Agri-food Value Chain Revolutions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

2022/12/01 by Christopher B. Barrett, Thomas Reardon, Johan Swinnen +1 · 330 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Agriculture #Business #Economic growth #Economics #Empirical evidence #Firm Innovation and Growth #Geography #Global trade, sustainability, and social impact #Innovation and Socioeconomic Development #Investment (military) #Political science #Value (mathematics)

paper · doi:10.1257/jel.20201539

published in Journal of Economic Literature 60(4), 1316-1377 (American Economic Association)

openalex publication_date 2022/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Agri-food value chains (AVCs) intermediate the flow of products between largely rural farmers, fisherfolk, or herders and increasingly urban consumers. The theoretical models that historically structured research on the economic development process assumed away AVC functions, however, and AVC firms and workers were necessarily omitted from the household data that generated most empirical findings in the agricultural and development economics literatures. As a result, the discipline has somewhat overlooked the rapid growth and structural change in AVCs over the past few decades that turned AVCs into major employers and sources of value addition, as well as key loci for technology transfer and foreign investment. This paper offers an integrated, structured, empirical narrative of how and why AVC revolutions occur in developing countries, the impacts of those changes, and the abundant economic research opportunities these structural changes afford economists. (JEL L14, L81, O13, O33, Q12, Q13, Q17)

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