His research is broadly located at the intersection of political ecology and agrarian political economy, focusing on two main fronts: how global agrarian change is interacting with the spatial marginality of small farmers, related social and environmental problems, and struggles for land reform; and how the biophysical instability of industrial agriculture relates to the increasing volatility of world food markets. He is the author of The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming (Zed Books, 2007), and his research has also been published in a range of edited books and in academic journals such as the Journal of Agrarian Change, the Journal of Peasant Studies, Capital and Class, Social and Economic Studies, and Global Environmental Change.