*3.4. Impacts of Globalization*

As agricultural systems evolved into more specialized and simplified agri-food processes, the agricultural market also walked the same path—notably after the Second World War, through scaling up and diversification in the trade of agricultural goods [101]. However, these systems evolved unevenly on a global scale. Wallerstein points out how globalization affects countries differently; his theory rejects the conception of "first", "second", and "third world". Instead, he proposed a modern world system, classifying nation states in three possible positions—center, semi-periphery, and periphery [102]—derived from dependence theory.

Wallerstein's theory is adequately applied to the functioning of agri-food markets in the modern world. Nation states that play a leading role in the agricultural sector seek to do so through soy, corn, and sugar commodities. Such agricultural cultures are only possible with the simplification of agrarian systems, and are exercised in large portions of land—often in monocultures represented by high concentrations of rural properties.

The nation states situated in these positions are located in the periphery and semiperiphery of the world system, supplying the countries of the center with food and primary products, and acquiring these more industrialized products. On the other hand, due to industrialization, countries in the center of this system manage to buy primary products from countries on the periphery of the globe, and dedicate themselves to producing food in more complex agrarian systems and, consequently, in more complex agri-food markets. Hence, globalization conditions the geography of the production process and the market for agri-food products, consolidating the exchange relationship. This relationship reinforces the thesis that the central countries started to occupy distinct and privileged positions relative to the others in the world system, due to prioritizing the industrialization of their economies.

However, this intra-nation relationship reproduces asymmetric effects in the construction of agri-food markets. Due to the characteristics of the productive systems inherent in these markets, globalization impacts the world's production and food systems, where

peripheral nations have the development of complex markets compromised due to the development of capitalism, causing an unequal agri-food development between nation states.

The construction of a global market guided by the center–periphery logic places agri-food production in an asymmetric perspective. On the one hand, countries in the periphery are characterized by the production of primary products, or commodities, to supply raw materials to the central nations. On the other hand, the more industrialized and central countries consume these goods and export value-added products. In this way, the international market is built with disproportionate weights in terms of values. Thus, considering these characteristics of production systems, countries on the periphery and semi-periphery of the global system tend to maintain this format, due to the hegemonic process that benefits the ruling classes. Therefore, in a world system of low mobility between nations for a commercial balance, the tendency towards alterations in the productive systems becomes equally reduced.

Roland Robertson states that the ideas, cultural forms, and goods reach the world. However, due to the cultural diversity of each place, those global forms are perceived differently and adapted to each reality. He calls this phenomenon "glocalization" [103]. In the GI case, this phenomenon is well observed in cheese, for example. The Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is a protected designation of origin (PDO), made in the Italian regions of Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy. When Italian immigrants went to South America at the beginning of the 20th century, they brought their cheesemaking knowledge along with them. This resulted in analogous cheeses called Parmesão, in Brazil, or Parmesano, in Argentina. However, according to EU regulations on GI products, neither is recognized as the same as the original.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, on the other hand, points to the idea of an uneven conflict between hegemonic states and ideologies on one side, and collective dominated groups on the other, as counter-hegemonic [104]. According to the author, this polarized position is due to several areas of knowledge based on epistemological exclusion. The unequal struggle pushes the dominant models and interests of the North towards the South of the globe via an unfair and hegemonic social hierarchy of knowledge, stretching social inequality from the perspective of Boaventura de Sousa Santos or, from Wallerstein's perspective, in the dominant models and interests from the center to the periphery of the globe. By disregarding and invalidating other forms of thought and cultures, a standard model for the construction of science and society is established, consolidating the body of knowledge and possibilities for building society. Thus, the author concludes that modern capitalism needs alternatives to eradicate inequalities, and that this would only be possible with what he calls "global cognitive justice". The thinking of Sousa Santos is consistent with Wallerstein's.

Thus, the causes and effects of the process of globalization in the market and the agrifood production structure become clear. The position of countries regarding the function and products in the world system affects how countries produce food, the type of food, for whom this market is constructed, and the biggest beneficiaries of the consolidation of this market.

According to Milton Santos [105], globalization is characterized by a hierarchically structured market articulated by hegemonic, national, and foreign firms, commanding the territory supported by the state. This is precisely how globalization impacts markets. The consolidation of agri-food systems aimed at maintaining the current status quo, both in the periphery and in the center of the world system, makes the dominant interests in all parts become hegemonic.

Thus, colonization also plays a role and generates consequences. Settlement- and permanence-oriented colonization is capable of promoting development in nations in a less predetermined and dispute-oriented way. In exploration-oriented colonization, the formation of the agrarian structure is previously established and divided for the elite construction. This fact supports the model that places these same nations in peripheral conditions.
