Food & Agriculture

CGGC has been involved in groundbreaking research on global health issues, including how food and trade affect healthy diets. In the summer of 2007 researchers at CGGC were contacted by representatives of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, the National Institute of Health (NIH), and the World Health Organization (WHO) to participate in a series of conferences beginning in fall 2007 that would highlight new approaches to studying childhood obesity. Researchers at CGGC were specifically asked by organizers of the McGill Health Challenge and the WHO Early-Stage Expert Meeting on Trade and Healthy Diets to write a framework paper that would outline how researchers should address the multi levels of analysis which are needed to capture the various determinants of childhood obesity.

In this framework paper, “Trade, Transnational Corporations and Food Consumption: A Global Value Chain Approach,” CGGC researchers Gary Gereffi, Joonkoo Lee and Michelle Christian described how the global value chains framework is a useful analytic tool to understand how international economic processes, particularly the role of transnational corporations, impact the structural conditions. These conditions make certain types of food available that can potentially impact childhood obesity rates in both developed and developing countries.

A series of CGGC publications on global food and agriculture subsequently emerged in special issues of journals, such as “U.S.-based Food and Agricultural Value Chains and Their Relevance to Healthy Diets” (Gereffi, Lee and Christian), Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition (2009), and “Global Value Chains and Agrifood Standards: Challenges and Possibilities for Smallholders in Developing Countries” (Lee, Gereffi and Beauvais), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2012). Christian and Gereffi contributed a chapter on “The Marketing and Distribution of Fast Food” in Michael Freemark’s edited book on Pediatric Obesity (2010), and other CGGC projects have looked at selected California crops (for the Environmental Defense Fund) and agricultural value chains in the Mexicali Valley (for the Walton Family Foundation).

In 2012, CGGC was awarded a prestigious U.S. Department of Defense Minerva Initiative 3-year research grant to look at “A Global Value Chain Analysis of Food Security and Food Staples for Major Energy-Exporting Nations in the Middle East and North Africa.” This project will be carried out in collaboration with Lincoln Pratson at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University.

The Fruit and Vegetables Global Value Chain: Economic Upgrading and Workforce Development

Shows the shift of fruit and vegetable preparation from rural households to the urban kitchen, and highlights the new skills and global standards required of workers and suppliers in developing countries to meet the needs of global supermarkets.
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Agricultural Value Chains in the Mexicali Valley of Mexico

This study identifies the producers and buyers of the major crops grown in the Mexicali Valley – cotton, wheat, alfalfa, asparagus, and green onions. The report also reviews the public commitments made by these economic actors to sustainable environmental practices in their corporate sustainability reports.
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The Marketing and Distribution of Fast Food

This chapter seeks to advance the multilevel approach to studying childhood obesity by focusing on the "macro" level of corporations in the global economy. We use a global value chains (GVC) framework to explain how the structure of food and agricultural value chains, with an emphasis on the fast-food segment, affects individual consumption choices.
Chapter

A Global Value Chain Approach to Food Safety and Quality Standards

This paper builds an analytic model to explain the relationship between value chain structures, food safety standards and food safety levels. The paper shows how both developed and developing countries are affected by and respond to the transformation of the global agri-food industry as well as the system of changing food safety standards. This paper was prepared for the Global Health Diplomacy for Chronic Disease Protection Working Paper Series.
Paper

A Value Chain Analysis of the U.S. Beef & Dairy Industries

Livestock farms are a major source of greenhouse gases. Certain practices in feeding and manure management can reduce these and other environmental impacts, but how do you encourage 967,440 U.S. farms, ranches and feedlots to adopt these best practices? We find that the strongest leverage for effecting such change lies in the downstream players in the value chain.
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A Value Chain Analysis of the U.S. Pork Industry

Over-use of antibiotics in hog production poses the risk of creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, seriously threatening human health. Reducing antibiotic use, however, poses challenges to hog farmers. By analyzing the value chain, we can better understand the industry’s dynamics, preparing the way for further work to find ways of protecting public health that also make good business sense.
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The Governance Structure of U.S.-Based Food and Agriculture Value Chains and their Relevance to Healthy Diets

This paper outlines the global value chains (GVCs) of the chicken and tomato industries, showing how these industries have changed over time, who is driving that change, and how different segments of the value chain affect healthy diets and impact low-income populations. The authors specifically address how the lead firms in the global value chains of the chicken and tomato industries are a part of the processed food revolution and how this potentially impacts low-income communities.
Paper

Food Production Systems, Trade, and Transnational Corporations: A Global Value Chains Approach to Consumption and Healthy Diets

This paper explores the connections between the spread of obesity, especially in developing countries, and the interrelated expansion of trade, foreign direct investment, and transnational corporations (TNCs). The authors outline how the main concepts and methods of global value chains analysis can be applied to identify the direct and indirect linkages between the global economic processes of trade, foreign and direct investment, and food consumption.
Paper

A Value Chain Analysis of Selected California Crops

California is the most diversified agricultural economy in the world, generating more agricultural value than many countries. In the value chains for two selected crops—grain corn and processed tomatoes—we identify the players positioned to encourage environmental best practices.
EDF California Crops Report EDF Report: Appendix A and B

A Global Value Chains Approach to Food, Healthy Diets, and Childhood Obesity

A challenge associated with the nutrition transition in developing countries (i.e.,simultaneous presence of over-nutrition and under-nutrition, both being most prevalent in the poorest population segments) is the integration of their markets into the global economy. This integration determined rapid and strong changes in the production and trade of agricultural goods in the developing countries as well as growing foreign direct investments in food processing and retailing, and the expansion of food advertisements with obvious implications for dietary patterns and the risk of obesity.
Paper