Arrangements for market intermediation and policies. Modernizing the fruit and vegetable market in France, 1950–1980 - A. Bernard de Raymond

Antoine Bernard de Raymond
INRA, CESAER, 26, boulevard Docteur-Petitjean, BP 87999, 21079 Dijon cedex, France

Abstract
This article studies experiments in organizing the fruit and vegetable market from the 1950s till the late 1970s. It shows that there were alternatives to the principle of distribution, e.g. modernizing traditional wholesale markets (carreau) or setting up producer controlled veilings (marchés au cadran, or “clock auctions”). After exposing the rationale underlying each of these models, the empirical conditions are examined for actually implementing change. Attention is drawn to the factors that weigh on social actors in the market, in particular the tension between homogenization and concentration on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the uniqueness of products and transactions.

Keywords : Markets ; Policies ; Fruit and vegetable ; Fresh produce ; Market arrangements ; Intermediaries ; France

Article Outline

• 1. The carreau, a traditional model
  • 1.1. The National Interest Markets, a project to modernize the French economy
  • 1.2. The carreau : an economics of variability
• 2. Clock auctions and power struggles between producers and wholesalers
  • 2.1. Clock auctions : a unified price for all
  • 2.2. National Interest Markets remain consumption markets
• 3. The wholesaler : a distributor ?
  • 3.1. Delivery : centralization and economy of scale
  • 3.2. The transformations of centralization
• 4. Conclusion
• References

Sociologie du Travail
Volume 53, Supplement 1, November 2011, Pages e19-e37
translated by Gabrielle Varro