Rescaling rurality: Multilevel governance of the agro-food sector

This paper explores the regionalization and rescaling of agro-food governance in the context of renewed interest in the territoriality, or respacing, of agro-food markets. Rescaling concerns state processes and multilevel governance. Rural respacing is driven by changes in the agro-food sector brought about by market developments. This paper examines the relationship between respacing and rescaling, through an analysis of the changing agro-food governance in the south-west of England. A case study is provided of the implementation of the Sustainable Farming and Food Strategy in the region. While agro-food policy remains centrally driven in terms of budget resource and strategic lead, the new institutional landscape, combined in this case with the market imperative of respacing, provides an opportunity for the building of new identities and capacities which in themselves both transform and confront existing scalar configurations and power distributions. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.