Fluid Vertical Alliance:Vertical Integration of Agricultural Capital and Reinforced Inequality
This paper examines an agricultural industrial transfer case in a region known for its high-alti-tude vegetable production to understand why,in a context of open capital flows,small-scale commercial capital aligns with small-scale industrial capital to engage in agricultural production,and how this alliance reinforces the inequality between petty commercial capital and smallholders. This study finds that small commercial and industrial capital,both accumulated locally,form a vertical alliance in the agricultural in-dustrial transfer process. Shared regional backgrounds and trust among these participants help lower or-ganizational cost. These alliances are marked by specialization,flexibility and mobility,establishing pro-duction bases across various regions to ensure stable supply for downstream clients and maintain long-term trade relationships. In the meanwhile,the vertical alliances maintain tight control over production expan-sion and primarily source from smallholders. This strategy reinforces inequality between commercial cap-ital and smallholders,as they weaken the latter's bargaining power-even cases of limited supply.
Commercial capitalHometown and industry peersAgricultural capitalizationSmallholdersVertical integration
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