[derekbreden]

That was close to my guess, the only small difference is I would add some maybe-ends-up-in-food-eventually crops as well.

My family would refer to the roundup ready corn and soybeans we sold to the grain co-op as commodities, while the small sub-acreage of sweet corn grown to sell at the farmer’s market might be much more likely to be referred to as food.

Food being a perhaps overly generous word for partially hydrogenated soybean oil or high fructose corn syrup.

[saalweachter]

Commodity agriculture is any agriculture where the products are sold into the commodity markets, basically -- corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, pork, beef, etc.

Commodity agriculture is all about scale and price; there are certain quality standards that must be met (your corn must have a specific moisture content; your pigs must weigh in a certain range and be free of disease) but there is no real competition on the quality of the good produced. You assume all hard red wheat is fungible, and buy and sell it by the ton.

Some products exist in both commodity and non-commodity markets -- you can produce pork for the commodity markets, or your can sell it door to door.

[MattGaiser]

> Commodity agriculture is all about scale and price; there are certain quality standards that must be met (your corn must have a specific moisture content; your pigs must weigh in a certain range and be free of disease) but there is no real competition on the quality of the good produced. You assume all hard red wheat is fungible, and buy and sell it by the ton.

Between regulations and grocery store standards, is that not basically all food?

[saalweachter]

By calories, certainly.

But fresh produce frequently exists outside the commodity market -- the individual grocery stores or chains have relationships with individual producers (or consortiums) to distribute their products.

Basically if your food is labeled with the name of the producer it isn't commodity agriculture -- for instance, bags of apples are frequently branded by the orchard which produces them, because the orchard is selling directly to the grocery store (maybe with a middle man or two doing the actual sales and distribution), and not selling into a generic "apple" market the way eg wheat producers do.

[dd36]

So, sprayed with more bug poison?

I wonder if this disconnect becomes detrimental to the land.

[kasey_junk]

Bigger difference is the breed of plant. Commodity corn for instance is not something a human would eat normally without extreme processing.

One way it becomes human good is as feed for animals and another is being processed into adjuncts.

Sweet corn on the other hand is delicious to eat.

I tend to think commodities vs food is if there is a mainline futures contract for it.