This paper offers an overview for a special issue on agroindustrialization, globalization, and international development. It sets out a conceptual framework for understanding the links among these three broad phenomena and then discusses emerging issues and evidence concerning the factors...

In Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central America, small-scale farmers are weighing the risks of entering into contracts with supermarket chains. We use unique data on negotiated prices from Nicaraguan farm cooperatives supplying supermarkets to study the impact of supply agreements on producers’...

This paper offers a new, comparative perspective on income diversification in African agriculture. Comparative analysis using household data from three quite different sites -in Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya and Rwanda reveals distinct livelihood strategies, some of which offer demonstrably superior...

Asset, activity and income diversification lie at the heart of livelihood strategies in rural Africa. This paper introduces a special issue on the topic "Income Diversification and Livelihoods in Rural Africa: Cause and Consequence of Change." We concentrate on core conceptual issues that...

The traditional vision of rural economies as purely agricultural is clearly obsolete. Farm households across the developing world earn an increasing share of their income from nonfarm sources (see Table 4.1). And the specialized nonfarm households that emerge often diversify into multiple...

Asset, activity and income diversification lie at the heart of livelihood strategies in rural Africa. This paper introduces a special issue on the topic “Income Diversification and Livelihoods in Rural Africa: Cause and Consequence of Change.” We concentrate on core conceptual issues that...