Fields of Glass
Labour Regimes, Techno-Science and Biopolitics in Agrifood Value Chains

Explores the issue of the insecurity of food systems in the UK using global value chains, labour regimes and innovation.

Adrian Smith (Author)

9781009452847, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 June 2025

263 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

'A powerful account of development and change in UK glasshouse agrifoood production and value chains. Spanning over 70 years of the glasshouse industry, Adrian Smith draws on his rigorous archival and interview-based research to historicise and theorise relationships among growers, workers, the UK government, technological change and the ecological processes upon which we all depend. He shows how these 'agrarian biopolitical articulations' underpin the food economy, paying special attention to the often obscured but integral role of migrant labourers.' Liam Campling, Queen Mary University of London, and author of Capitalism and the Sea

What is the relationship between technology and labour regimes in agrifood value chains? By deploying the concept of agrarian biopolitical articulations, Field of Glass formulates new perspectives that bridge the hitherto distinct worlds of value chain research, agrarian political economy, labour regime theory, and agrarian techno-science to explain the enduring insecurity of food systems in the United Kingdom. Using both historical and contemporary research, Adrian Smith explores how the precarity and exploitation of migrant labour intersects with ecology and techno-science/innovation, such as hydroponic and robotic technologies, to explain the development and changing nature of glasshouse agrifood value chains in the UK. Smith concludes by reflecting on how agrarian bio-politics have shaped the glasshouse agrifood sector and the emergence of contemporary 'high road' and 'low road' strategies, highlighting their contradictions and negative consequences for local development and food supply security.

1. Food security and the 'total ecology' of glasshouse agrifood value chains
2. Agrarian biopolitical articulations: towards an understanding of value chains, labour regimes and techno-science
3. Fields of glass: glasshouse agrifood value chains in regional context
4. The dynamics of the glasshouse agrifood value chain
5. The post-war labour regime and the labour process
6. Labour segmentation and contemporary seasonal migrant worker regimes
7. The state, techno-science and agrifood value chains
8. Hydroponics, the 'total ecology' and upgrading
9. 'AgTech', automation and the restructuring of work
10. Fields of glass and agrifood value chain futures
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: International business [KJK]