ABSTRACT
Recent research on the transformation (industrialization) of agriculture has laid emphasis on 'variations and unevenness' (Mars den 1988) in the sources and mediation of the capital penetration process. This perspective directs attention to the constraints which land-based production places on industrial capital, the competitive movement of 'fractions' of ca pi tal within the food chain, and the process of adjustment within individual farm businesses. In this chapter attention is directed to two of the mediating faetors in the transformation of individual farm businesses - namely farm size and land tenure (also termed 'land occupancy'). The following argument shows that (a) size and tenure vary by farm and over space, (b) the two factors mediate in the processes of transformation and, consequently (c) they help shape the spatially uneven industrialization of agrieulture as the farm sectar has become integrated into the wider food supply system (see Fig. 1.1).
