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Agribusiness
 
 
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In agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
, agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various business
Business

A business is a legally recognized organization designed to provide good s and/or Service to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalism economies, most being privately owned and formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners....
es involved in food
Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure....
 production, including farming and contract farming
Contract farming

Contract farming can be defined as agricultural production carried out according to an agreement between a buyer and farmers, which establishes conditions for the production and marketing of a farm product or products....
, seed
Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
 supply, agrichemical
Agrichemical

Agrochemical , a contraction of agricultural chemical, is a generic term for the various chemical products used in agriculture. In most cases, agrichemical refers to the broad range of pesticides, including insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides....
s, farm machinery
Agricultural machinery

Agricultural machinery is one of the most revolutionary and impactful applications of modern technology. The truly elemental human need for food has often driven the development of technology and machines....
, wholesale
Wholesale

Wholesaling, historically called jobbing, is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services....
 and distribution, processing, marketing
Marketing

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large....
, and retail sales. The term has two distinctly different connotations depending on context.

Within the agriculture industry
Industry

An industry is the manufacturing of a Good or Service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw materials into goods and products....
, agribusiness is widely used simply as a convenient portmanteau of agriculture and business, referring to the range of activities and disciplines encompassed by modern food production.






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In agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
, agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various business
Business

A business is a legally recognized organization designed to provide good s and/or Service to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalism economies, most being privately owned and formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners....
es involved in food
Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure....
 production, including farming and contract farming
Contract farming

Contract farming can be defined as agricultural production carried out according to an agreement between a buyer and farmers, which establishes conditions for the production and marketing of a farm product or products....
, seed
Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
 supply, agrichemical
Agrichemical

Agrochemical , a contraction of agricultural chemical, is a generic term for the various chemical products used in agriculture. In most cases, agrichemical refers to the broad range of pesticides, including insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides....
s, farm machinery
Agricultural machinery

Agricultural machinery is one of the most revolutionary and impactful applications of modern technology. The truly elemental human need for food has often driven the development of technology and machines....
, wholesale
Wholesale

Wholesaling, historically called jobbing, is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services....
 and distribution, processing, marketing
Marketing

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large....
, and retail sales. The term has two distinctly different connotations depending on context.

Within the agriculture industry
Industry

An industry is the manufacturing of a Good or Service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw materials into goods and products....
, agribusiness is widely used simply as a convenient portmanteau of agriculture and business, referring to the range of activities and disciplines encompassed by modern food production. There are academic degrees in and departments of agribusiness, agribusiness trade associations, agribusiness publications, and so forth, worldwide. Here, the term is only descriptive, and is synonymous in the broadest sense with food industry
Food industry

The food industry is the complex, global collective of diverse businesses that together supply much of the food energy consumed by the world population....
.

Among critics of large-scale, industrialized, vertically integrated
Vertical integration

In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies are united through a hierarchy with a common owner....
 food production, the term agribusiness is used as a negative, synonymous with corporate farming
Corporate farming

Corporate farming is a term that describes the business of agriculture, specifically, what is seen by some as the practices of would-be megacorporations involved in food production on a very large scale....
. As such, it is often contrasted with family farm
Family farm

A family farm is a farm owned and operated by a family, and passed down from generation to generation. It is the basic unit of the mostly agricultural Economic system of much of human history and continues to be so in Developing country....
. Some negative connotation is also derived from the negative associations of "business" and "corporation" from critics of capitalism or corporate excess.

An example of an agribusiness was the Old North State Winegrowers Cooperative in North Carolina. Wine grape farmers came together to not only sell their grapes but to share a winery, winemaker and marketing brand together. The cooperative failed in 2006, three years after opening its winery.

Many progressive agribusinesses are now operating online businesses. Rising fuel costs are increasingly adding financial burdens on the day to day running of agricultural companies. An example of an online agribusiness is FarmingPages.com.

See also

  • Agrarian law
    Agrarian law

    Agrarian laws were Roman law among the Ancient Rome regulating the division of the public real property, or ager publicus.There existed three types of land in ancient Rome: private land, common pasture, and public land....
  • Agrarian reform
    Agrarian reform

    Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or can refer more broadly to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures....
  • Biofuel
    Biofuel

    Biofuel is defined as solid, liquid or gaseous fuel derived from relatively recently dead biological material and is distinguished from fossil fuels, which are petroleum#formation....
  • Contract farming
    Contract farming

    Contract farming can be defined as agricultural production carried out according to an agreement between a buyer and farmers, which establishes conditions for the production and marketing of a farm product or products....
  • Energy crop
    Energy crop

    An energy crop is a plant grown as a low cost and low maintenance harvest used to make biofuels, or directly exploited for its energy content....
  • Factory farming
    Factory farming

    Factory farming is the practice of raising farm animals in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory — a practice typical in Industrial agriculture by agribusinesses....
  • List of environment topics


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