AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIALIZATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY

Industrialization is rapidly becoming a topic of great attention. Driven by fundamental economic forces, industrialization seems likely to advance ore quickly in the coming decade to more industry segments. By changing the way agriculture does business, industrialization will also bring change to public policy and agricultural institutions. Commodity policy will increasingly be out of step with a product-oriented industry. And as industrialization blurs the lines between producers and processors, land grant universities and the extension service will face challenges assessing who their customers are.