Capitalist Coordination of Agriculture: Food Processing Firms and Farming in Central Canada1

This paper is concerned with the restructuring of petty commodity producers in agriculture and, more specifically, the role of food processing firms in this process. Two mechanisms by which processors secure their agricultural supplies—corporate farming and contract farming—are examined in central Canada. Although fairly widespread, corporate farming by processors is slowly declining and is unlikely to have a major impact on petty producers. By comparison, this study indicates that, in the context of corporate consolidation, the behavior of food processors in granting production contracts to formally independent farm operators is furthering the social differentiation of the latter.