Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to review the recent development of sociology of agriculture, in order to analyze the drastic restructuring of agro-food system through biotechnology. Recent changes of agro-food system can be detected in two different aspects, that is, international and intersectoral reorganization of commodity chains, which used to be organized around each distinct agricultural commodity.
Commercial development of biotechnology have posed several research issues to be solved within sociology of agriculture; changing division of labor between public and private research bodies, changing distribution patterns of profit captured by new technologies, and institutionalization issues of intellectual property rights balancing with public access to genetic resources.
Among these issues related to biotechnology, author focuses on the restructuring of agro-food system and reviews the analytical measures which have been developed in sociology of agriculture. Several aspects related to the restructuring are reviewed, including appropriationism and substitutionism, which are proposed by agricultural sociologists. After assessing these aspects, the author presents a concept of “network” as a key measure to examine the reorganization of agro-food system and shows its relevance to the analysis of changing agro-food system.
