ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the disappearance of the traditional crises as an aspect of a more general process of change in agricultural market structures, consequent upon improvements in communications networks; and attempts to make explicit a process of structural change in the economy which was of momentous importance. It aims to explore the interrelationship between three key factors: transport networks, the economic structure connected by these networks and the flows of traffic generated by the economic structure and moved over the networks. A complex of factors thus affected the degree of integration of national and international markets and led to substantial changes in the structure of agricultural marketing. Modernization of the market structure had two essential bases – increased urban demand and the intensification of specialization and contraction of self-sufficiency in the countryside. The supply of urban centres is a basic determinant of the structures of agricultural markets.
