From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the agro-food systems of the world experienced a global shift as part of developments which we nowadays assess as ‘globalisation’. The globalisation of regional and local agro-food systems was driven by a complex bundle of ecological, economic, political, social and cultural forces. As a consequence, regions and places in different continents were interconnected by flows of ‘things’, ‘people’ and ‘ideas’ in particular ways, therefore establishing transcontinental chains or even networks of food production, distribution and consumption. However, the segmentation of the field of history into sub-disciplines such as agricultural and food history has long acted as an obstacle to the comprehensive study of global linkages as such.

The panel aims at overcoming this segmentation by a truly global-historical view on agro-food chains and networks. However, the global history of agro-food relations does by no means contradict the history of regional and local cases. On the contrary, it is one of the challenges of agro-food history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to widen the historiographical scope at global levels and to deepen it at regional and local levels. Globalisation on the one hand and regionalisation and localisation on the other hand can be conveived as complementary and interwoven developments ('glocalisation'). Papers may deal with the formation of global chains and networks of food production, distribution and consumption and their reproduction and/or transformation over time in natural and societal contexts for selected crops.

Please send abstracts of around 500 words for papers to the session organiser, Ernst Langthaler (ernst.langthaler@noel.gv.at). Deadline for paper abstracts is 22 April 2013. Candidates will be informed about the selection of papers by 1 May 2013, after which the session will be submitted to the ESSHC organisers. If the session is accepted, participants are expected to circulate their full papers before the start of the conference.