Burning Questions
Fellowship Award Winners

Location: U.K.
Primary academic field: International development (Karamchedu), Economic geography (Coles)
Award category: PhD Holder

Topics to be Addressed during the Award Period:

Who produces and who owns broiler chickens? Interrogating the financial structures of industrial broiler chicken production in LMICs

Uncover the production and ownership structures of industrially produced broiler chickens in Brazil, Mexico, India, China. Examine critically the firm and asset manager level ownership structures behind chicken production in these countries. Answer these key questions: What are the scales and ways financial institutions, markets, etc. are involved (i.e. the extent of "financialization") in the industrial production of chickens in low- and middle-income countries?
What are the geographies of ownership of companies that produce industrial chickens - who owns them, where and how? Can one bring more clarity to the rapidly changing - but opaque - landscape of financial corporatization of industrial poultry production in developing countries?
Collect, analyze, and visualize ownership and financial data from, for example, publicly listed companies, private companies, national-level reports (e.g., from USDA in the U.S., EMBRAPA in Brazil), from development banks, from data sources (e.g., Bloomberg Professional). All these data will be aggregated to map the operations of poultry firms in Brazil, Mexico, India, China and their links to developed economies such as those in Europe and North America, including their customers and suppliers, as well as their ownership structures.

Some of the Things We Really Liked when We Read the Application:

With the enormous, unprecedented increase in the production of industrial chickens in LMICs in recent years, chicken production beyond Global North countries has become an emerging issue that is a new frontier in academic research.
This issue is getting more attention among NGOs and funders. But they may not fully realize that a key driver of this global expansion is that corporate agribusinesses specifically target Global South countries with populations and/or economies that have strong growth. Corporations consider these countries as "untapped" places with huge opportunities to expand industrial chicken production and reap profits. NGOs and funders also may not understand how industrial chicken production in developing countries is financed. The topics to be addressed by the applicants' will increase the understanding signficantly.