Routledge Handbook of Contract Farming and Development

The Routledge Handbook of Contract Farming and Development assesses the main conceptual, methodological and theoretical debates surrounding contract farming, and its implications for rural development in the Global South.

Contract farming has rapidly expanded in the Global South in the wake of structural adjustment, providing an intermediate form of agricultural organization between open procurement and fully integrated plantation agriculture. However, it is also a focus of contestation, with some viewing it as a “win-win” solution to the struggles of smallholders in the Global South, and others viewing it through the lens of peasant exploitation. This book combines conceptual and methodological contributions with rich empirical case studies, encouraging a holistic understanding of contract farming by transcending disciplinary silos. Overall, the book equips readers with a rich understanding of key themes, policies, business models, actors and social dynamics surrounding contract farming. It considers local and regional variations and contexts, and the broader implications of contract farming for agrarian change globally.

The book’s comprehensive coverage of contract farming will be of interest to researchers across the fields of agricultural economics, development studies, rural sociology and agrarian political economy. Its insights will also be instructive for policy makers and development practitioners looking for a comprehensive overview.

Caroline Hambloch leads the DFG Junior Research Group, “Local Labor Struggles in Global Value Chains,” at the University of Bonn, Germany. Her research examines the political economy of labor regimes in global value chains and global production networks, contract farming, and labor exploitation and agency. She holds a PhD in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Niels Fold is Professor at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. His research addresses the relationship between economic-geographic globalization processes and local responses in the Global South, primarily examined through the analytical lens of global value chains (GVCs) and livelihoods.

Sudha Narayanan is a Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi. She holds a PhD in agricultural economics from Cornell University and dual master’s degrees in economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India. Her recent work includes a book titled Contract Farming in Developing Countries: The Promise and Its Perils.

Mark Vicol is Associate Professor of Agrarian Sociology in the Rural Sociology Group and co-coordinator of the Critical Agrarian Studies research cluster at Wageningen University. His research and teaching focuses on the everyday political economy of agrarian change and the politics of agricultural transitions.