We examine the implications of the rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa for food consumption patterns and the food system. A unique classification of food items shows that highly processed food has one-third of the purchased food market, wit

This paper explores whether farm land and non-land assets determine the participation of tomato growers in modern markets in Nicaragua, and how farmers’ duration as supermarket suppliers affects the farm technology they use. The methodology is based on a survival analysis approach. We use data...

This paper starts from the premise that diversification of assets, activities, and incomes is important to African rural households, in that diversification into nonfarm income constitutes on average about 45 percent of incomes, and the push and pull factors driving that diversification are...

A burgeoning recent literature emphasizes "livelihood" diversification among smallholder populations (Chambers and Conway 1992, Davies 1993, Ellis 1998, Bryceson 1999, Ellis 2000, Little et al. 2001). While definitions vary within this literature, the concept of livelihoods revolves around the...

This paper presents emerging evidence pointing to the transmission to developing countries' rural spaces of the impacts of agrifood market transformation occurring at national and global levels. That transmission takes place via retail chains penetrating intermediate cities and rural towns, and...