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The fresh vegetables commodity chain linking Kenyan producers with United Kingdom (UK) consumers employs significant numbers of workers in production and processing. This chain is dominated by UK retailers that determine the production imperatives of Kenyan firms upstream in the chain and, indirectly the employment strategies they adopt. This paper explores how competitive pressures are transmitted through the supply chain, and how exporters absorb these risks by placing greater emphasis on organizational flexibility and the elasticity of labor in horticultural production. The paper argues that while the industry provides substantial employment opportunities in Kenya, the commodity chain is dependent upon the "gendered" and insecure forms of employment it creates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the decades following the Second World War super markets and retail outlets in North America, Western Europe, and Australasia became the most important sites for the sale of food products. This dominance in food saIes was generally confined to the retail sector as super-markets tended to act as a nexus or distribution point between agri-food producers and consumers. In the 1970s this relationship began to break down as supermarkets moved up the chain of production. Supermarkets began to directly source materials from producers to use in "own" brand and generic products, which soon came to compete with the branded products of agri-food manufacturers. This paper traces the beginnings of these shifts and investigates the consequences of globally-sourced super-market goods in the context of the Australian agri-food system, with pineapples and wine as case studies The paper concludes that the increasing size and scope of supermarket buying power and the presence and growth of "own" brands suggests that capital organized through retail channels is coming to rival manufacturing capital as a significant fraction of the Australian agri-food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not all commodities are things, nor are all things available in society commodities. Then, what are commodities? Using the case of rapeseed and its products in China, this paper examines the role of grades and standards (G&S) in simultaneously determining the life of things as commodities and the position of humans as market participants. In the first section, we summarize our conceptual understandings of commodities. Next, the paper examines tests and trials to which rapeseed in China were subjected by the mid 1990s. We then discuss how G&S represent political processes among commodity chain actors for creating, legitimizing and maintaining the social relations between things and people. Lastly, we discuss our conclusion that the analysis of tests and trials helps us understand the process of commodification as simultaneous transformations of humans and things in a commodity chain while reorganizing linkages among these actors. A commodity is … an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. —Karl Marx (in McLellan 1977:421) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article proposes the concept of an extractive regime to understand Indonesia's developmental trajectory from 1966 to 1998. The concept contributes to world-systems, globalization, and commodity-based approaches to understanding peripheral development. An extractive regime is defined by its reliance on extraction of multiple natural resources in the formation of an economic and political order that is also supported by global and regional forces. After elaborating the concept of an extractive regime, the article illustrates it through examination of Indonesia's developmental trajectory from its formation in the post-World War II era to its firm establishment during Suharto's New Order. Although a comprehensive study would necessitate attention to the full panoply of commodities, the study illustrates some of the workings of the extractive regime in the timber and fisheries sectors, which share spatial extensivity and other characteristics. The article concludes by considering the future of the extractive regime in Indonesia amid democratization and continued class domination and by offering suggestions for further application, specification, and extension of the extractive regime concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commodity agriculture and civic agriculture represent two distinct types of farming found in the U.S. today. Commodity agriculture is grounded on the belief that the primary objectives of farming should be to produce as much food/fiber as possible for the least cost. It is driven by the twin goals of productivity and efficiency. Civic agriculture, on the other hand, represents the rebirth of a more locally oriented agriculture and food system. Using data from the 1992 and 1997 Censuses of Agriculture and other secondary data sets, we examine factors and conditions associated with the presence and growth of both types of agriculture. Our findings show that civic agriculture is associated with particular commodities and with specific social, economic and demographic characteristics of localities. Commodity agriculture, on the other hand, is more sensitive to the classic economic factors of production, namely, land, labor, and capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particularly when discussing the effects of large-scale industrial projects, the existing community literature exhibits a curious duality about relationships between local communities and outside forces. While explicitly noting the external origins of large-scale industrial projects, the literature shifts to a focus on local planning when discussing the management of any resultant disruptions. Little attention is devoted to the possibility that the magnitude of external boom-bust forces may be so great as to overwhelm even the best-prepared communities. This exploratory study examines the extent of external influences on two resource-dependent parishes (counties) in coastal Louisiana with long histories of offshore oil and gas development-one a predominantly blue-collar area and the other an administrative center. The drop in oil prices since 1981 created differently structured but equally devastating impacts on the two. Simple indices suggest that the parishes experienced four-to-ten times as much instability over the past two decades as the nation as a whole. In both parishes, simple regression equations using commodity-related variables that are completely outside the control of local communities are found to explain over 90 percent of the variation in total employment and over 70 percent of the change in employment that cannot be explained by pre-existing conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]