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This paper analyses the characteristics of wine growers' syndicates in the French Départements of the Languedoc. These characteristics are distinctive for several reasons: the vine monoculture and the importance of the wine growers in this country but also cultural and political traditions of the Languedoc. Wine growers' syndicates have for long been independent of national agricultural syndicalism. They wanted the state to organize the wine market and defended a regionalist ideology. The European legislation on wine production in 1970 changed the situation. Syndicalism tried to resist and then was forced to change. Today. wine growers choose to improve the quality of their wines and to create groups of producers to sell their products. Beyond change, permanent features are always present and when crisis occurs the traditional discourses re-emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of the relations between the agricultural sector and its context has been given much attention lately. Although there has been a shift in focus &mdash from explaining the disappearance of the peasant to explaining the consolidation of the family farm — these theories have often tended to be one-directional, treating agricultural forms of production mainly as the outcome of external factors. In this paper, based on data from a wine growing region in Southern France, the interaction of processes at different levels is the focus of attention. Economic, technological anal cultural processes influencing the agricultural production unit are described, as are the internal dynamics of the family holding. Reference is made to Chayanov's micro theory of the peasant economy. By analyzing the interrelation of both external and internal factors it is shown that several types of adaptation can be accounted for within a single theoretical frame. In this way not only the consolidation of the family holding, the overall tendency towards capitalized farming, but also processes of differentiation and marginalization can be explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]