ABSTRACT
An attempt has been made in this book to integrate the ‘traditional themes’ of agricultural geography with newly emerging interpretations and re~earch issues. For instance, to the traditional concern with agricultural regions, farming types, agricultural resources and farmer decision-making (Bowler 1984) has been added the emerging literature on agricultural industrialization, the urban impact on farming, agriculture–environment relationships and political economy interpretations of agricultural restructuring. The concept of the ‘food supply system’ (see Figure 1.1), also termed the agro-food system, has been used to integrate this broader understanding of the processes that impinge on contemporary agriculture, although no attempt has been made to cover every possible topic. Moreover, the farm or production sector has been retained as the integrating focus of the book.
