Doctoral Dissertation Research: Restructuring of the Agri-food System and Developing Countries

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SES-0802780Jane L. CollinsJennifer R. WiegelUniversity of Wisconsin-MadiosnOver the past decade in Latin America supermarkets? share of food retail has grown from 15% to 70% on average, and concentration of retail at the national level has increased, leaving only a few lead firms. At the same time supermarkets have shifted procurement from wholesale markets to semi-contractual relationships with networks of preferred suppliers. These changes have increased the power of supermarkets in developing countries to reshape food production and distribution, with important implications for producers and consumers, and for the rural and urban poor. This dissertation studies the changing structure of food retail channels, for example from traditional markets to supermarkets, matters for agriculture, farmers and the rural poor in developing countries. The co-PI will spend twelve months conducting fieldwork in Nicaragua to study the recent growth of supermarkets there and its effects on food retailing and domestic food production. This work addresses three research questions: (1) how does retail-led restructuring affect a developing country?s integration with world food markets, (2) how is retail-led restructuring affecting existing food retail channels, food provisioning, and food markets within developing countries, and (3) how are farmers in developing countries experiencing and responding to these changes? The study draws on recent research in the fields of sociology, agricultural economics, and geography which identifies global food retailers as the drivers in transforming agri-food systems in developed countries. Yet it extends this research to focus on the growth of supermarkets within developing countries, and its impact on farmers domestically, through its effects on traditional food retail institutions and practices. It also extends the focus on farmers directly supplying supermarkets, to include farmers supplying traditional food retail channels. Data on production, consumption and trade will be used to explore the changing integration of Nicaragua with world food markets. Government statistics on household spending, prices, and food retailers, combined with interviews and short surveys of wholesalers and retailers will help understand changes in food retail channels. Agricultural census data and interviews with buyers will help to map out procurement networks for transnational supermarkets, national supermarkets, and traditional markets. Communities within these different procurement networks for tomatoes (perishable) and beans (not perishable) will be identified and qualitative interviews with farmers to study how they are experiencing and responding to these changes. Broader Impacts: The research will be conducted as a collaborative endeavor involving individuals from national universities, government agencies, agricultural NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and farmers associations. These collaborations will help foster local research, training, and teaching networks around these issues, ensure local relevance and dissemination of research findings, and their incorporation into policy. Findings will also be disseminated in US and international academic and policy forums and publications. Knowledge gained will enrich teaching and research in the sociology of agriculture and development by bringing together work from the disparate disciplines mentioned above.