Precarity on the Irish family farm: critically examining the global agro-food assemblages and structures of power that shape Irish agricultural livelihoods

This research provides a critical examination of the precarity of our global food system and studies the precarious position of the Irish family farm within the broader framework of increasing neoliberalism, centralization, and corporatization of our global foodscapes. It aims to generate a better understanding of the precarity experienced by Irish farmers and the consequences of precarization processes that are continuously transforming and reshaping the political economy of agriculture and food. The research involved carrying out a quantitative survey of 198 Irish farmers, which was supplemented with qualitative interviews from farmers across Ireland with varying backgrounds and expertise. The results reveal a global food system that is highly fragile and rife with endemic precarity, which acts as a means to normalize the precarious conditions of everyday life on the Irish family farm in the modern world.