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The recent farmers' movement within the European Union has cast a spotlight on free-trade agreements and their paradoxical consequences. While agri-food products compete increasingly on a global scale, international ecological standards remain uneven. As a result, farmers committed to sustainable practices risk losing their competitiveness.Aimed at citizens — researchers, and all those concerned with globalization —, this book seeks to inform the public debate by examining the constraints that World Trade Organization agreements and recent European trade treaties impose on sustainable agricultural policies. It also explores the room for maneuver available to states to protect their local agriculture. At a time when land use has become a key issue in the fight against global warming, the worldwide agri-food system are set to be disrupted. The debate cannot be reduced to a simple opposition between international trade and local production. Instead, it calls for rethinking how production methods are regulated— where free trade is perceived as a loss of control, and a shift toward "de-liberalization" represents a reaffirmation of collective, territory-based choices for a sustainable food system.

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