Commodity Chains

The costs made to transport and transform farm products into consumer products range from almost nothing in subsistence households to by far the major cost item of modern food products.

In the course of economic growth, marketing systems develop that arrange these increasingly complex transactions. In various PhD projects, we investigate how growth and system development interact.

This is done in Mexico, where the evolution and present performance of the coffee supply chain is subject of research.
Within the CoQa programme, we look at the implementation of quality requirements for citrus in South Africa
Within the CoS-SIS programme we use field experiments to gauge the incentives for producers to provide better quality cocoa.
Within the EU financed programme on Acacia Gum, the efficiency of channels for Arabic gum trade in the Sahel zone is assessed.
In Kenya, the causes of success of groups of producers and market partners are elicited using experimental interventions.
In related projects, we look at how risk and uncertainty affect the emergence of particular institutions.