Integrating global commodity chains and social-ecological systems? Challenges for social and environmental governance

The paper presents a conceptual framework for the analysis of social and environmental impacts along interlinking global commodity chains and in interdependent social-ecological systems. Recognizing the importance and specificity of regional interconnections, wherein actions in certain parts of the world impact quite specifically on the sustainability of certain other spatially distant places and systems, the paper examines two increasingly interdependent regional feed and food production complexes, and associated interlinking feed/food chains. With reference to the production of soybean in southern Brazil, and its incorporation as livestock feed in industrial meat production in northern Germany, challenges to environmental governance in and across interconnected social-ecological systems are considered. The paper aims to provide a preliminary comparison of the dynamics of production in these two regions, stressing the contingency of social and environmental impacts and challenges in-place, and highlighting differentiation within, and complex ‘teleconnections’ between, the respective agro-industrial production complexes. Key public and private governance mechanisms are considered, and interactions between these are highlighted. It is argued that while state-centric and territorial regulation may be inadequate in the face of agri-food globalisation, there are also important limits to the ability of voluntary private modes of governance and corporate codes of conduct to secure sustainability in-place through value chain governance.