Rural Development and the Construction of New Markets

This book focuses on empirical experiences related to market development, and specifically new markets with structurally different characteristics than mainstream markets. Europe, Brazil, China and the rather robust and complex African experiences are covered to provide a rich multidisciplinary and multi-level analysis of the dynamics of newly emerging markets.

Rural Development and the Construction of New Markets analyses newly constructed markets as nested markets. Although they are specific market segments that are nested in the wider commodity markets for food, they have a different nature, different dynamics, a different redistribution of value added, different prices and different relations between producers and consumers. Nested markets embody distinction viz-a-viz the general markets in which they are embedded. A key aspect of nested markets is that these are constructed in and through social struggles, which in turn positions this book in relation to classic and new institutional economic analyses of markets. These markets emerge as steadily growing parts of the farmer populations are dedicating their time, energy and resources to the design and production of new goods and services that differ from conventional agricultural outputs. The speed and intensity with which this is taking place, and the products and services involved, vary considerably across the world. In large parts of the South, notably Africa, farmers are ‘structurally’ combining farming with other activities. By contrast, in Europe and large parts of Latin America farmers have taken steps to generate new products and services which exist alongside ongoing agricultural production.

This book not only discusses the economic rationales and dynamics for these markets, but also their likely futures and the threats and opportunities they face.

Paul Hebinck is Associate Professor Wageningen University, The Netherlands; Adjunct Professor University of Forth Hare, Faculty of Agriculture and Science, Alice, South Africa.

Jan Douwe van der Ploeg is Professor of Transition Studies at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and Adjunct Professor of Rural Sociology at China Agricultural University in Beijing, China.

Sergio Schneider is Professor of Rural Sociology and Development Studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil.