The Rapid Rise of Supermarkets in Central and Eastern Europe: Implications for the Agrifood Sector and Rural Development

During the 1990s transition period in Central and Eastern Europe, the retail sector was privatised and some domestic‐capital supermarket chains gradually emerged. Massive inflows of foreign direct investment followed and competitive domestic investments drove a rapid take‐off of large‐format modern retail sector development from a tiny ‘luxury’ niche of around 5% of food retail in the mid‐1990s to 40–50% by 2003 in ‘firstwave’ and 20–40% in ‘second‐wave’ countries. In ‘third‐wave’ countries like Russia, it is still only 10% but growing very fast. In most countries there is rapid multi‐nationalisation and consolidation of the supermarket sector, with profound changes in procurement systems affecting the conditions facing farmers, and creating important opportunities and challenges.     

Family farmers and major retail chains in the Brazilian organic sector: Assessing new development pathways. A case study in a peri-urban district of São Paulo

The expansion of the organic sector in Brazil is seen as a leverage for the social emancipation of the small family farmers. Next to the traditional alternatives circuits of organic food and farming, new powerful capitalistic actors, such as supermarket chains, are rapidly entering the Brazilian organic arena. Can family farming benefit from the development of these “conventional” commercialisation circuits in the organic sector? Research undertaken in 2007, in a green belt rural community of São Paulo, shows how family farmers may have benefited from the implication of large retail chains in the organic sector and how an economically and ecologically outstanding agriculture may arise from these circumstances. However, we highlight the crucial role played by social regulation: only strong solidarity between farmers and the implication of technicians, militants and researchers in the process made it possible to counter the negative effects of the liberal logic governing the development of organic farming via the major retailers. Still, as tougher competition is expected on the regional organic market, the development of short supply chains involving “committed” consumers and the broader integration of the local farmers in networks of organic militancy appear crucial. It would guarantee a continuous enhancement of the local human and social capital, reinforce an emerging process of internal conversion and allow for a stronger social regulation of the future local development pattern.     

Who Can Help People with HIV/AIDS in Africa? Governance of HIV/AIDS and Civil Society

This paper locates NGOs dealing with HIV/AIDS problems in sub-Saharan Africa into the larger governance context within which they function. This aims at a theoretical shift to assess the aspirational characteristics for the agency of NGOs that are used to legitimate contracting out implementation of internationally designed HIV/AIDS policies to these organizations. The paper interrogates the nature and impact of the governance structure on NGOs and then looks at the implications of this for HIV/AIDS. The questioning is based on a juxtaposition of the perspective of international policy fora in relation to civil society organizations with the way NGO work is perceived by the people at the receiving end of the policies. The paper suggests that as part of the international governance structure, NGOs are limited within the policy frameworks created by this structure. Furthermore, due to their organizational characteristics, NGOs lack capacity to establish sustainable long-term interventions relevant for sociocultural change as perceived by people themselves.     

Modern Food Supply Chains and Development: Evidence from Horticulture Export Sectors in Sub‐Saharan Africa

The global food system is undergoing rapid processes of transformation and modernisation. This is causing important changes in developing‐country food supply chains, particularly in supermarket‐driven and high‐value export chains, but the welfare implications of these changes are poorly understood. This article analyses and compares the welfare effects in different horticulture export chains in sub‐Saharan Africa, disentangling different types of effects and the channels through which rural households are affected. Its main conclusion is that increased high‐value exports and the modernisation of export supply chains can bring about important positive welfare effects, which can occur in various ways through product‐ or labour‐market effects and through direct and indirect effects.     

Food‐Retail Development and the Myth of Everyday Low Prices: The Case of Brazil

This article analyses the changes in Brazilian food retailing by investigating the co‐existence of, and the pricing variation across, large supermarket chains and small independent supermarkets. It uses cointegration tests to show that, despite the widespread belief that small supermarkets are inefficient and charge higher prices, they in fact charge lower prices. Accordingly, in contrast to the prevailing literature on food‐retail development, competition in food retail is complex and cannot be described as a simple Darwinian process of market concentration. The article explores the survival of small retail and its consequences for the current discussion on modern food retail in developing countries.     

Comparing the Prevalence and Organizational Distinctiveness of Faith-Based and Secular Development NGOs in Canada

Faith-based development organizations (FBOs) have been argued to deliver more cost-efficient development projects than their secular counterparts through exclusive access to faith networks, which provide predictable decentralized funding, the recruitment of volunteers, low employee salaries, and less overhead and indirect costs. To date, however, comparative analyses of religious and secular organizations have relied on a case-by-case approach, limiting the generalizability of findings. This study addresses this methodological gap by analyzing Registered Charity Information Return filings and organizational websites of 844 Canadian development NGOs to determine the proportion of FBOs and their organizational distinctiveness. The results show that FBOs comprise 40% of the Canadian NGO sector in terms of the number of organizations and their expenditures in developing countries, and are significantly less reliant on federal funding (p?<?.1), pay employees lower salaries (p?<?.01), but do not exhibit a significant difference in their expenditures on overhead and indirect costs. Thus, Canadian FBOs participation in faith networks shapes their organizational modus operandi but does not result in a low overhead alternative to secular NGOs.

     

Bread in the Economy of Qualities: The Creative Reconstitution of the Canada‐UK Commodity Chain for Wheat

This article traces the creative reconstitution of the Canada‐UK wheat‐bread commodity chain since the 1990s. In the mid‐1990s, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and a British bakery, Warburtons, pioneered an innovative identity‐preserved sourcing relationship that ties contracted prairie wheat growers to consumers of premium bread in the United Kingdom. The CWB‐Warburtons contract is emblematic of the increasing importance of quality claims, traceability, and private standards in the reorganization of agrifood supply chains. Yet the case is unique in two important ways. First, in the context of supermarket leadership in the coordination of quality chains, the program was established by two unlikely actors—a state marketing agency and a branded food manufacturer. Second, the quality chain centers on a semifresh, manufactured food staple (bread), whereas most quality chains are organized around fresh produce, meat, and dairy products. The CWB‐Warburtons story thus provides evidence of diversity and complexity in the shift toward the supermarket‐driven “economy of qualities.” I interpret these changes by locating them in broader processes of historical change. Led by the CWB and Warburtons, the shift toward quality in commodity chains for wheat bread is reconfiguring relations among key social actors in the prairie wheat economy as well as the UK bread market.     

Smallholder participation and certification of organic farm products in Mexico

Organic and other environmental and social marketing devices seek to connect producers and consumers more directly and reward environmentally and socially superior production systems. Some researchers have observed that these schemes may introduce mechanisms of exclusion, creating an elite group of certified smallholders while putting non-certified farmers at a distinct disadvantage and introducing division among people whose true interest may lie more in relations of solidarity and cooperation. The trade and regulatory environment that smallholder coops must navigate is increasingly complex and adaptation to its requirements has important implications for farmer organizations. Standards applied to certify smallholder production systems tend to be developed with regard to first-world consumer interests and imposed in a top–down fashion by certification agencies and intermediaries, with little or no farmer participation. Especially in the tropics, agricultural standards that reflect temperate country conditions may place unnecessary burdens on growers who attempt to meet agronomic norms that are irrelevant to local agroecologies. After providing a summary of organic farming and certification in Mexico over the past two decades, we discuss three emerging trends: the advent of contract agriculture in organic production, the appearance of a new, environmentally-based coffee certification system intended to favor bird conservation, and a recent government program to support transition to organic production. All three trends involve certain contradictions, both with the foundational social and ecological goals of organic agriculture and with the interests of small farmers.     

Promoting Civil Society in Contemporary Poland: Gendered Results of Institutional Changes

This paper is a contribution to the ongoing discussion concerning factors determining the development of civil society in a post-state socialist context. It examines the financial mechanisms designed to promote civic engagement in Poland, including EU grants and the so-called ‘percentage law’ that allows citizens to support NGOs of their choice with 1 % of their taxes. A detailed analysis of these mechanisms demonstrates that they are advantageous for some types of non-governmental organizations and not for others. Instead of enhancing the situation of the whole sector, they tend to support NGOs that already have substantial resources and hold a strong position vis-à-vis the state. Moreover, organizations and groups fighting for issues considered to be controversial—such as women’s NGOs advocating for the right to abortion or criticizing authorities for their lack of concern when it comes to violence against women—have limited chances to gain financial support from both the state and those sources that are independent from the state. This shows how seemingly gender-neutral institutional arrangements may bring gendered results. The following analysis is based on available statistics (several reports provided by the Klon-Jawor Association, Social Diagnosis Reports from 2007 and 2011) and qualitative data (semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis of the Polish media).     

Standards for Development: Food Safety and Sustainability in Wal‐Mart's Honduran Produce Supply Chains

Public‐private partnerships between supermarket retailers and development agencies help small‐scale producers reach growing domestic markets in developing countries. Drawing on qualitative data that focuses on relationships between producers, development agencies, and Wal‐Mart‐owned supermarkets in Honduras, the research presented here demonstrates how, by introducing food safety standards to development agencies' outreach efforts, but without necessarily certifying producers or offering a price premium, Wal‐Mart uses these standards to simultaneously differentiate production practices by promoting quality, while maintaining a standardized market. As a result, the responsibility and costs for incentivizing growers to change their practices is shifted to nongovernmental organizations. Therefore, although an extensive body of literature describes standards and third‐party certification systems as the means for corporations to control production practices, this research indicates that public‐private partnerships are a new vehicle by which corporations can influence agricultural production practices. In addition, this article argues that the inclusion of food safety standards in development projects leads to the conflation of food safety and sustainability, without adequately interrogating which agroecological processes food safety standards include and exclude. Therefore, retailers' private food safety standards dominate how sustainability is perceived and practiced in the development context.     

上海为农服务合作社的发展新路初探

上海为农服务合作社应根据上海经济发展的需要,结合各自的实际走发展新路。农业生产合作社应循专业合作社的道路加快发展,区（县）政府应积极帮助并给以政策扶持;信用合作社已改制为农村商业银行,应循商业银行的发展规律,对外拓展、对内做实,同时继续做好为农户和中小企业的服务;供销合作社则应在政府的有力支持下,尽快推进社企分离,下力气把社属企业做大、做强,从而在反哺农村时形成更有效的经济支撑。     

The Emergence of Supermarkets with Chinese Characteristics: Challenges and Opportunities for China's Agricultural Development

The supermarket revolution is spreading faster in China than anywhere else in the world. Supermarket sales are growing by 30–40% per year, 2–3 times faster than in other developing regions. This development has been driven by factors shared by other developing countries as well as by China‐specific policies. It presents opportunities for Chinese agricultural producers to diversify into activities with higher income prospects, and for procurement systems to move into dealing directly with farmers. However, supermarket managers face several unique challenges: average farm size is small and farmers are not well organised. Hence, the whole supply chain must be upgraded, and government agricultural policy and rural development programmes have an important role in this.     

The potential for international and transnational public service advertising in public spaces in American and Chinese global cities: Conclusions from a 2010 survey of advertisements in subways in Beijing,New York,Shanghai and Washington,DC

Can we construct transnational or international public service advertising to counterbalance the proliferation of transnational commercial advertising? As an important first step in exploring the possibility of such an application of shared media public diplomacy among nations, this paper describes a complete survey of commercial and public service advertisements collected from the public spaces of subway systems in American and Chinese cities in 2010 – New York, Washington, DC, Shanghai and Beijing – to reveal the range of themes of commercial and public service ads in these spaces. The study reveals first that analogous commercial and public service ads are ubiquitous in the public spaces of both Chinese and American cities. Second, many of the themes that might appear in international or transnational public service ads are already being portrayed in ads created by local or national governments or NGOs, although these themes are portrayed in ads created by different sets of actors in China and in the US: government actors and a few international NGOs in Chinese cities, and governments, corporations and non-profit organizations in the case of American cities. Finally, the survey reveals that in all four cities there are many commercial advertisements that appeal to the identity of a transnational consumer, but that there are almost no public service ads that appeal to the identity of a transnational citizen: merely local or national ones who can solve such public problems as global warming, education, and health issues.     

Religious Freedoms versus Gender Equality: Faith-Based Organizations, Muslim Minorities, and Islamic Headscarves in the New Europe

The intersections of gender and civil society in the formersocialist countries of Eastern Europe have been examined primarilythrough the lens of Western Aid to support feminist nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs). What has received less scholarly attentionis the growing number of NGOs advocating for a return to moreconservative gender roles and more restricted public roles forwomen. Many of these organizations are so-called "faith-based"organizations (FBOs), and are bound to particular religiousdenominations. In this article, I will examine the presenceof Islamic FBOs in Bulgaria and how they mobilize a liberal"rights" discourse to justify practices that could be locallyinterpreted as being oppressive to women. Their insistence onguaranteeing women's "right to choose" certain religious practicesputs feminists and women's NGOs in an increasingly difficultposition.     

Value Chain Development and the Agrarian Question: Actor Perspectives on Native Potato Production in the Highlands of Peru

Value chain development seeks to integrate smallholder farmers into competitive markets to promote economic and social development. This article, conceptually based on the agrarian question, considers how the perspectives of various value chain actors, with particular focus on smallholders, have important implications for the outcomes of these market‐oriented initiatives. Utilizing Long’s concept of social interface, we present a mixed‐methods case study that analyzes how smallholders, an NGO, and agrifood corporations, including PepsiCo, partnered to establish value chains for native potatoes in the Peruvian highlands. We find that a thorough understanding of the various perspectives held by value chain actors provides important insight into why value chain initiatives have divergent trajectories. Based on the findings, we conclude that accounting for how actors are responding to development initiatives and one another helps explain development outcomes and that therefore the agrarian question remains relevant in current agricultural development discourse and practice.     

Maternal Health Policy and the Politics of Scale in Mexico

Since 1987, international organizations have accorded greaterattention to the problem of maternal mortality, particularlywith the inclusion of its reduction in the Millennium DevelopmentGoals. This article examines maternal health policies in Mexico,focusing on interactions between the international, national,and local scales and considering the case of local projectsin two states, Chiapas and Guerrero. Although the discourseof maternal health expressed at the international level hasfacilitated the creation of networks dedicated to maternal health,the restructuring of health services in Mexico and the rescalingof their provision have often conflicted with the realizationof this goal. The impact of decentralizing health services hasdiffered according to (a) the timing and nature of decentralization;(b) the number and expertise of nongovernmental organizations(NGOs) working on maternal health issues, and the connectionsbetween these NGOs and international networks; and (c) the responsivenessof the state governments to maternal health issues.     

“So They’ll Have Somewhere to Go”: Establishing Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) for Children with Autism in the People’s Republic of China

Despite policy calling for compulsory education in China, many children with autism are not in school. This article examines the establishment of autism-related non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China to meet needs not being met by the state. We focus on the background and motivation in founding and running these NGOs, after first considering the broader context of state decentralization and NGOs roles in supplementing welfare needs in reforming societies, and the educational policy context of China. This study used mixed methods, including questionnaires with open-ended and limited choice questions, and follow-up discussion email. The goals of NGO leaders—more than 50% of whom are parents of children with autism—are to make up for where government implementation of educational policy is insufficient; help others and advocate for inclusion in society; and do meaningful work. Implications from these findings are discussed.

     

Cross‐cultural civility in global civil society: transnational cooperation in Chinese NGOs

Transnational networks and organizations are often hailed as embodiments and carriers of global civil society, yet these assessments remain incomplete due to a lack of empirical research on their internal dynamics. In this article, I investigate whether or not transnational NGOs embody the cooperation across multiple social, cultural and political cleavages central to definitions of global civil society by exploring how multiple memberships are negotiated in the context of their everyday tasks. Using organizational documents and interview data with staff of two Protestant Christian development NGOs in China, I analyse how actors within these transnational organizations successfully manage their multiple memberships in national polities, national cultures, religious communities and a world culture. While multiple memberships exhibit the potential both to enable and to constrain an NGO's organizational tasks, the key to making such ties enabling are staff who act as skilful cross‐cultural brokers. Thus, the type of social capital required to render multiple memberships beneficial and not harmful to the organizations also makes these organizations true indicators of a developing global civil society.     

Local Food and Civic Engagement: Do Farmers Who Market Local Food Feel More Responsible for Their Communities?

Do farmers who participate in local food systems attach greater importance to civic engagement than farmers whose livelihood is not tied to the vitality of local markets? The literature on local food as a social movement continues to paint a picture of local food systems as contributing to, and benefiting from, rich networks of civil society groups. Yet to date, few studies have directly addressed the question of whether marketing local food is actually associated with higher levels of civic engagement among farmers. In this paper, I draw on local capitalism theory to identify two different mechanisms—depth of economic reliance on local markets, and breadth of social networks related to local food sales—that might spur farmers who market local food to feel more responsible for their communities. Then, using data from a large-scale survey of specialty crop growers, I explore whether a relationship exists between farmer involvement with local food markets and attitudes toward civic engagement. Results suggest that while farmers strongly committed to local food markets attach greater importance to civic engagement, participation in multiple categories or kinds of local food supply chains is not necessarily associated with stronger civic values.     

Explaining the Role of Culture and Traditions in Functioning of Civil Society Organizations in Kazakhstan

Recent studies find that Western-style professional nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries are weak and unsustainable. Most of these NGOs developed strong dependency on foreign donors for funds, and did not develop local network of support. This study is conducted to understand the lack of effectiveness of NGOs in Kazakhstan and to test popular sentiments toward NGOs. The interview with local and foreign social science experts and public figures confirm that NGOs in Kazakhstan are weak and unsustainable. The explanations of institutional ineffectiveness lay in disconnect with local traditions, low visibility of NGOs, and unsupportive government. Survey of general population suggests that people in Kazakhstan know very little about NGOs and do not appreciate their utility. We explain the inability of civil society organizations to reach out to local people by cultural mismatch. By using the Hofstede national culture model (Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 1984), we argue that local culture is in striking dissonance with the culture of donor countries, which created the NGO agenda in Kazakhstan.