Small farmers in both developed and developing countries share certain basic goals. For the most part, they wish to increase the security and income of their families while retaining their independence as owners and operators of a farm enterprise. It has become increasingly difficult to pursue these goals simultaneously. Farmers have been pulled by the increasing demands of the market and the state into a nexus of relationships that extend beyond the farm to the national and international level. The interaction between smallholders and more powerful economic and political agents is not new. What characterizes the contemporary situation is the variety of forces with which small farmers must deal. To the tradition al relationships with individuals (landlords, moneylenders, traders) and with the agents of the state (tax collectors, law enforcers) has been added an array of powerful organizations. The most significant of these are public enterprises with monopolies over input and output marketing, authorities of integrated rural development projects, and large domestic or foreign corporations. The size, complexity and impersonality of these organizations has resulted in a qualitative change in the nature of the smallholder's relationships to the outside world.