Reconnecting Markets

The rapid changes taking place in the structure and governance of national and regional agri-food markets in developing countries seriously affect the ability of agriculture, especially small-scale agriculture, to contribute to economic growth and sustainable development. Reconnecting Markets is the second volume of case examples from the Regoverning Markets programme (2005-2008). It focuses on the keys to inclusion of small-scale farmers and rural SMEs into dynamic national and regional markets. The cases document specific arrangements that appear to have played a positive role in supporting greater inclusion, such as public policies and business initiatives, collective action by farmers and support from development agencies.

Dr Estelle BiAcnabe is an agricultural economist at CIRAD, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (www.cirad.fr). She was a Research Fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics of the University of Pretoria between 2005 and 2010. Estelle holds a PhD in Agricultural and Development Economics with specialization in Environmental Economics from the University of Montpellier, France. She has expertise in supply chains, market access for smallholders and modern market dynamics including restructuring and quality related trends, organizational issues in local agriculture and food systems, and resource management and environmental policy analysis in the developing world. Julio A. BerdeguAc is Principal Researcher at Rimisp-Latin American Center for Rural Development, Chile. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Science from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He coordinates the Collaborative Program on Rural Territorial Dynamics, a research-based policy advice and capacity-development program for rural economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability in Latin America. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), serves in the Board of Trustees of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED, London), and is a member of ICCO's International Advisory Council. BerdeguAc is widely published. Lucian Peppelenbos is Senior Manager of Learning and Innovation at the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative, a platform for the mainstreaming of sustainability in international commodity markets. Lucian holds a PhD in agricultural sciences from Wageningen University, where he specialized in value chain management. Until 2009 he was a senior adviser at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), where he worked on inclusive business development in Africa, Latin America, and India. Before this, he worked for six years in Chile as a management consultant for export agribusiness firms, farmer cooperatives and international agencies. Lucian has published four books and several papers on supply chain development in emerging and developing economies. John Belt is an agricultural economist with over 20 years' field experience in rural development. He lived and worked in Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Mozambique, Tanzania and Yemen, and has conducted numerous advisory missions throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. John worked for and with UN agencies, international and local NGOs, national and local governments, academic and applied research institutions and private companies. He is currently a value chain specialist at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.