Agri-Food Restructuring and Third World Transnationals: Thailand, the CP Group and the Global Shrimp Industry

In this paper we concentrate on developments in Souththeast Asia concerning newly-emerging relationships between the nation-state and a globally-oriented corporation. Using an integrated corporate-commodity systems analysis, we examine the nature of the farmed shrimp industry in Thailand and the company (Charoen Pokphand, or the CP Group) most responsible for the vertical integration of production, first in Thailand and subsequently elsewhere in the region. We argue that the shrimp industry, both globally and in Thailand, offers a particularly significant example of the consequences that agri-food restructuring and the intensification of aquaculture has on the possibilities for the participatory control of social resources.