Soy and Agro-Food Transitions: Austria from a Multi-Level Perspective, 1870s-2020s

The project is situated in the international field of (historical) agro-food studies. It investigates transitions of agro-food regimes through the lens of a particular commodity – soy – over a long-term period – the last 150 years – with a focus on a particular country – Austria – in its inter- and transnational setting. The case of soy is particularly interesting, since the crop shifted from a biological curiosity in the late nineteenth century to a major cash crop in the early twenty-first century. In the last decades, Austria has emerged as a trader as well as producer in the global commodity web around soy. In order to address soy-related developments on multiple levels (from local to global) that bring about agro-food transitions, the project rests on a combination of transition theory, food regime analysis, and commodity studies. Before soy entered the agro-food regime, it emerged in several niches as a novel solution to problems in agriculture and nutrition. The central question the project aims to answer is how knowledge transfer, commodity chains and regulatory institutions interacted in soy’s emergence from niche to mainstream in the context of agro-food transitions in Austria since the 1870s. Through transnational connection and international comparisons, the case of Austria will be situated in its global setting. The project will mainly draw on actor-network approaches, commodity chain analysis, and critical discourse analysis.