As rural incomes collapse and farming becomes commercialized, swallowed up by the global supply chains of giant food corporations and supermarkets, a desperate situation is emerging in which there could soon be little place left for the hundreds of millions of smallholders across the world. In this clear and intelligent book, Thomas Lines examines the role that global policies have played in creating the crisis of rural poverty. He explains the mechanisms of the markets and supply chains, charting their impact on agricultural trade in the world's poorest countries.