AGRIBUSINESS

A large-scale farming system run on business lines by a relatively small number of companies, most of them TNCS. The term was coined in 1957 by Goldberg and Davis. Besides farming, business interests extend ‘upstream’ to include producing farming inputs such as seeds, chemicals, feedstuffs and machinery, and ‘downstream’ to foodprocessing industries and marketing. Examples of such companies are Monsanto, Unilever and Nestle.