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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Carlo Azzarri

Carlo Azzarri is a Senior Research Fellow in the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit. His work focuses on the relationships among poverty, nutrition, food security, agriculture, the environment, production, and migration—analyzed at both micro and macroeconomic levels, primarily using quantitative methods.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Thomas Reardon

Nonresident Fellow

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Bio

Thomas Reardon is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Tom has been at MSU since 1992; IFPRI Research Fellow 1986-1991; Rockefeller Foundation Post-Doc with IFPRI in Burkina Faso 1984-1986; Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1984, and masters from the Université de Nice and Columbia University.

Tom researches the transformation of food value chains: (1) the e-commerce and food delivery intermediaries; (2) the “supermarket revolution” and the “food service revolution” (3) the “Quiet Revolution” (the diffusion of SMEs in the midstream of value chains); and (4) R&D and farm inputs supply chain transformation. He studies the impacts of these transformations on food industry business strategies, on farms, consumption/nutrition, and employment.

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Publications

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Journal Article

Wholesalers and the transformation of Myanmar’s maize value chains

2025Belton, Ben; Cho, Ame; Hall, Michael; Minten, Bart; Reardon, Thomas
Details

Wholesalers and the transformation of Myanmar’s maize value chains

Wholesalers of agricultural crops have historically received limited attention in the literature on agricultural development, which has a strongly productivist focus. When wholesalers are considered, they are often framed as exploitative, taking advantage of information asymmetries, market failures, and unequal power relations to extract heavy surpluses from farmers. However, there is a growing appreciation that wholesalers may play important roles in facilitating agricultural development and rural transformation. This paper evaluates wholesaler conduct and performance using a survey of 218 maize wholesalers in 12 of the major maize-growing and trading townships of South Shan State, Myanmar and the cities of Lashio and Muse in North Shan. Hybrid maize emerged very rapidly in Myanmar over the past two decades to become a major cash crop, supplying domestic animal feed mills and becoming one of Myanmar’s most important exports to China and Thailand. Wholesalers have been central to the development of this supply chain and the sector. Contrary to recent literature from Myanmar that has cast maize wholesalers as exploitative, the survey finds that the rapidly growing wholesaler segment of the maize value chain is highly competitive, rapidly changing with respect to technology, and functions efficiently. Farmers obtaining maize inputs from wholesalers in the form of tied output credit sell their maize at prevailing market rates. The emergence of clusters of maize wholesalers and allied actors such as third-party logistics services occurred spontaneously and symbiotically with the expansion of hybrid maize cultivation, and with each set of actors essential to the emergence of the others.

Year published

2025

Authors

Belton, Ben; Cho, Ame; Hall, Michael; Minten, Bart; Reardon, Thomas

Citation

Belton, Ben; Cho, Ame; Hall, Michael; Minten, Bart; and Reardon, Thomas. 2025. Wholesalers and the transformation of Myanmar’s maize value chains. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 47(1): 125-153. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13489

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Agricultural Development; Maize; Wholesale Markets; Value Chains; Small and Medium Enterprises

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13489 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Rocking the boat to change the debate: Identifying and testing conventional wisdom

2025Reardon, Thomas
Details

Rocking the boat to change the debate: Identifying and testing conventional wisdom

This paper presents a method for and experiences with pioneering new research directions that challenge “conventional wisdom” and change policy and research debates. The method consists of four steps: (1) identify the conventional wisdom (CW); (2) ignore the CW and go to the field without pre-conceived notions, and look long and hard at reality—with interviews and surveys broad enough to allow oneself to make discoveries that contradict the CW; (3) then identify the contradictions between the CW and the field discoveries and pinpoint the implications for policy and research debates; (4) develop and mainstream a new research theme along a research “product cycle.” The paper summarizes my and collaborators’ application of the method with illustrations from four waves of market economics field research in Africa, Asia, and Latin America since the 1980s: (a) rural nonfarm employment; (b) processed food consumption; (c) the “hidden middle” (rapid diffusion of small and medium enterprises in the midstream of value chains); and (d) the “supermarket revolution”. The paper ends with a discussion of the benefits of this approach to policy and research debates and the researcher’s own career, as well as considerations of risks, timing, and approach for application of the method. JEL Classification: D12, J20, O12, O18, Q12, Q18

Year published

2025

Authors

Reardon, Thomas

Citation

Reardon, Thomas. Rocking the boat to change the debate: Identifying and testing conventional wisdom. Agricultural Economics. Article in press. First published online March 12, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.70014

Keywords

Africa; Asia; Latin America; Economics; Enterprises; Research; Food Consumption

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.70014 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Does rural non-farm employment relieve or exacerbate the agricultural diversification-farm efficiency tradeoff: The case of aquaculture in Bangladesh

2025Abaidoo, Eric; Belton, Ben; Reardon, Thomas; Jin, Songqing; Malone, Trey
Details

Does rural non-farm employment relieve or exacerbate the agricultural diversification-farm efficiency tradeoff: The case of aquaculture in Bangladesh

This paper studies how rural non-farm employment conditions the relationship between agricultural diversification and fish production efficiency. Competition for scarce productive resources typically implies a compromise between agricultural diversification and efficiency. Yet, the potential for non-farm income to resolve this tradeoff remains understudied. Cash from non-farm sources may support productivity-enhancing input purchase, thereby improving efficiency. On the other hand, by diversifying both on- and off-farm, household resources such as labor may be stretched too thin, lowering fish production efficiency. Using micro-level data on fish farming households in Southern Bangladesh, we show that at higher levels of the non-farm income share, diversification into crops results in significant allocative inefficiencies. Results are inconclusive for the technical efficiency measure.

Year published

2025

Authors

Abaidoo, Eric; Belton, Ben; Reardon, Thomas; Jin, Songqing; Malone, Trey

Citation

Abaidoo, Eric; Belton, Ben; Reardon, Thomas; Jin, Songqing; and Malone, Trey. Does rural non-farm employment relieve or exacerbate the agricultural diversification-farm efficiency tradeoff: The case of aquaculture in Bangladesh. Aquaculture Economics and Management. Article in press. First available online January 5, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2024.2446142

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Rural Employment; Agriculture; Diversification; Aquaculture; Efficiency; Labour Allocation

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2024.2446142 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

The promise of digital farmer services: Sifting reality from hype in Kenya
IFPRI Blog
 | 
January 22, 2025

The promise of digital farmer services: Sifting reality from hype in Kenya

By Michael Keenan, Erwin Bulte, Luc Christiaensen, Thomas Reardon, and Hannah Reed

Accelerating technology adoption.

Two years on, resilience innovations help food supply chains overcome COVID-19 disruptions
IFPRI Blog
 | 
February 23, 2022

Two years on, resilience innovations help food supply chains overcome COVID-19 disruptions

By Thomas Reardon, Johan Swinnen, and Rob Vos

Important lessons for policymakers.

Smallholder and agrifood SME resilience to shocks: Lessons from COVID-19 for the UN Food System Summit
IFPRI Blog
 | 
June 10, 2021

Smallholder and agrifood SME resilience to shocks: Lessons from COVID-19 for the UN Food System Summit

By Thomas Reardon, Johan Swinnen, and Rob Vos

Farmers and small businesses show both vulnerabilities and a capacity to adapt.

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Events

Taking Stock of Africa’s Agrifood Processing Sector
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

February 9, 2023, 8:00 – 9:30 am

Taking Stock of Africa’s Agrifood Processing Sector

Virtual Event: February 9, 2023 – 8:00 AM- 9:30 AM EST. During this event key research findings and policy recommendations of the 2022 ATOR will be presented and discussed by a distinguished panel of representatives from academia, the private sector, and international and regional organizations engaged in strengthening Africa’s agri-food processing sector.