Placing the state in the contemporary food regime: uneven regulatory development in the Dominican Republic

ABSTRACT

This paper interrogates the role of the state in the contemporary food regime and argues that it is best understood as the outcome of uneven regulatory development. This concept centers the ways that legacy institutions and practices of previous food regimes persist and combine with neoliberal regulation. It is developed through an in-depth case study of agro-food regulation in the Dominican Republic, focusing on domestic rice production. The analysis speaks to the possibilities and limits of progressive food sovereignty politics in contexts where states simultaneously undermine socially transformative demands and mitigate some pernicious effects of hyper-marketization to secure state legitimacy.

KEYWORDS:

• neoliberalism
• food sovereignty
• rice
• free trade agreements
• clientelism
• land reform

Acknowledgements

Research for this paper benefited from the financial support of the Regional Studies Association (UK) (Award N° 70677) and the Community for Global Health Equity (University at Buffalo, SUNY). I am grateful to Jatnna Paredes Bierd, Julio César Vargas, and especially Marcos Morales, at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, for their invaluable support, insights and guidance, as well as Sarah Robert at UB, who encouraged me to look at school food. Finally, my deepest gratitude to Jaume Franquesa, who accompanied this project intellectually and personally from its early inception. All errors of interpretation are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Marion Werner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Co-Director of the Center for Trade, Environment and Development at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Her research is focused on the economic restructuring of export industries, the gender and racial politics of labor, and the political economy of agro-food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the author of Global Displacements: The making of uneven development in the Caribbean (Wiley, 2016).

Notes

1 In a recent contribution, the authors outline the related ‘neoliberal diet’: the globalization of ‘luxury’ and industrial food circuits and the profound class differences that condition access to these foods in global South countries (Otero et al. 2018).

2 Land reform recipients under the 1972 legislation were organized as collectives, while previous recipients operated individually. On the transformation of these collective farms into individually-managed farm ‘asociativas,’ see Meyer (1989).

3 The breeding program was initiated with support from the agricultural mission of the Taiwanese government, and was led for decades by plant breeder Dr. Yin T. Hsieh, known popularly as ‘the father of Dominican rice’ (Nova Ynoa 2012). Taiwan established diplomatic ties with Caribbean, Central American and African states beginning in the 1960s to garner support for its recognition as a state. Agricultural missions were frequently deployed as part of this geopolitical effort.

4 The declines in direct public spending are well below the contribution of agriculture to GDP, however, reflecting systematic underinvestment by the state (MEPyD 2017). Still, the expansion of the school food program and presidential visits, discussed below, while not counted in these figures, represent significant public spending via projects directed from the executive branch and public procurement for school food via the Ministry of Education.

5 Administrative Ministry of the Presidency, https://mapre.gob.do/visitassorpresa/ (last accessed 22 July 2018).

6 Rice consumption in the Dominican Republic was 56 kg/per capita in 2016 and has not changed significantly since 1980 (Ministry of Agriculture 2015).

7 Available at http://www.agricultura.gob.do/transparencia/index.php/estadisticas/category/905-ejecucion-presupuestaria-del-sector-agropecuario, accessed 23 February 2018.

8 Average yield has remained relatively unchanged since the 1990s, varying between 61 and 74 quintals per hectare of unprocessed rice (Ministerio de Agricultura 2015). Stagnant productivity reflects the decline of domestic hybrid varieties and the high cost of certified imported seed, aging irrigation infrastructure, as well as the reliance on devalued Haitian labor, disincentivizing capital investments among large farmers.

9 The WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report (2017) cites corruption as the number one problem for doing business. The country ranks very low, 104/137, on the measure of ease of doing business, despite a high ranking for a business-friendly ‘macroeconomic environment’ (49 out of 137).

10 Available at http://parlamentarioscontraelhambre.org/biblioteca/. Last accessed 22 July 2018.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University at Buffalo Community for Global Health Equity; Regional Studies Association.