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Who we are

With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Ruth Meinzen-Dick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit. She has extensive transdisciplinary research experience in using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her work focuses on two broad (and sometimes interrelated) areas: how institutions affect how people manage natural resources, and the role of gender in development processes. 

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Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Thomas Reardon

Nonresident Fellow

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Bio

Thomas Reardon is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Tom has been at MSU since 1992; IFPRI Research Fellow 1986-1991; Rockefeller Foundation Post-Doc with IFPRI in Burkina Faso 1984-1986; Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1984, and masters from the Université de Nice and Columbia University.

Tom researches the transformation of food value chains: (1) the e-commerce and food delivery intermediaries; (2) the “supermarket revolution” and the “food service revolution” (3) the “Quiet Revolution” (the diffusion of SMEs in the midstream of value chains); and (4) R&D and farm inputs supply chain transformation. He studies the impacts of these transformations on food industry business strategies, on farms, consumption/nutrition, and employment.

Contact Information

Publications on Google Scholar

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Emerging outsource agricultural services enable farmer adaptation in agrifood value chains: A product cycle perspective

2024Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Belton, Ben; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Genevieve; Qanti, Sara; Swinnen, Johan; Vos, Rob; Zilberman, David
Details

Emerging outsource agricultural services enable farmer adaptation in agrifood value chains: A product cycle perspective

Outsource agricultural service enterprises emerged a century ago in high-income countries and in the past several decades in developing regions. We contribute by analyzing and illustrating the emergence of these services from the perspective of phases of the Product Cycle. These services help farmers adapt to international and domestic agrifood value chains: (1) in the commoditization phase, e.g., with rice combine harvesting services in China and Myanmar for domestic and export markets; (2) in the early product differentiation phase into quality traits, e.g., with horticultural services to Ethiopian and Indonesian farmers for urban wholesale markets; (3) in the advanced product differentiation phase into environmental traits, e.g., with A-Z services to help French farmers grow eco-labeled vegetables for supermarkets. These services addressed farmers’ shortfalls in information, skills, labor, and equipment. The services are supplied by medium/large farmers with excess capacity say of a combine; by wholesalers who want to reduce search costs and risks; by input “agro-dealers”; and by agribusinesses servicing their outgrowers. In new cases shown in France, outsource firms partner with farm input companies such as Bayer or with robot/drone companies. Governments have – and can do much more to – support the emergence of these services such as in developing regions today through: (1) promotion of a business ecosystem, based on policies of investment in hard and soft infrastructure, favoring the coadaptation of these firms with farmers’ needs; (2) policies facilitating access, such as through import liberalization, of equipment and seeds and chemicals.

Year published

2024

Authors

Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Belton, Ben; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Genevieve; Qanti, Sara; Swinnen, Johan; Vos, Rob; Zilberman, David

Citation

Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Belton, Ben; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Genevieve; et al. 2024. Emerging outsource agricultural services enable farmer adaptation in agrifood value chains: A product cycle perspective. Food Policy 127(August 2024): 102711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102711

Country/Region

China; Myanmar; Ethiopia; France; Indonesia

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Africa; Eastern Africa; Europe; Eastern Asia; South-eastern Asia; Western Europe; Adaptation; Value Chains; Agrifood Systems; Farmers; Rice; Vegetables

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102711 Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

African domestic supply booms in value chains of fruits, vegetables, and animal products fueled by spontaneous clusters of SMEs

2024Reardon, Thomas; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Belton, Ben; Dolislager, Michael; Minten, Bart; Popkin, Barry; Vos, Rob
Details

African domestic supply booms in value chains of fruits, vegetables, and animal products fueled by spontaneous clusters of SMEs

There is an international consensus that Africans consume less fruits and vegetables (FV), and animal products (AP) than they need for adequate nutrition, and that production and supply chains of these products are constrained. Yet, in this paper, we show that despite these problems, there is a lot of dynamism in demand and supply of these nutrient-dense products in Africa: (1) macro evidence of “domestic supply booms”—with supply growing as fast as or faster than in Asia and Latin America; (2) only 2–4% of FV, and 10% of AP consumption in Africa is imported, and only about 1–2% of the output of FV and AP is exported: the supply booms have thus been overwhelming domestically sourced, not imported; (3) micro evidence of substantial shares of consumption of FV and AP in total food consumption, similar to Asia’s; (4) evidence of rapid development of spontaneous clusters of farms and off-farm SMEs (output wholesalers, logistics, processors, and agro-dealers supporting farmers). These clusters are important in fueling the supply booms. Illustrative cases from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia are presented. We recommend that African governments and international partners: (1) internalize the fact that these spontaneous clusters are forming and already fueling supply booms; (2) note that important drivers of the booms have been government investments in wholesale markets, roads, and other infrastructure like electrification, and agricultural research/extension; (3) leverage and support existing spontaneous clusters and help new ones to form by greatly increasing those three types of public investments. JEL Codes: O20, Q13, Q18

Year published

2024

Authors

Reardon, Thomas; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Belton, Ben; Dolislager, Michael; Minten, Bart; Popkin, Barry; Vos, Rob

Citation

Reardon, Thomas; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Belton, Ben; Dolislager, Michael; Minten, Bart; Popkin, Barry; and Vos, Rob. 2024. African domestic supply booms in value chains of fruits, vegetables, and animal products fueled by spontaneous clusters of SMEs. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 46(2): 390-413. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13436

Country/Region

Ethiopia; Nigeria; Zambia

Keywords

Tanzania; Africa; Eastern Africa; Western Africa; Southern Africa; Animal Products; Enterprises; Fruits; Vegetables; Value Chains

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13436 Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Poster

Transformation of the “hidden middle” of aquaculture value chains: fish wholesalers in Bangladesh

2024Ali, Hazrat; Belton, Ben; Haque, Md. Mahfuzul; Hernandez, Ricardo; Khondker, Murshed-E-Jahan; Ignowski, Elizabeth; Reardon, Thomas
Details

Transformation of the “hidden middle” of aquaculture value chains: fish wholesalers in Bangladesh

Wholesalers in food value chains in developing countries are often criticized as exploitative, offering high output-tied credit to farmers and insufficient with high loss and waste. Recent research highlights their importance as the “hidden middle”, often overlooked in policy debates due to insufficient survey research (Reardon 2015). Aquaculture has rapidly expanded in Bangladesh in four decades, attributed to aquatic food traders and off-farm businesses. However, little is known about wholesalers’ behavior and organization within the ‘hidden middle’ of aquatic food value chains, impeding result generalization due to inadequate sampling techniques in previous research. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate structure, technological changes, and wholesalers’ performance, informing policy debates on aquatic food value chains in Bangladesh.

Year published

2024

Authors

Ali, Hazrat; Belton, Ben; Haque, Md. Mahfuzul; Hernandez, Ricardo; Khondker, Murshed-E-Jahan; Ignowski, Elizabeth; Reardon, Thomas

Citation

Hazrat Ali, Ben Belton, Md. Mahfuzul Haque, Ricardo Hernandez, Murshed-E-Jahan Khondker, Elizabeth Ignowski, Thomas Reardon. (16/4/2024). Transformation of the “hidden middle” of aquaculture value chains: fish wholesalers in Bangladesh. Bayan Lepas, Malaysia: WorldFish (WF).

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Aquaculture Farmers; Domestic Trade; Fish; Wholesalers; Aquatic Food Production; Aquatic Food Value Chains

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Asian Mega-Deltas

Record type

Poster

Blogs

Two years on, resilience innovations help food supply chains overcome COVID-19 disruptions
IFPRI Blog
 | 
February 23, 2022

Two years on, resilience innovations help food supply chains overcome COVID-19 disruptions

By Thomas Reardon, Johan Swinnen, and Rob Vos

Important lessons for policymakers.

Smallholder and agrifood SME resilience to shocks: Lessons from COVID-19 for the UN Food System Summit
IFPRI Blog
 | 
June 10, 2021

Smallholder and agrifood SME resilience to shocks: Lessons from COVID-19 for the UN Food System Summit

By Thomas Reardon, Johan Swinnen, and Rob Vos

Farmers and small businesses show both vulnerabilities and a capacity to adapt.

Digital innovations accelerated by COVID-19 are revolutionizing food systems: Implications for the UN Food Systems Summit
IFPRI Blog
 | 
June 08, 2021

Digital innovations accelerated by COVID-19 are revolutionizing food systems: Implications for the UN Food Systems Summit

By Thomas Reardon, Johan Swinnen, Rob Vos, and David Zilberman

Lessons from how food supply chains adapted to pandemic stresses.

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Events

Taking Stock of Africa’s Agrifood Processing Sector
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

February 9, 2023, 8:00 – 9:30 am

Taking Stock of Africa’s Agrifood Processing Sector

Virtual Event: February 9, 2023 – 8:00 AM- 9:30 AM EST. During this event key research findings and policy recommendations of the 2022 ATOR will be presented and discussed by a distinguished panel of representatives from academia, the private sector, and international and regional organizations engaged in strengthening Africa’s agri-food processing sector.