ABSTRACT
The chapter examines market structure with emphasis on four characteristics of perfect competition. The discussion centers on the effi ciency found in competitive industries with special attention given to the implications that this has for perfectly competitive fi rms. The chapter describes strategies for perfectly competitive fi rms, with timely, relevant examples from agriculture and agribusiness. Since competitive fi rms are price takers, and have no infl uence over price, their best strategy is to lower production costs by being early adopters of new technologies.
