Group Discussion(15 Minutes)

Work in groups of 5, consider and record experiences from the group on how local issues have impacted on each of the four factors described above. (e.g. Describe your access to land, urbanization pressures, access to capital, your competitiveness at markets, access to skilled labour, and of course, your entrepreneurial skills.) Be prepared to present your findings to the whole class.

Market Structure (10 Minutes)

In general, issues relating to market structure impact on the marketing process side of the farmer’s practices as a firm.We mentioned these in the previous lesson so here is a brief revision:

Perfect competition is the extreme situation where products are exact, there are very many producers/sellers, very many consumers/buyers, and therefore no seller or buyer can dominate the market. Perfect competition can lead to sellers undercutting each other.

Secondly, perfect monopoly is the extreme opposite to perfect competition where products are unique; there is only one producer/seller who therefore dominates the market.  If there is only one consumer/buyer, they are called a monopsony. In farming, however, this rarely exists and farmers find themselves almost always in a competitive environment rather than in a monopoly.