Reprise on Commodity Systems Methodology
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Published
Jan 15, 2021
William H. Friedland
Abstract
Set out over a decade ago, a methodology of commodity systems analysis described five basic foci of research: production practices, grower organization and organizations, labor, science production and application, and marketing and distribution networks. Recent empirical research on several commodity systems in California and on the globalization of fresh fruits and vegetables has indicated the need for an elaboration of the original methodology. A review is made of existing literature relevant to commodity studies and commodity systems analyses as well as assessing several related systems of provision and actor network theory as potential contributors to commodity and commodity systems analysis. Three additional research foci are proposed: scale, sectoral organization and the relationship of the state to the commodity, and commodity culture. Scale refers both to the spatial character of the commodity and the forms of social interaction of actors within the commodity system and also includes the character of the community or communities – spatial and functional – that are part of the commodity system. Sectoral organization deals with whether and how the commodity is organized in or around the competitive, monopoly, or state sectors and how the commodity is regulated or the degree to which the state regulates, intervenes, or supports commodity development. Commodity culture refers to cultural forms found either among commodity producers or consumers, a variable phenomenon with strong cultural elements found in some commodities and absent in others. Empirical cases explore the utility of these augmenting research foci.
How to Cite
H. Friedland, W. . (2021) “Reprise on Commodity Systems Methodology ”, The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. Paris, France, 9, pp. 82–103. doi: 10.48416/ijsaf.v9i.346.
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References
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CGPRT, (Regional Co-ordination Centre for Research and Development). 1988. The Soybean Commodity System in Indonesia. CGPRT No. 3. Bogor, Indonesia: CGPRT Centre.
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Cook, Roberta L. 1990. “Challenges and Opportunities in the U.S. Fresh Produce Industry.” Journal of Food Distribution Research February:67–74.
deJanvry, Alain, Philip Leveen, and David Runsten. 1980. Mechanization in California Agriculture: The Case of Canning Tomatoes. Berkeley: University of California.
Dixon, Jane. 1999a. “A Cultural Economy Model for Studying Food Systems.” Agriculture and Human Values 16(2):151–160.
___ 1999b. “Reflexive Accumulation and Global Restructuring: Retailers and Cultural Processes in the Australian Poultry Industry.” Rural Sociology 64(2):320–333
___ 2000. Chooks, Cooks and Culinary Cultures: A Cultural Economy Model for the Study of Food Commodity Systems. Melbourne Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Department of Social Science and Planning. Ph.D. dissertation.
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Fine, Ben Michael Heasman, and Judith Wright. 1996. Consumption in the Age of Affluence: The World of Food. London: Routledge.
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___ 1991. “‘Engineering’ Social Change in Agriculture.” University of Dayton Review 21(1):25–42.
___ 1994. “The New Globalization: The Case of Fresh Produce.” Pp. 210–231 in From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalisation of Food and Agriculture, edited by Alessandro Bonanno et al. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
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Goodman, David. 1999. “Agro-Food Studies in the ‘Age of Ecology’: Nature, Corporeality, Bio-Politics.” Sociologia Ruralis 39(1):17–38.
Henderson, George L. 1999. California and the Fictions of Capital. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hopkins, Terence K. and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1986. “Commodity Chains in the World-Economy Prior to 1800.” Review 10(1):157–170.
Juska, Arunas and Lawrence Busch.1994. “The Production of Knowledge and the Production of Commodities: The Case of Rapeseed Technoscience.” Rural Sociology 59(4):581–597.
Keat, Russell, Nigel Whiteley, and Nicholas Abercrombie, eds. 1994. “Introduction” Pp.1–19 in The Authority of the Consumer. New York: Routledge.
Korzeniewicz, Roberto P., Walter Goldfrank, and Miguel E. Korzeniewicz. 1995. “Vines and Wines in the World-Economy.” Pp. 113–138 in Food and Agrarian Orders in the World Economy, edited by Philip McMichael. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
Lapsley, James T. 1996. Bottled Poetry: Napa Winemaking from Prohibition to the Modern Era. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lauret, F. 1983. “Sur les Etudes de Filieres Agro-alimentaire.” Economies et Societes, Cahiers de l'ISMEA 17:721–740.
Law, John. 1992. “Notes on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy, and Heterogeneity.” Systems Practice 5(4):379–393.
McGinity, Richard C. 1979. “Commodity System Development” Agricultural Administration 6(3):211–220.
McKenna, Megan, Michael Roche, and Richard LeHeron. 1999. “An Apple a Day: Renegotiating Concepts, Revisiting Context in New Zealand’s Pipfruit Industry.” Pp. 41–59 in Restructuring Global and Regional Agricultures: Transformations in
Australasian Agri-Food Economies and Spaces, edited by David Burch, Jasper Goss and Geoffrey Lawrence. Aldershot: Ashgate
McKenna, Megan K. L. 2000. “Can Rural Voices Effect Rural Choices? Contesting Deregulation in New Zealand’s Apple Industry.” Sociologia Ruralis 403:366–383
Mintz, Sidney W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History New York: Viking
Morgan, Dan. 1980 Merchants of Grain. New York: Penguin Nelson, Emily and Ann Zimmerman. 2000. “Minding the Store: Kimberley-Clark Keeps Costco in Diapers, Absorbing Costs Itself. Wall Street Journal September 10:A1.
Newby, Howard. 1978. “The Rural Sociology of Advanced Capitalist Societies.” In International Perspectives in Rural Sociology, edited by Howard Newby. London: Wiley.
Newby, Howard. 1980. “Rural Sociology – A Trend Report.” Current Sociology 28:1–141.
Newby, Howard. 1983. “The Sociology of Agriculture: Toward a New Rural Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 9:67–81.
O'Connor, James. 1973. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New York: St. Martins.
Pahl, Jan. 1990. “Household Spending, Personal Spending and the Control of Money in Marriage.” Sociology 24(1):119–138.
Roche, Michael M. 1999. “International Food Regimes: New Zealand’s Place in the International Frozen Meat Trade, 1870–1935.” Historical Geography 27: 129–151.
Rodefeld, Richard D., Jan Flora, Donald Voth, Isao Fujimoto, and Jim Converse eds. 1978. Change in Rural America: Causes, Consequences, and Alternatives. St. Louis: C.V. Mosby.
Savage, Mike, Paul Watt, and Sara Arber. 1990. “The Consumption Sector Debate and Housing Mobility.” Sociology 24(1):97–118.
Sonnenfeld, David, Thomas Schotzko, and Raymond A. Jussaume, Jr. 1998. “Globalization of the Washington Apple Industry: Its Evolution and Impacts.” International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 7:151–180.
Stanford, Lois. 1994. “Transitions to Free Trade: Local Impacts of Changes in Mexican Agrarian Policy.” Human Organization 53(2):99–109.
Tanaka, Keiko, Arunas Juska, and Lawrence Busch. 1999. “Globalization of Agricultural Production and Research: The Case of the Rapeseed Subsector.” Sociologia Ruralis 39(1):54–77
Thomas, Robert J. 1985. Citizenship, Gender, and Work: Social Organization of Industrial Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Thompson, O. E. and Ann F. Scheuring. 1978. From Lug Boxes to Electronics: A Study of California Tomato Growers and Sorting Crews. Davis: Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis Monograph No. 3 of the California Agricultural Policy Seminar.
Urry, John. 1990. “The ‘Consumption’ of Tourism.” Sociology 24(1):23–36.
Wells, Miriam J. 1996. Strawberry Fields: Politics, Class, and Work in California Agriculture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Wilson, Godfrey and Monica. 1968. The Analysis of Social Change: Based on Observations in Central Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wright, Donna Wynne. 1999. Turning Over a New Leaf: Socio-Economic and Political Transformations in the Burley Tobacco Commodity System. Lexington, Kentucky University of Kentucky, Department of Sociology PhD dissertation.
Beardsworth, Alan and Teresa Keil. 1990. “Putting the Menu on the Agenda.” Sociology 24(1):139–151.
Bertrand, Jean-Pierre, Catherine Laurent, and Vincent Leclerc. 1984. Le Monde du Soja. Paris: Editions la Decouverte.
Bonanno, Alessandro and Douglas Constance.1996. Caught in the Net: The Global Tuna Industry, Environmentalism, and the State. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Busch, Lawrence. 1990. “How to Study Agricultural Commodity Chains: A Methodological Proposal.” Pp. 13–24 In Economie des Filieres en Regions Chaude: Formation des Prix et Echanges Agricoles, edited by Michel Griffon. Paris: CIRAD.
Busch, Lawrence and Arunas Juska. 1997. “Beyond Political Economy: Actor Networks and the Globalization of Agriculture.” Review of International Political Economy Winter: 688–708.
Busch, Lawrence and Keiko Tanaka. 1996. “Rites of Passage: Constructing Quality in a Commodity Sector.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 21(1):3–27.
Busfield, Joan. 1990. “Social Divisions in Consumption: The Case of Medical Care” Sociology 24(1):77–96.
Buttel, Frederick H. 2000. “Some Reflections On Late Twentieth Century Agrarian Political Economy.” Paper presented at the Xth World Congress of Rural Sociology, Rio de Janeiro, August.
Buttel, Frederick H., Olaf F. Larson, and Gilbert W. Gillespie Jr. 1990. The Sociology of Agriculture. New York: Greenwood Press.
Buttel, Frederick H. and Howard Newby, eds. 1980. The Rural Sociology of the Advanced Societies: Critical Perspectives. Montclair, New Jersey: Allanheld, Osmun.
CGPRT, (Regional Co-ordination Centre for Research and Development). 1988. The Soybean Commodity System in Indonesia. CGPRT No. 3. Bogor, Indonesia: CGPRT Centre.
Conaway, James. 1990. Napa: The Story of an American Eden. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Cook, Roberta L. 1990. “Challenges and Opportunities in the U.S. Fresh Produce Industry.” Journal of Food Distribution Research February:67–74.
deJanvry, Alain, Philip Leveen, and David Runsten. 1980. Mechanization in California Agriculture: The Case of Canning Tomatoes. Berkeley: University of California.
Dixon, Jane. 1999a. “A Cultural Economy Model for Studying Food Systems.” Agriculture and Human Values 16(2):151–160.
___ 1999b. “Reflexive Accumulation and Global Restructuring: Retailers and Cultural Processes in the Australian Poultry Industry.” Rural Sociology 64(2):320–333
___ 2000. Chooks, Cooks and Culinary Cultures: A Cultural Economy Model for the Study of Food Commodity Systems. Melbourne Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Department of Social Science and Planning. Ph.D. dissertation.
Fine, Ben. 1994. “Toward a Political Economy of Food.” Review of International Political Economy 1(3):519–545.
Fine, Ben Michael Heasman, and Judith Wright. 1996. Consumption in the Age of Affluence: The World of Food. London: Routledge.
FitzSimmons, Margaret and David Goodman. 1998. “Incorporating Nature: Environmental Narratives and the Reproduction of Food.” Pp. 194–220 in Remaking Nature: Nature at the Millenium, edited by Bruce Braun and Noel Castree. London: Routledge.
Friedland, William H. 1982. “The End of Rural Society and the Future of Rural Sociology.” Rural Sociology 47(4):598–608.
___ 1984. “Commodity Systems Analysis: An Approach to the Sociology of Agriculture.” Pp. 221–235 In Research in Rural Sociology and Development: A Research Annual, edited by Harry K. Schwarzweller. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press.
___ 1991. “‘Engineering’ Social Change in Agriculture.” University of Dayton Review 21(1):25–42.
___ 1994. “The New Globalization: The Case of Fresh Produce.” Pp. 210–231 in From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalisation of Food and Agriculture, edited by Alessandro Bonanno et al. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Friedland, William H. and Amy Barton. 1975. Destalking the Wily Tomato: A Case Study in Social Consequences in California. Agricultural Research, University of California at Davis, Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences: Research Monograph No. 15.
Friedland, William H., Amy E. Barton, and Robert J. Thomas. 1981. Manufacturing Green Gold: Capital, Labor, and Technology in the Lettuce Industry. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Friedmann, Harriet and Philip McMichael. 1989. “Agriculture and the State System: The Rise and Decline of National Agricultures, 1870 to the Present.” Sociologia Ruralis 29(2):93–117.
Gereffi, Gary and Miguel Korzeniewicz, eds. 1994. Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism. Westport, Connecticut: Prager.
Goldberg, Ray A. 1968. Agribusiness Coordination: A Systems Approach to the Wheat, Soybean, and Florida Orange Economies. Boston: Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration.
Goodman, David. 1999. “Agro-Food Studies in the ‘Age of Ecology’: Nature, Corporeality, Bio-Politics.” Sociologia Ruralis 39(1):17–38.
Henderson, George L. 1999. California and the Fictions of Capital. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hopkins, Terence K. and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1986. “Commodity Chains in the World-Economy Prior to 1800.” Review 10(1):157–170.
Juska, Arunas and Lawrence Busch.1994. “The Production of Knowledge and the Production of Commodities: The Case of Rapeseed Technoscience.” Rural Sociology 59(4):581–597.
Keat, Russell, Nigel Whiteley, and Nicholas Abercrombie, eds. 1994. “Introduction” Pp.1–19 in The Authority of the Consumer. New York: Routledge.
Korzeniewicz, Roberto P., Walter Goldfrank, and Miguel E. Korzeniewicz. 1995. “Vines and Wines in the World-Economy.” Pp. 113–138 in Food and Agrarian Orders in the World Economy, edited by Philip McMichael. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
Lapsley, James T. 1996. Bottled Poetry: Napa Winemaking from Prohibition to the Modern Era. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lauret, F. 1983. “Sur les Etudes de Filieres Agro-alimentaire.” Economies et Societes, Cahiers de l'ISMEA 17:721–740.
Law, John. 1992. “Notes on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy, and Heterogeneity.” Systems Practice 5(4):379–393.
McGinity, Richard C. 1979. “Commodity System Development” Agricultural Administration 6(3):211–220.
McKenna, Megan, Michael Roche, and Richard LeHeron. 1999. “An Apple a Day: Renegotiating Concepts, Revisiting Context in New Zealand’s Pipfruit Industry.” Pp. 41–59 in Restructuring Global and Regional Agricultures: Transformations in
Australasian Agri-Food Economies and Spaces, edited by David Burch, Jasper Goss and Geoffrey Lawrence. Aldershot: Ashgate
McKenna, Megan K. L. 2000. “Can Rural Voices Effect Rural Choices? Contesting Deregulation in New Zealand’s Apple Industry.” Sociologia Ruralis 403:366–383
Mintz, Sidney W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History New York: Viking
Morgan, Dan. 1980 Merchants of Grain. New York: Penguin Nelson, Emily and Ann Zimmerman. 2000. “Minding the Store: Kimberley-Clark Keeps Costco in Diapers, Absorbing Costs Itself. Wall Street Journal September 10:A1.
Newby, Howard. 1978. “The Rural Sociology of Advanced Capitalist Societies.” In International Perspectives in Rural Sociology, edited by Howard Newby. London: Wiley.
Newby, Howard. 1980. “Rural Sociology – A Trend Report.” Current Sociology 28:1–141.
Newby, Howard. 1983. “The Sociology of Agriculture: Toward a New Rural Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 9:67–81.
O'Connor, James. 1973. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New York: St. Martins.
Pahl, Jan. 1990. “Household Spending, Personal Spending and the Control of Money in Marriage.” Sociology 24(1):119–138.
Roche, Michael M. 1999. “International Food Regimes: New Zealand’s Place in the International Frozen Meat Trade, 1870–1935.” Historical Geography 27: 129–151.
Rodefeld, Richard D., Jan Flora, Donald Voth, Isao Fujimoto, and Jim Converse eds. 1978. Change in Rural America: Causes, Consequences, and Alternatives. St. Louis: C.V. Mosby.
Savage, Mike, Paul Watt, and Sara Arber. 1990. “The Consumption Sector Debate and Housing Mobility.” Sociology 24(1):97–118.
Sonnenfeld, David, Thomas Schotzko, and Raymond A. Jussaume, Jr. 1998. “Globalization of the Washington Apple Industry: Its Evolution and Impacts.” International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 7:151–180.
Stanford, Lois. 1994. “Transitions to Free Trade: Local Impacts of Changes in Mexican Agrarian Policy.” Human Organization 53(2):99–109.
Tanaka, Keiko, Arunas Juska, and Lawrence Busch. 1999. “Globalization of Agricultural Production and Research: The Case of the Rapeseed Subsector.” Sociologia Ruralis 39(1):54–77
Thomas, Robert J. 1985. Citizenship, Gender, and Work: Social Organization of Industrial Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Thompson, O. E. and Ann F. Scheuring. 1978. From Lug Boxes to Electronics: A Study of California Tomato Growers and Sorting Crews. Davis: Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis Monograph No. 3 of the California Agricultural Policy Seminar.
Urry, John. 1990. “The ‘Consumption’ of Tourism.” Sociology 24(1):23–36.
Wells, Miriam J. 1996. Strawberry Fields: Politics, Class, and Work in California Agriculture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Wilson, Godfrey and Monica. 1968. The Analysis of Social Change: Based on Observations in Central Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wright, Donna Wynne. 1999. Turning Over a New Leaf: Socio-Economic and Political Transformations in the Burley Tobacco Commodity System. Lexington, Kentucky University of Kentucky, Department of Sociology PhD dissertation.
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