Thailand

Abstract Increasingly, farming households in developing countries are being drawn into relations with agribusiness and industrial agriculture practices that are fundamentally altering agri-food systems across scalar levels, drawing distant actors into inter-dependencies that are not necessarily mutually beneficial. Much of the literature studying food systems at present lies within natural science epistemologies that overlook the importance of governance regimes in determining the type of food systems that emerge and evolve. Food systems can alternatively be studied under concurrent processes of globalization, commodification, financialization and urbanization, where the core problems are not perceived as merely technical, but embedded more in the socio-political realm. Drawing from a case study centered on animal feed maize production that involves a complex network of actors, institutions, interests and social processes in an upland district of northern Thailand, we highlight how rural communities engage with and negotiate increasingly globalized agri-food systems, framed as both producers and consumers. We aim to understand how marginalized communities involved in animal feed maize production negotiate with a wide range of external actors and consider some implications to future food governance regimes. It emphasizes the importance of considering relative power and agency in understanding complex agri-food systems that are steadily being captured by corporate entities working alongside and to a certain extent, replacing the authority of existing state agencies. We argue that the rapid growth of multinational agribusiness corporations within such a context can constrain the voices of local actors and may lead to weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the food system.