ABSTRACT
The concept of the commodity chain is a frequently utilised tool in the analysis of agricultural production systems. Despite its potential to impose hierarchical structures or to ignore relations skipping links in the ‘chain’ (Raikes et al. 2000; Smith et al. 2002), the approach offers substantial insight to the incorporation of agricultural products into commodity markets (Jackson et al. 2006). Notably, commodity chain analysis delineates a readily distinguishable whole within the complexity of the agricultural sector. As such, it facilitates a concerted focus on the relations and the context of those relations between participants in a designated chain (Marsden et al. 2000; Cook et al. 2004). This contribution is particularly apparent in analyses that examine and generalise production at a global scale (Ponte and Gibbon 2005).
