Most of my professional life has linked me to scholars interested in studying social change from a world-historical perspective. Consequently I have been active in the sections in the American Sociological Association concerned with comparative-historical analysis, and world-system analysis. I have also been active in the Global Development Section of the International Studies Association. I am currently associated with researchers in the International Sociological Association`s Research Committee on Food and Agriculture (past-president) and the Australia/New Zealand Agri-Food Research Network, as a base from which to study global and regional food systems. My research program follows in interest in world political-economic history, with a particular focus on food and agricultural systems. Trained as a historical sociologist, I work on the problem of situating and understanding food and agricultural systems in their world-historical context. This includes evaluating the costs and benefits of having an increasingly globalized food system, especially now with the rise of agrofuels. Another facet of this research concerns the institutional politics surrounding the organization of a global agriculture. My concern is to understand ways in which multilateral rule-making (eg, WTO, FTAs, TRIPs) conditions agricultures, food choices and food security (and therefore development possibilities).