Meso-level restructuring of the food industry in developing countries: synthesis report - meso study

Rapid changes are taking place in the structure and governance of national and regional agrifood markets in developing countries, affecting the agricultural sector's ability to contribute to economic growth, poverty reduction and sustainable rural development. This paper presents someof the findings of an intensive two-year programme (2005 to 2007) of collaborative research and policy support, which aimed to understand how to include small-scale producers into agrifood systems under different degrees of restructuring.

The paper examines the processes and impacts of the current restructuring of food markets through a comparative in-depth empirical analysis of eight country case studies. Specifically, it looks at the meso level restructuring of the food industry including retailing, processing, and wholesaling.

The case studies are as follows:

• China: tomatoes and cucumbers
• India: dairy products
• Indonesia: potatoes and tomatoes
• Mexico: strawberries
• Poland: dairy products
• South Africa: tomatoes
• Turkey: tomatoes
• Zambia: beef
  

In each of the case study countries, the paper analyses the evolution of the food industry restructuring at a national level over a period of the past ten plus years, focusing primarily on the specific category of food products studied.

The study also focuses on the restructuring of the three food industry segments at a local level, mainly in the case study production zones.
                                              
Conclusions drawn from this report which are specific to meso restructuring include:

• while there is substantial restructuring at the retail, processing, and even wholesale levels, the transmission effect on the small-scale farmers is mainly on the non-land asset differentiation of the farmers
• in all the case study countries, there are significant sets of small-scale farmers producing the case study commodities. Only in South Africa are these small-scale farmers in the minority
• there are various market structure and regulatory constraints that buffer small-scale farmers from substantial restructuring downstream, perhaps most visibly in China