The French beef and livestock production and marketing system is a very interesting case study to understand changing from an artisanal to an industrial system. It is not only a changing in the patterns of the firms ; it is also a changing of the regulation, price system, kind of products... The place of small firms cannot be analysed only as a resistance to industry. Of course, small firms may disappear as large industrial firms become more'efficient. But small firms also change, in their technics, size, activities, because the whole world is changing : farms are more concentrated, towns are different... Many opportunities are still open to them if they are able to keep closely adjusted to the system they belong to
