ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a different path to explain why the envisioned tight integration of the countryside of non-industrialized countries in the capitalist world economy did largely not materialize. It shows that the use of key agricultural inputs in staple food production (fertilizer, pesticides, ‘improved’ seeds and machinery) often remained low in the 1970s, 1980s and also later. It was uneven and varied, according to world region, country, area, availability of irrigation, type of agricultural product and holding sizes. One cause of this was that most transnational corporations, whose activities are in the center of this chapter, failed for a mix of reasons specified in this chapter to establish major markets and production sites in non-industrialized countries, except for grain-trading firms. Multinationals failed even though many of them worked, and coordinated their efforts, through a UN body, the Industry-Cooperative Programme of FAO. The power of TNCs was limited, and the very mechanisms of private capitalist business impeded the geographical spread of capital and technology.
