BQI Beacon: Issue #9

Issue 9 covers these topics: 1) Bangladesh's thriving local chicken value chain threatened by imported breeds. 2) South African black smallholder farmers' participation in industrial beef production. 3) Food system transformation needs everybody from the top and the bottom. 4) Efficiency changes in Chinese broiler farms after shifting from pig production. 5) Farmed fish and wild-caught fish in Myanmar are part of a single system. 6) Local Mexican farmers harmed by maize grown to feed industrial animals.

Academic works featured and their key messages

1. Hennessey, M. et al. “Rise of the golden chicken: tracking Bangladeshi Sonali production amid global poultry transformation.”
   

   KEY TAKEAWAY: Bangladeshi chicken production is at a crossroads: a thriving local chicken value chain faces encroachment by large corporations using proprietary, imported breeds.

2. Bowman, Andrew, and Andrew Bennie. “The industrialisation of meat and its implications: Exploring governance, power, and inclusion in the South African beef value chain.”
   

   KEY TAKEAWAY: The industrial nature of South African beef production determines how smallholders can participate, with far-reaching effects on farming practices, market access, rural communities, and more.

3. Conti, Constanza, et al. “Top-down vs bottom-up processes: A systematic review clarifying roles and patterns of interactions in food system transformation.”
   

   KEY TAKEAWAY: Food system transformation needs everybody: no single actor, either top-down or bottom-up, can achieve transformation on their own.

4. Guo, Donghao, Xinyue Zhuo, and Hua Pu. “Dynamic changes and heterogeneity in technical efficiency of broiler production under African swine fever shocks: Evidence from production organization and farm size.”
   

   KEY TAKEAWAY: When an African Swine Fever outbreak in China shifted production from pork to chicken, the efficiency of large, small, contract, and non-contract broiler farms changed in different ways.

5. Tezzo, Xavier. “Food systems see fish, not fisheries and aquaculture.”
   

   KEY TAKEAWAY: Farmed fish and wild-caught fish in Myanmar are closely linked through shared water, markets, and food culture. They are part of a single system, not separate sectors.

6. Mejía, Enrique Antonio. “Priced out: Living in the shadow of industrial animal feed.”
   

   KEY TAKEAWAY: A hidden consequence of industrial food animal production is its negative impact on local farmers of white maize grown for human food in central Mexico.

Brief mention (non-academic reports)

1. USDA. “Poultry demand in the Yangtze River Delta.”
2. FAO. “Drivers of supply and demand of terrestrial animal source food”