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Small Farm Production and the Standardization of Tropical Products
Author(s) -
Daviron Benoit
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of agrarian change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.63
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1471-0366
pISSN - 1471-0358
DOI - 10.1111/1471-0366.00029
Subject(s) - peasant , production (economics) , product (mathematics) , commission , futures contract , agriculture , position (finance) , business , economics , international market , standardization , agricultural economics , market economy , international trade , geography , political science , finance , geometry , mathematics , archaeology , law , macroeconomics
This paper explores the historical relations between labour organization and product qualification in the production of tropical agricultural exports. In supplying international markets for tropical products, peasant farming emerged as the norm for labour organization after the First World War, competing with the large plantations and different systems of forced labour. During the same period, national standards became the dominant tool for product qualification of commodities traded on the global agricultural markets. These standards allow the creation of futures markets and the emergence of traders, instead of auction markets and commission merchants: two changes that were the basis of the subsequent international marketing of peasant‐produced commodities. The last part of the paper considers the potential consequences of the current erosion of standards for the position of peasants in tropical export crop cultivation.