This article focuses on the issue of how “old agro-food systems” are evolving in the context of globalisation. They are facing specific problems such as a decreasing competitiveness due to the facts that the assets on which their economic success relied in the past are now inefficient. The article provides analyses based on a comparison between two case studies: the Comunidad Valenciana’s citrus fruit production, in Spain, and the fruit and vegetable production in the South East of France (Provence). Although they are comparable in many aspects, the two systems have followed different ways in the recent years. The comparison underlines the strong role played by two main factors in this differentiation: the power relationship between economic actors (producers and wholesalers), the national institutional framework