Farmers' Markets: Success, Failure, and Management Ecology
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Farmers' Markets: Success, Failure, and Management Ecology By Gar ...

Chapter 1:  ADM, A Tomato Named Local Lucy, and Small Farms: The Ecology and Reemergence of Farmers’ Markets
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This trend had always been presumed to be related to economies of scale enjoyed by larger farms. The trend toward larger farms emerged in tandem with a trend toward consolidation in agribusiness; as one got bigger, the other got bigger. However, one of the key conclusions of the Commission was that market forces were not responsible for forcing small farms out of business. Instead, the loss of market opportunities resulted from federal government policies that favored large farms (USDA, 1998).In Britain, Lang (1999) echoed the Commission’s conclusion, asserting that food systems are the outcome of policy and political choices.

As previously noted, companies like ADM are moving agricultural production and food processing to global levels. According to Fried-land (2004),

Globalization in agricultural commodities means that all three classical components of production—land, labor, and capital—experience this shift, albeit variably. Capital is the most easily globalized; labor has become more globalized…It takes place also in the form of bringing employment to workers as manifested by what is referred to as “contracting out” or “outsourcing.” Land as a physical entity is immobile but becomes mobile, in effect, through surrogate locations of production. (p. 5)

Trade has globalized food throughout history. The Columbian Ex--change and colonial empires moved seeds, diets, recipes, and products rapidly around the world (Lang, 1999). But what we are experiencing now is different: the system is different, the food is different, and the players are different.

The system is different. According to Friedland (2004),

Although some foods such as sugar have been somewhat globalized for about 400 years and fresh produce—bananas—have been somewhat in global circulation for over a century, most foods were, up to World War II, in restricted circulation: agricultural products were produced and distributed locally, regionally, or nationally. After World War II, particularly after the 1960s, production-consumption chains began to expand. (p. 5)