Abstract

We begin by outlining the nature of the global food industry – a complex network of activities relating to the supply and consumption of food products across the world which impacts significantly upon the health and indeed sustainability of planet earth and its people. We document a variety of harms generated by the industry, from environmental degradation and resource depletion, to labour exploitation and to crises to human health such as H5N1, or avian (‘bird’) flu, H1N1, or swine flu, and SARS-CoV-19. We show how this industry is encouraged to be criminogenic by the forms of regulation – a complex of intra- and international activities by states, international and non-governmental organisations – that shape its structure and permit it to engage in particular activities. These diverse regulatory efforts typically intervene at the end-points of the activities of global agribusiness – where intervention is least intrusive and least effective from the point of view of social protection – rather than in the organisation and process of production themselves. This raises considerations about the nature, intended outcomes and actual effects of regulation, revealing regulation of the food industry as much a source rather than a mitigator of crime and harm