1. The bottom tier firms are not really competitive of course with the top tier firms in the case of contract production. Rather the significance of the relationship resides in the fact that it stands in contrast to the traditional alternative of marketing cooperatives for smaller firms. In this sense, a larger firm, not a cooperative, has centralized control over capital and thus determines the allocation of market returns. While the contract relationship does not allow the smaller firm to compete with the larger, in order for the relationship to be maintained the smaller firm must also be maintained. The smaller firms can, and most often do, use the rent to sustain themselves and to finance continued production of other commodities. Thus "yeoman" farmers are drawn into the structure of industrial production rather than being expelled from it. Granted, their subordinate position in the relationship seriously limits opportunities for further expansion, as was argued in chapter 2, but it also raises an important issue for further research. That is, if this kind of relationship is a durable one (as I suggest elsewhere [Thomas, 1977]), then one might rephrase the commonly asked question, "Why are small farms vanishing?" to ask instead, "Why are there so many small farms still around?" [BACK]

2. For a more detailed organizational analysis of one of these firms, see Fredrick's study, "Agribusiness in the Lettuce Fields" (1979), and Friedland, Barton, and Thomas (1981). [BACK]

3. Commuters, in contrast, are workers who have temporary passes to allow them daily entry into the United States. In the lettuce industry, these workers are of particular importance to production areas near the Mexican border, e.g., the Imperial Valley in California and the San Luis Valley in Arizona. Since these workers have limited access to work in the U.S., they are least likely to show up in production areas farther than 50-75 miles from the border. [BACK]

4. These figures are based on data presented in chapter 6 in tables 24 and 25. [BACK]