The paper investigates the characteristics of the global restructuring of the agricultural and food system that has occurred in recent years. Emphasis is placed on the emergence of the “Food and Natural Resource Question” and its relation to the “Agrarian Question.” It is argued that rather than being separate issues, these are two aspects of a unified process occurring at the global level. Moreover, it is argued that the transnational unity of the agrarian question and the food question mandates a (...) reconstruction of the arena within which production takes place. This phenomenon in turn generates a set of limits to domestic political institutions and locally generated social demands. The implications of the emergence of the international arena as locus of political action is discussed vis-a-vis the local level of socio-political action. (shrink)