Supermarkets and Beyond: Literature Review on Farmer to Market Linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

WorldAgInfo Project Literature ReviewThis paper reviews recent literature on selected issues that need to be considered in designing policies and programs to improve farmer-to-market linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Since the “supermarket revolution” has received wide attention in the professional and popular press since the early 2000s, this paper starts with a careful review of that literature. Yet expectations regarding supermarket growth in Africa and parts of Asia have cooled considerably over the past two years. For this reason, the discussion of supermarkets is cast in the broader context of retail modernization; we stress the interaction of supermarkets and more traditional marketing channels in African and Asian food systems, and suggest that these systems are likely to remain highly diversified for the foreseeable future. Additional topics include domestic and regional markets as foci of growth, market information (including commodity exchanges and modern information and communications technology - ICT), and contract farming for export crops. Given the rapid pace of change in marketing systems in developing countries, primary emphasis is placed on research since 2000