Marketing China’s Fruit: Are Small, Poor Farmers being Excluded from the Supply Chain?

China’s agricultural and food markets have become substantially more efficient and competitive during the past several decades, after nearly 30 years of reform (Park et al, 2002). Markets also have become highly integrated across space (Huang et al, 2004). While there is no absolute proof about what explains the performance of markets, China’s food economy has a number of characteristics that are consistent with well-functioning markets: few regulations, easy entry and literally thousands of traders in every market (Rozelle and Huang, 2007).