Agrifood Research Research Articles

Critical engagement, activist/academic subjectivities and organic agri-food research in Uganda

This paper provides a reflexive account of engagement in activist/academic organic agri-food research in Uganda. I argue that critical engagement across the third space – between and across activist and academic subjectivities – enables a re-thinking of the subjectivities of activist/academics and research participants and the place of research in social change and theory building. I demonstrate some of the multiple ways of enacting activism within the academy by reflecting on my critical engagement with the Katuulo Organic Pineapple Cooperative in Uganda, whose members grow certified organic pineapples for sale on the international market. While there is a growing interest in critical activist research, its agenda is also constrained by the corporatist turn in universities. As such, the subjectivities, methods and theory building of activist/academics in agri-food (and other) research represents part of the resistance to normalised ways of doing and being in contemporary neo-liberal universities.

Ethics, sustainability and logistics in agricultural and agri-food economics research

This study analyzes the changes osberved in the agri-food system with the advent of logistical management of the flow of goods and information along the food supply chain. Agri-food functions and responsibilities towards society are also analyzed. This field of research has been widely explored in recent years following the development of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) certification in agri-business. The analysis starts by examining the coherence of the ethical basis of human choices in a homo oeconomicus framework in which social relationships are merely exploitable activities. CSR development is then studied in the light of the new stakeholder theory for firms. The main fields of economic research into sustainable development and the most important goals achieved are examined and the methodological perspectives of agricultural economics research will also be discussed.

SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINES (TCM)

s. PHYTOPHARM 2012 M 58 Obzory po kliniceskoj farmacologii i lekarstvennoj terapii [Reviews of clinical pharmacology and drug therapy] ТОМ 10/2012/2 the six isolates were grown on agar plates and extracted with ethyl acetate. Ultra-high Performance liquid Chromatography hyphenated to quadrupole Time of flight Mass Spectrometry (UPlC-qTOfMS) was used to obtain the secondary metabolomic profiles and chemometric analysis was used for data processing. 3-d PCA scores plot based on the hPlC-qTOf-MS profiles are shown below: A significant level of diversity was evident within the secondary metabolome of S. arenicola strains isolated from two distinct regions of the GbR.

Framing of agri-food research affects the analysis of food security: the critical role of the social sciences.

In our knowledge society, science plays a key role in policy-making through the production of assessments that provide evidence-based information to decision-makers. In that manner, science has also gained significant political power. This is an enormous responsibility for scientists but also constitutes a dangerous situation, since different social discourses lead to different analyses of a given problem, and to different solutions with very different impacts. Generally, this is the case of agri-food assessments, including food security, where impacts are huge given the present situation of nearly 1,000 million people suffering from hunger. In agri-food sciences framing of the research is mainly determined by two factors: the linkages between science and the concept of development, and the role given to agriculture in society. In general, it is easy to find two different opposite types of framing, with different objects of study, methods and characteristics. One type, which I refer to as official framing, tends to separate social and natural sciences, is more simplistic in analysing the causes of hunger, of food price crises or other important issues affecting food security. This type of scientific assessment usually regards solutions as more technical rather than social and/or political, and aims to find a panacea that can provide solutions to a given problem, in this case hunger. On the other side we have scientific evaluations, here alternative framing, which tend to be inter/trans-disciplinary, with a higher participation of social sciences. In this case, analyses tend to conceive agri-food system as complex systems, problems are normally more political than technical, and solutions tend to be diverse, contextual to each social, cultural and environmental context. In this sense, to encourage a change in agri-food assessments that recognizes the role of social sciences in addressing food security, critical social scientists can facilitate the introduction of frameworks developed by sustainability scientists into agri-food science, including the study of agri-food systems as socio-ecological complex systems.

Workshop summary: State of the art and perspectives of risk assessment analysis

news and update ISSN 1948‐6596 workshop summary State of the art and perspectives of risk assessment analysis International workshop on methods and applications for managing biological invasions – Girona, Spain, 18th‐20th April 2011 The introduction of invasive alien species (IAS) has added an additional level of complexity in the ma‐ nagement of ecosystems (Hobbs and Humphries 1995). Given that once a non‐indigenous species is established in a new region it is extremely difficult and costly to eradicate or control, recent atten‐ tion has switched to developing risk assessment protocols that identify high‐risk situations for spe‐ cies that may become established and have a ne‐ gative impact in a new region. Risk analyses are systematic and comprehensive methodologies evaluate risks and uncertainties associated with the introduction/expansion of certain organisms, based on the magnitude of their possible adverse consequences and the likelihood of occurrence of these consequences (Pheloung et al. 1999). Risk assessment can thus be an important tool to avoid further invasions. Risk assessment protocols have initially be‐ en largely developed in those parts of the world (e.g. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) which are hit most severely by biological invasions, but a common standard of key elements of risk assess‐ ment protocols has not emerged so far. In Europe, which has substantially lagged behind in perfor‐ ming risk analyses for alien species, this topic has recently gained importance. This was driven by the ongoing development of an EU strategy for invasive alien species (http://www.ec.europa.eu/ environment/nature/invasivealien/index_en.htm) and via EU‐funded projects such as ALARM (http://www.alarmproject.net) and DAISIE (http:// www.europe‐aliens.org). So the time was right to evaluate to what extent risk analysis protocols may really be useful in simplifying the decision‐ making process that guides EU environmental po‐ licies. The European Science Foundation (ESF) and the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) of the Government of Catalonia jointly funded a workshop on methods and applications of risk assessment analysis in ma‐ naging biological invasions, a meeting hosted in Girona, Spain (18th‐20th April 2011). This works‐ hop, which was co‐organized by Nuria Roura‐ Pascual, Ingolf Kuhn, Wolfgang Rabitsch and Da‐ niel Sol, brought together 21 of the world’s top experts on risk analysis for biological invasion, with the overarching objective to evaluate the status quo of the field and guide the development of standard protocols for setting management priorities. The participants presented and discussed key elements of existing risk assessment systems and their strengths and their weaknesses, and explored key future research needs. Several spea‐ kers presented the state of the art of fundamen‐ tals in risk assessment methods. Mark Burgman, the Director of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis (University of Melbourne), ope‐ ned the workshop and used the extensive Austra‐ lian experience to present fundamentals and pit‐ falls of risk assessment. David M. Richardson, the Deputy Director of the South African Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology (University of Ste‐ llenbosch), highlighted recent scientific progress achieved in identifying which aspects make spe‐ cies invasive. Brian Leung (McGill University, Cana‐ da) outlined ways of including socio‐economic assessments when analyzing the risks posed by invading species, an issue gaining increasing im‐ portance, when political decisions on IAS manage‐ ment are to be made. Daniel Sol (Centre for Ecolo‐ gical Research and Forestry Applications, Spanish National Research Council) talked about the featu‐ res that make a species a successful invader, whe‐ reas Katharina Dehnen‐Schmutz (University of Warwick, UK) highlighted the importance of horti‐ culture as an entrance pathway for alien plants. Jaakko Heikkila from MTT Agrifood Research Fin‐ land presented the results of a recent overview of current European risk analysis systems. Although objectives are similar in most cases, he found con‐ siderable differences between different approa‐ © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society — frontiers of biogeography 3.2, 2011

An updated doubled haploid oat linkage map and QTL mapping of agronomic and grain quality traits from Canadian field trials

The first doubled haploid oat linkage map constructed at MTT Agrifood Research Finland was supplemented with additional microsatellites and Diversity Array Technology (DArT) markers to produce a map containing 1058 DNA markers and 34 linkage groups. The map was used to locate quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for 11 important breeding traits analyzed from Finnish and Canadian field trials. The new markers enabled most of the linkage groups to be anchored to the 'Kanota' × 'Ogle' oat ( Avena sativa L.) reference map and allowed comparison of the QTLs located in this study with those found previously. Two to 12 QTLs for each trait were discovered, of which several were expressed consistently across several environments.

Preface

Starting in 1988, several European COST Actions (810, 821 and 838) have focused on understanding the role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in sustainable agriculture and natural ecosystems. The latest COST Action on AMF, Action 870 “From Production to Application of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Agricultural Systems: a Multidisciplinary Research”, ran from February 2007 to February 2011 and a total of 26 European countries participated. A meeting of WG2 and WG3 was organized in 13-15 December 2010 by MTT Agrifood Research Finland and the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The meeting was held at the University of Jyväskylä. The general themes of the meeting were “Utilization of AMF in extreme stress conditions” (WG3) and “Quality control of AM fungal inoculum” (WG2). The role of AMF in arid, saline or heavy metal contaminated sites was discussed in several papers. Also the impact of temperature on AM function and possibilites of utilizing AMF in low- and high-input agricultural systems were discussed. Papers on the role of AMF in controlling biotic stress, i.e. plant diseases, of crops were also presented. This special issue of Agricultural and Food Science contains a selection of papers presented at the COST Action 870 meeting in Jyväskylä, December 2010.

Pea–oat intercrops to sustain lodging resistance and yield formation in northern European conditions

Locally produced crop protein is urgently needed in Europe. Pea is a good protein source and is well adapted to northern conditions. Pea can fix nitrogen that the following crop in rotation can benefit from. In cereal-dominated cropping systems pea is a break crop disrupting the life cycle of cereal diseases, leading to less fungicide application and thereby minimizing off farm inputs and benefiting the environment. Grain legumes provide animals with protein and energy, and the seeds of pulse crops are complementary to those of cereals. Field peas can be cultivated in most parts of Scandinavia and interest in peas has increased for inclusion in organic farming. Growing pea as a sole crop is a challenge since its stem is prone to lodging thereby resulting in harvesting difficulties, reduced yield and decreased profits. Intercropping of pea with oat could minimize the above listed problems but to our knowledge proportion of seeds mixture of the two crops and selection of pea cultivars without compromising the pea yield, especially protein production, at high latitudes conditions is limited. Therefore, our objective was to evaluate performance of sole cropped pea (Karita, Perttu, Hulda) and oat (seed proportions 7.5% and 15%) and their intercrop combinations and establish an appropriate seed mixture for a pea–oat intercropping systems that prevents lodging without markedly reducing pea yield. Field experiments were conducted at three locations (Jokioinen, Mietoinen, Ylistaro) of the Agrifood Research Finland in 2002–2004. Intercropping peas with oats prevented peas from lodging and made their harvest easier. Optimal numbers of oats in pea intercrops were difficult to determine, varying according to pea cultivar and local growth conditions. Excess oats in the seed mixture or conditions favouring oat growth prevented peas from lodging but pea yield was decreased.

Phenotypic plasticity of yield and agronomic traits in cereals and rapeseed at high latitudes

In the northernmost European environments of Finland, large variability in the yield and quality of crops is a critical source of uncertainty for growers and end-users of grain. The aims of this study were (i) to quantify and compare the plasticity, i.e., cultivar responsiveness to environment, in yield of spring oat, spring wheat, six-row barley, two-row barley, winter rye, winter wheat, turnip rape and oilseed rape, (ii) to explore the existence of hierarchies or positive correlations in the plasticity of agronomic, yield and quality traits and (iii) to probe for trends in yield plasticity associated with different eras of breeding for yield potential and agronomic traits. Plasticities of yield, agronomic and quality traits were derived as slopes of norms of reaction using MTT Agrifood Research Finland data sets combining long-term (1970–2008 for cereals and 1976–2008 for rapeseed) results from 15 to 26 locations. Plasticity of yield ranged typically between 0.8 and 1.2, was smallest for six-row barley (0.84–1.11) and largest for winter rye (0.72–1.36). We found two types of associations between plasticity of yield and yield under stressful or favourable conditions for cereals but none for rape. In spring wheat, oat and six-row barley, high yield plasticity was associated with crop responsiveness to favourable conditions rather than yield reductions under stressful conditions. Modern spring wheat cultivars had higher maximum grain yields compared to older ones at the same level of plasticity. In winter wheat and rye, high yield plasticity resulted from the combination of high yield in favourable conditions and low yield in stressful environments. Many associations between yield plasticity and other traits were identified in cereals: e.g., high yield plasticity was often associated with higher grain weight, more grains per square meter, later maturity (contrary to turnip rape), shorter plants, less lodging and lower grain protein content and in winter cereals with higher winter damage.

Operational mark–release–recapture field tests comparing competitiveness of wild and differentially mass-reared codling moths from the Okanagan–Kootenay sterile insect program

AbstractPheromone trap catches and mating activity of sterile, mass-reared, diapaused and non-diapaused male codling moths, Cydia pomonella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), were compared with those of wild diapaused males using mark–release–recapture field experiments in springtime. Sterile moths were provided by the Okanagan–Kootenay Sterile Insect Release (SIR) Program mass-rearing facility, in Osoyoos, British Columbia, Canada. Nondiapause-reared (SIR-standard) and diapause-reared (SIR-diapaused) sterile males were recaptured in similar frequencies. Both types of sterile males were recaptured significantly less often than similarly released wild diapaused males, and ratios of recaptured sterile to wild males were similar with either sterile male. Ratios of sterile to wild males, using the combined catches of SIR-standard and SIR-diapaused males, were significantly lower when measured with traps baited with wild-females (21:1) than with traps baited with 10 μg pheromone (48:1). Both trapping ratios were markedly lower than the 80:1 ratio at which sterile and wild males were released. In mating studies, SIR-standard and SIR-diapaused males exhibited equivalent mating frequencies and both were recaptured in copula with tethered wild females significantly less often than released wild males. In the same mating studies, sterile mass-reared, diapaused males that had been chilled for 3 h at the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre (PARC) before release (PARC-diapaused) were significantly more competitive than SIR-standard or SIR-diapaused males that averaged 24 h of chilling as part of normal SIR Program operations. PARC-diapaused males and released wild males mated with tethered females with equal frequency. We hypothesize that the length of time SIR males were chilled before being released may have caused SIR-diapaused males to be less mobile, and therefore less competitive with wild males in field mating assays, than were PARC-diapaused males. Based on these results, introduction of a diapause phase into the mass-rearing system used at the Osoyoos facility cannot currently be recommended as a means of improving trap-measured ratios of sterile to wild males, or increasing sterile × wild matings.

‘Monrepos’, a Plum Rootstock for Cherries

‘Monrepos’ is a Prunus-plum rootstock developed at the Agri-Food Research and Technology Center of Aragon (CITA), Zaragoza, Spain, for use as a rootstock for sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.). Cherry rootstock research over the last decade has been focused more on rootstock evaluation than on breeding new rootstocks (Hrotko, 2008). Initially, dwarfing potential was the main focus for cherry rootstocks breeding programs. However, many challenges remain to be addressed in the areas of adaptation to biotic and abiotic stresses, graft compatibility, and rootstock influence on scion performance and fruit quality. In Spain and other Mediterranean countries, Prunus mahaleb L. (St Lucie) and its clone, SL 64, are widely used as cherry rootstocks in gravelly, well-drained, droughty, and calcareous soils. However, P. mahaleb L. rootstocks are unsuitable on heavy soils or where waterlogging occurs. In heavy soils or when replanting old orchard soils, P. cerasus (CAB series), MxM 14, and Adara (P. cerasifera L.) can reduce the problem of soil fungi in some circumstances (Perez, 2005), although some cherry cultivars are incompatible. New rootstocks suitable for use with sweet cherry are needed to solve the problems of soil adaptation, vigor, and graft incompatibility of the traditionally used rootstocks (Hormaza and Gella, 1996; Sansavini and Lugli, 2008). ‘Monrepos’ was selected from eight initial clones, because it shows good compatibility with a wide range of cherry cultivars, good adaptation to calcareous and heavy soils with high lime content, high productivity, and good rooting aptitude. In a flood-irrigated trial established in calcareous soil, pH 8.3 with active lime content and clay-loam texture, the clone was highly productive. Plants propagate well by in vitro and hardwood cuttings methods that makes it a valuable rootstock for small propagator companies or the largest producers of fruit rootstocks. ‘Monrepos’ offers a better production alternative for cherry cultivars, especially in heavy soils under flood irrigation conditions where other traditional cherry rootstocks fail to survive.

SPC103 (Sentennial™) sweet cherry

Kappel, F., MacDonald, R. A., Brownlee, R. T. and McKenzie, D.-L. 2011 SPC103 (Sentennial™) sweet cherry. Can. J. Plant Sci. 91: 179–181. SPC103 (Sentennial™) is a sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) that has been released by the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre (PARC-Summerland), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Summerland, BC, as part of the ongoing sweet cherry breeding program that began in 1936. Sentennial™ is the latest maturing cultivar released from PARC-Summerland and has very good fruit size and firmness. It was released to growers for advanced commercial testing in 2006. The name Sentennial™ was chosen in honour of the District of Summerland's centennial year in 2006 and it was spelled with an “S” to maintain the tradition of starting most cherry cultivar names from the Summerland breeding program with an “S”.

New Ways of Working and Organization: Alternative Agrifood Movements and Agrifood Researchers

The remarkable growth of alternative agrifood movements—organics, fair trade, localism, Slow Food, farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture, food security, food safety, food sovereignty, anti–genetically modified organisms, animal welfare, and others—and their attraction to younger academic scholars offer a unique opportunity to explore ways to strengthen such movements utilizing the structural position and distinctive skills of academic researchers. The various movements constitute the major resource; sympathetic academic researchers are a second resource. Mobilizing these two resources in a new organization, the Alternative Agrifood Researchers without Borders, has the potential to contribute to strengthening the movements and their original progressive orientations and advancing civil society. To be effective, a new organization should parallel existing structures in state and market but focus on progressive goals aimed at reducing inequalities and expanding political and social participation. In building a body of literature usable for comparative analysis, the goal should be more effective alternative agrifood movements providing better services to broader global constituencies while simultaneously improving academic research quality. I draw on three social theories—resource mobilization, strategic intervention, and structural parallelism—to encourage careful revision of established academic paradigms.

Developmental Impact Evaluation for Facilitating Learning in Innovation Networks

Innovations and new project ideas often emerge in networks of researchers, users of research, and societal actors. This article analyzes and discusses how research scientists learn to conduct research that has an impact on their clients, scientific community, and society. We describe a new developmental impact evaluation method based on the theory of expansive learning. The pilot process was conducted for bioenergy researchers at MTT Agrifood Research Finland. Developmental impact evaluation offers networks a process for evaluating completed projects, learning from them, and constructing a new research concept via pilot projects. The method opens up the concept of ‘research impact’ as a qualitative learning challenge, rather than an accountable target to be judged. It may be adopted as a continuous way of managing and renewing cross-disciplinary research programs, research groups, or networks.

Cereal Yield Modeling in Finland Using Optical and Radar Remote Sensing

During 1996–2006, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Finland (MAFF), MTT Agrifood Research and the Finnish Geodetic Institute performed a joint remote sensing satellite research project. It evaluated the applicability of optical satellite (Landsat, SPOT) data for cereal yield estimations in the annual crop inventory program. Four Optical Vegetation Indices models (I: Infrared polynomial, II: NDVI, III: GEMI, IV: PARND/FAPAR) were validated to estimate cereal baseline yield levels (yb) using solely optical harmonized satellite data (Optical Minimum Dataset). The optimized Model II (NDVI) yb level was 4,240 kg/ha (R2 0.73, RMSE 297 kg/ha) for wheat and 4390 kg/ha (R2 0.61, RMSE 449 kg/ha) for barley and Model I yb was 3,480 kg/ha for oats (R2 0.76, RMSE 258 kg/ha). Optical VGI yield estimates were validated with CropWatN crop model yield estimates using SPOT and NOAA data (mean R2 0.71, RMSE 436 kg/ha) and with composite SAR/ASAR and NDVI models (mean R2 0.61, RMSE 402 kg/ha) using both reflectance and backscattering data. CropWatN and Composite SAR/ASAR & NDVI model mean yields were 4,754/4,170 kg/ha for wheat, 4,192/3,848 kg/ha for barley and 4,992/2,935 kg/ha for oats.

Agrifood research in Europe: a global perspective

The paper has the general aim of assessing the worldwide research activity in agricultural and food science and technology as it is reflected by the mainstream journal literature. The specific research questions were as follows: (1) What is the position of the European Research Area (ERA) represented by 33 countries in this study, on the world map of agrifood science publications? (2) Which countries are influential and what is their position? (3) Are there any specific European strengths and weaknesses by subfields of agrifood science? Overall, assessed by the total number of publications, the European Research Area (ERA), represented by 33 countries in this study, is in a dominant position on the world map of agrifood science. However, agrifood publications from the United States are more influential (judged by the average citation rates per paper). Correlation has been found between economic power and agrifood science publications: this is true not only for the total number of papers, but also for influence (measured by, again, the citation rates). Within Europe, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands dominate the agrifood research fields also in terms of citations. The Scandinavian countries, the Benelux states and Switzerland manage to produce influential papers across several fields of agrifood science. The EU's New Member States--a populous area--together have less than 10% share in Europe's agrifood publications and in citations they account for a 3---4% portion only. It seems that deepening of the integration of the national research systems in the European Research Area is desirable to have more impact of European agrifood research viewed from a global perspective.

Escaping the Local Trap: Insights on Re-localization from School Food Reform

Building on the stimulating critique of normative views of scale provided by the literature on the ‘local trap’, some agri-food researchers have recently argued that local food initiatives (including, for example, American Farm-to-School programs) reproduce neo-liberal values and forms of governance. By focusing on school food reform in two devolved sites of the UK, this paper aims to show that, even when embedded in the power dynamics and values of neo-liberalism, the local can produce sustainable development outcomes. This raises the need for an inductive research approach that assesses the merits (or lack of) of localism in the concrete—while also taking into account the role of the State as a new powerful actor on the agri-food scene.

EVALUATION OF ACCESSIONS OF BERGENIA SPECIES FOR HIGH ARBUTIN CONTENT AND HIGH LEAF YIELD

Thirty accessions of Bergenia sp. collected from private gardens around Mikkeli, South-Finland were evaluated under field conditions for leaf biomass potential and arbutin content of dry leaf yield. The experiment was carried out in MTT Agrifood Research Finland Mikkeli (61°44'N, 27°18E) during 2005-2007. Ten accessions were Bergenia crassifolia, 14 were Bergenia cordifolia and 6 were hybrids of B. crassifolia × B. cordifolia. The arbutin content of the B. cordifolia accessions was much lower (4.9-7.2%), than that of the B. crassifolia or hybrid accessions (6.2-11.28%). 4 accessions of B. crassifolia and 1 hybrid accession showed high contents of arbutin (11.5-13.3%) and were chosen for mass propagation. The accessions with high arbutin contents produced quite high leaf yields, 1.5-2.8 kg/m. The fresh leaf yield of the Bergenia accessions was increased by the age of the plants. The average leaf yield in the first year was 0.865 kg/m raw, which was doubled (1.64 kg/m) in the 2 nd year. The yield of 3-year-old plants, which had not been harvested in 2006, was the highest, 2.56 kg/m. The selected accessions have been included into the gene collection of MTT Mikkeli and the propagation materials of the best accessions have been transferred to special plant growers for contract production.

Integrating Vegetation Indices Models and Phenological Classification with Composite SAR and Optical Data for Cereal Yield Estimation in Finland (Part I)

During 1996–2006 the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Finland, MTT Agrifood Research Finland and the Finnish Geodetic Institute carried out a joint remote sensing satellite research project. It evaluated the applicability of composite multispectral SAR and optical satellite data for cereal yield estimations in the annual crop inventory program. Three Vegetation Indices models (VGI, Infrared polynomial, NDVI and Composite multispetral SAR and NDVI) were validated to estimate cereal yield levels using solely optical and SAR satellite data (Composite Minimum Dataset). The average R2 for cereal yield (yb) was 0.627. The averaged composite SAR modeled grain yield level was 3,750 kg/ha (RMSE = 10.3%, 387 kg/ha) for high latitude spring cereals (4,018 kg/ha for spring wheat, 4,037 kg/ha for barley and 3,151 kg/ha for oats).

The Transformation of Food Retail in the Philippines

From a small base by the end of the 1990s, modern retail (the chains selling at least some food) in the Philippines grew very rapidly in the 2000s, at thrice the rate of the country's GDP growth. Reaching 13 billion USD of overall sales by 2010, 5.25 billion USD of this amount came from food sales. While much of the policy debate about market development focuses on export markets, we will show that supermarkets in the Philippines already sell twice the value (volume priced at export prices) of food that is exported – and modern retail is growing faster. Modern retail has reached 45 percent of urban food retail – already beyond the share of the middle class in the population, and about 35 percent of the national food market – from a tiny fraction of that figure two decades ago. Modern food retail is itself rapidly transforming – with a rise of fresh produce sales, industry concentration, format diversification off-mall into formats that permit greater market penetration, and emerging procurement system modernization. While traditional food retail (and even most aspects of modern food retail) in the Philippines track international experience, the lack of major foreign presence even after retail foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization in 2000 is a puzzle about which we present hypotheses. Given the already large and increasing importance of food retail modernization in the Philippines, this theme should enter the agrifood research mainstream and be the subject of systematic field surv