Globalization of agricultural production and research: The case of the rapeseed subsector

In the realms of business, policy and intellectual discussion, science and technology have been treated historically as enabling agents for the development of new products, technologies, knowledge, organizational and geographical arrangements of economic activities. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the analysis of how the globalization of production activities, which has been made possible in part by various scientific achievements, is changing technoscience itself. This paper examines the worldwide interaction between agricultural research and agricultural production by using the rapeseed subsector as an example. Bibliometric data on rapeseed, and economic statistics of production, import and export of rapeseed and its products between 1940 and 1996 are used simultaneously to examine the globalization of the rapeseed subsector and research activities in Canada, the US, Japan, China, India, the UK, France and Germany. A typology of production and research strategies that major rapeseed producing countries use to compete on the world oilseed market is developed.