The politico-ecological economy of neoliberal agribusiness: displacement, financialisation and mystification

The intricacy of global agri-food business today is, at once, product and also co-producer of the hegemonic modernisation of capitalism according to the discourse and the strategies of neoliberalism. The expansion of neoliberal agribusiness, situated in the wider context of the politico-ecological economy of contemporary capitalism, is considered with the assistance of an original analytical framework structured around three explanatory categories: displacement (sectoral and spatial transformations), financialisation (the priority of making money over agriculture outcomes) and mystification (dissimulation of the neoliberalising trends and of associated risks and disputes). The proposed analytical framework has significant implications for research in human geography, especially within politico-economy and neoliberalism studies, to the extent that it encapsulates interdependent processes that are together responsible for the revitalisation of agribusiness and for the legitimisation of global agri-food markets. The framework is then used to highlight the historico-geographical repercussions of neoliberalised agribusiness in Brazil, which was an element of the conservative responses to the crisis of accumulation caused by the exhaustion of developmentalist policies and state-led entrepreneurialism. Brazilian agribusiness seems to thrive on a peculiar combination of tradition and modernity, as its apparent success betrays a clear attempt to temporarily placate the structural contradictions of capitalist agriculture while tensions and reactions become increasingly evident