Abstract

The following study examines how the spread of transgenic crops in North America and a concomitant rise in Japanese consumer concern over food safety allows spaces for human interaction and agency to intervene in and restructure a commodity’s global flow. Challenging assumptions of the ‘global marketplace’ as necessarily distant, culturally detached, and impersonal, the descriptive analysis of the annual soy bean inspections that occur between Japanese buyers and small-scale Canadian producers illuminates the ways that ‘perceived risks’ surrounding transgenic soybean cultivation and distribution intensifies exchange at the local level.