The family farmer and the territory monopolization by the industrial capital

Abstract

This paper analyses a case study on poultry farming in order to understand the relationship kept between the producer and the industry in the process of territory monopolization by the industrial capital. Therefore, it presents a theoretical consideration in which rent from the land is the adopted line of thought. Our concern in this study is the small family farmer who even under intense agriculture technology and with the perspectives of being taken away from his land by the industrial and financial capital has been able to survive over the last thirty years. On the other hand, this producer has found an alternative to remain on his land through the so called integration system and, as in the case of the poultry farmer, has become subordinate to the industrial capital. The industrial capital has found its way to appropriate the rent generated by the family farmer, that is through the non-capitalist production relationship which in turn provides itself with the accumulation of capital. This relationship has on one side the producer who accepts, even if not willing to do so, the technological innovations imposed by the industry in order not to be excluded. Even in this “perverse” relationship, the producer have kept this link because it brings to them a small rent and aggregated value from the productive process.