Transformation of the Agrifood Industry in Developing Countries - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 794

by firms. The drivers of this transformation include government actions through poli-
cies/regulations and investments in both infrastructure and in the segments themselves,
and private sector actions in both institutions and investment activities. There have also
been important concomitant actions by NGOs, donors, and farmer associations.
The most recent comprehensive reviews of comparative trends in the transformation
ofagrifoodsystemsindevelopingregionswerebyReardonandTimmer(2007),focused
mainlyonretailtransformation,andWilkinson(2004)andGehlharandRegmi(2005),
focused mainly on changes in processing sector trade, product composition, institu-
tions,andforeigndirectinvestment(FDI).herehasbeennocomprehensivereviewin
the2000sonthewholesalesector.herehavealsobeenseveralregion-speciicreviews
ofretailandprocessing,suchasLafan,2001,forAsia.heseearlierreviewshavelet
several gaps.
First, the reviews tended to focus on one segment or other, but did not explore in
depththerelationsoftransformationamongthesegments—wholesaling,processing,
andretailing.Wewillshowthat“symbioses”amongthemodernizingsegmentswere
important.
Second, the earlier cross-region reviews were mainly based on data from the mid-
1990s and before. Much has happened both in the transformation itself and in the
research literature on it in the past half decade. As we will show, there was a major cre-
scendointheindustry—afulltake-ofofsupermarkets—incountrieslikeIndiaand
VietnamandacontinuationofextremelyrapidgrowthinChina;inLatinAmericaand
partsofAsiathewholesale/logisticssectorexperiencedawaveofmodernization,with
theprocessingsectorleapingforwardinregionalmultinationalization.Moreover,pro-
curement systems for fresh produce started to transform, with an emergence of direct
sourcing.
Third, in particular in the past half decade, a new set of development strategies has
developed—partneredbygovernments,agrifoodindustry,andcivilsociety.hesestrat-
egies seek to increase linkages among agrifood industry segments and to small farmers
by cutting transaction costs and increasing economies of agglomeration.
These three gaps in the literature are important because they include the channels by
which the transformation has been accelerated, extended, and, potentially, made more
inclusive. This review focuses on these gaps by updating the analysis on the transforma-
tion of the three basic segments of the agrifood industry and by evaluating the impact
ofthetransformationsnowunderway.hechapterisorganizedaroundthethreeseg-
ments, in parallel to the sequence of overall phases of transformation.
Weproceedasfollows.hesecondsectionbrielyprovidesanewframeworkof“driv-
ers” of transformation of the industry and its procurement systems/supply chains that
aresharedacrossthesegments—procurement,processing,anddistribution—aswell
as a general sketch of the three geographical waves of transformation that apply to all
segments.
The third section discusses the bimodal paths of transformation of the wholesale/
logistics sector. This was both the earliest sector to be transformed, with government
actionsdrivingtransformationfromthe1960stothe1980s,andthelatest,withprivate