Agglomeration is a phenomenon that is frequently associated with the produc-
tion of sophisticated, high-value goods that require a technically skilled labor sup-
ply and the input of multiple components in the assembly of the final product. The
manufacture of automobiles is a process typically marked by agglomeration.
Because the production of automobiles requires a large amount of high-quality
steel, automobile plants, at least in the early days of the industry, were often
located near iron and steel manufacturing facilities, or at least close to railroads
orwatertransportthatcouldbeusedtobringsteeltotheplantatrelativelylow
cost. The automotive industry also requires the production of a large number of
specialized products, such as tires, automotive glass, etc., and firms supplying
these commodities naturally congregate in the same geographic space as their
major clients, which in turn frequently attract yet additional businesses who
service these manufacturers, leading to yet additional agglomeration.Agribusiness
There are two connotations for the term “agribusiness.” In a more general sense, the
word is used to identify the integrated and diverse components of modern crop pro-
duction, including the actual grower, but also many others: silo operators; fertilizer,
seed, and farm implement salespeople; agricultural technicians; and others involved
in agricultural production. When used this way, the word is inclusive of all aspects
of modern agricultural economics, including the marketing and advertising of
agricultural commodities, and is not focused simply on production techniques and
methods. In a more specific sense, the term may be used interchangeably with the
phrases “industrial farming,” “corporate farming,” or “factory farming.” In this con-
text, “agribusiness” means the application of mass production techniques to farming
along with the advent of large agricultural units, typically under corporate owner-
ship. Production in this system relies on achieving economies of scale, either
through the acquisition and combinationof farmland into larger parcels (for
crop production), or through the concentration of animals into high-density facili-
ties, where feeding, breeding, and processing costs are minimized (for livestock
production).
Agribusiness in the sense of factory farming is a widespread phenomenon in the
agricultural ecology of the industrialized world and may be seen as a continuation
of theagricultural revolutioninitiatedinGreatBritainintheearly1700s.The
most obvious spatial manifestations of agribusiness are extensive farms, and animal
husbandry methods utilizing high-density units like poultry houses, hog parlors, or
other so-called Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, a designation2 Agribusiness