ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 introduced and discussed in general terms the peasant condition and its associated mode of farming. I now aim to compare the peasant with the entrepreneurial mode of farming. The discussion is illustrated with a case study of dairy farming in the northern Italian area dedicated to the making of Parmesan cheese. I also analyse the historical origins of the entrepreneurial mode of farming. This feeds into a section that focuses on the political economy of entrepreneurial farming, which describes how it currently interacts with Empire and how, indirectly, it introduces the effects of Empire into the fields, the landscape and the regional economy. I also give attention to what I refer to as the entrepreneurial condition. Just as the peasant mode of farming resides in, and is reproduced by, the peasant condition, so the entrepreneurial mode assumes a specific set of conditions from which it emerges and which allows it to further unfold. The difference between these two conditions turns out to be strategic in the epoch of globalization and liberalization.
