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Abstract
In order to discuss problems concerning farmers in the Indre Department with them (price fixing and marketing of farm products) a survey of the grain market has been undertaken. Systems theory enables the grain market to be defined as a marketing system with a purpose (to satisfy suppliers and demanders by fixing a satisfactory price) and a complex environment (transport conditions, community regulations, impact of international agreements). The system influences itself according to two tendences — one towards stability, one towards perturbation — that cannot be wholly controlled. Being influenced in this way the system cannot regulate itself, that is the market risk. The producers, the cooperatives and local traders, and users attempt to passon a great part of this risk to international trade firms (whose action seems principally to advantage industrialists who make use of them). The grain market is an evolving system, the relationships between the various agents can modify it. In the Indre department the balance between cooperatives and traders is unstable. This instability and the increase in their stocking capacity locally enable farmers to demand firm prices. The pressures of agents on the market and of the nation as a whole, lead to state intervention which also complicates still further the grain market environment. Yet, price fixing and grain marketing cannot be dissociated.