ABSTRACT
One of the challenges for comprehensive studies of world agriculture is to deal with its diversity. Despite Chapter 2's focus on shared features, the sector is certainly also characterized by enormous disparities. Just imagine the contrasts between gigantic combines that harvest vast North American maize fields and manual harvest on small Sub-Saharan plots. And compare the supply of ready-to-eat foods on gigantic supermarket shelves with outdoor cooking in a village in Bangladesh. As we said in Chapter 2, the similarities are generally related to nature, whereas the dissimilarities are primarily connected with human actions and socioeconomic differences, such as access to and use of resources and technologies.
