Recent analyses of the restructuring of the agro-food system draw uncritically on the industrial restructuring literature, notably regulation theory and Fordism/post-Fordism debates on capitalist transition. We question the extension of this periodisation and conceptual framework to the political economy of agrarian restructuring. We also interrogate the theoretical foundations of several related literatures concerned with international food regimes, the 'new internationalisation' of agriculture, the repositioning of agriculture-industry relations, and the reconfiguration of rural space. Our general argument is that the industrial restructuring debates provide an inadequate conceptual architecture for analyses of the dynamics of change in agrarian production structures and rural spatial organisation.