Many developing countries are experiencing a food system transformation with a rapid growth of supermarkets. This supermarket growth can be attributed to demand-side factors such as rising incomes, urbanization, and changing lifestyles, as well as supply-side factors, such as market...

Global demand for food and agricultural products is on the rise. There is hence the need to increase production to meet this growing demand and smallholders will play a significant role. One strategy for smallholders to sustainably increase agricultural production is the use of modern...

Smallholder market participation has been discussed as a catalyst against poverty. This dissertation addresses policy tools to enable market linkage of small farmers in rural areas. It looks at road infrastructure improvement and NGO-based market linkage assistance. The research shows that a...

Oil palm has become one of the most rapidly expanding crops throughout the humid tropics. Over the last two decades, the area under oil palm has almost tripled and its production more than quadrupled. This development is mainly attributed to the rising demand for vegetable oils and biofuels,...

I: Palm oil production creates negative externalities, e.g., through intensive fertiliser application. Policies to limit externalities need an effective, sustainable and efficient measure We use a business simulation game in a framed field experiment in Indonesia to test ex ante different...

This thesis presents three selected studies on the topic of performance and dynamics of agricultural firms. It constitutes three empirical investigations which analyze the factors that determine firm performance, changes in firm size, as well as the extent to which firm performance influences...

Agriculture is still the most important sector in driving economic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. In recent times, global agricultural food systems around the world are undergoing a rapid transformation with modern retailers, private standards, and vertically integrated...

GlobalGAP is an important private standard in the food sector. Our work consists of two essays. First essay investigates into geographic diffusion of GlobalGAP. We use a panel from 2008 to 2012 for 170 FAO member countries to analyze GlobalGAP diffusion in the agricultural sector as a whole as...

Seit der Nahrungsmittelpreiskrise 2007/08 ist die Volatilität von Nahrungsmittelpreisen wieder als wichtiges Thema in der politischen Diskussion aufgetaucht. Nicht nur die Beobachtung eines steigenden Preisniveaus, sondern auch der scheinbare Anstieg der Volatilität auf Schlüsselmärkten (vor...

The study analyzes price transmission in international rice markets in the last 12 years, covering the period before and after the 2008 food crisis. To this end, it provides empirical evidence of price transmission between the international and domestic markets of rice using price series from...