The analysis of beef marketing and cattle farming trades, and of their evolution, points out the duality between the producing system, and the marketing system. As a result of the long run evolution and of regional specificities, different kind of dealers appeared : fattener-dealers, selection-dealers, young calves-dealers..., all sorts of enterprises corresponding to needs of the farmers, which enter sometimes in conflict. In this perspective, the so-called « modernization » of the beef and cattle marketing system is essentially the rising of new form of enterprises, corresponding to the new needs of an important group of rapidly specializing breeders. But this very apparent changing must not hide another part of the reality: the whole system, and its agents, has been changing and modernizing. On account of the diversity of breeding and farming structures, the « modern » forms have not a universal value ; other forms, traditionnal but modernized, of trade have their place to day.
