Rural Development and the Construction of New Markets,  edited by Paul Hebinck, Sergio Schneider and Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, has just been published in the Routledge ISS Studies in Rural Livelihoods.  The book can be purchased here.

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.

Table of Contents: 1.The construction of new, nested markets and the role of development policies 2. Newly emerging, nested markets: a theoretical introduction 3. The construction of nested markets 4. Family farming, institutional markets and innovations in public policy in Brazil 5. Self-labelling, certification and alternative marketing networks in Brazil 6. Rural tourism in China and the construction of new markets 7. Multi-level rural governance performances and the unfolding of nested rural markets in Europe 8. Smallholder irrigators and fresh produce street traders in Thohoyandou, Limpopo Province, South Africa 9. Beyond land transfers: the dynamics of socially driven markets emerging from Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme 10. In the shadow of global markets for fish in Lake Victoria Tanzania 11. Reconsidering the contribution of nested markets to rural development.