Caroline Hambloch leads the DFG Junior Research Group, “Local Labor Struggles in Global Value Chains,” at the University of Bonn, Germany. Her research examines the political economy of labor regimes in global value chains and global production networks, contract farming, and labor exploitation and agency. She holds a PhD in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.Niels Fold is Professor at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. His research addresses the relationship between economic-geographic globalization processes and local responses in the Global South, primarily examined through the analytical lens of global value chains (GVCs) and livelihoods.Sudha Narayanan is a Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi. She holds a PhD in agricultural economics from Cornell University and dual master’s degrees in economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India. Her recent work includes a book titled Contract Farming in Developing Countries: The Promise and Its Perils.Mark Vicol is Associate Professor of Agrarian Sociology in the Rural Sociology Group and co-coordinator of the Critical Agrarian Studies research cluster at Wageningen University. His research and teaching focuses on the everyday political economy of agrarian change and the politics of agricultural transitions.

• 1 Introduction: Contract farming and development; PART I Concepts and methods; 2 Contract farming and the agrarian question: Some reflections on contracts and capital; 3 New institutional economics perspectives on contract farming; 4 Contract farming and the selection problem: An econometric dilemma; 5 Meta-analysis of contract farming: Toward realist synthesis; 6 Contract farming in global value chains and global production networks; 7 Political ecology perspectives on contract farming: Environmental crises; 8 Contract farming and development discourses: A historical overview; PART II Actors; 9 Workers and labor regimes in contract farming; 10 Cooperatives and contract farming arrangements; 11 Contracting farming schemes and the diversity of scale and factions of capital; 12 Contract farming, intermediaries and oral enforcement of contracts; 13 Diversity of traders: Middle-people, petty traders and big traders; 14 Supermarkets and contract farming; 15 The state and contract farming in Africa; PART III Dynamics; 16 Contract farming and terms of the contract: A review of best practices; 17 Contracts in the real world; 18 Inclusion of smallholders in contract farming; 19 Inclusive business models and contract farming; 20 Agricultural intensification and informal contract farming; 21 Why do retail chains contract with so few farmers?; 22 Regional economic development and contract farming; 23 Land reform and contract farming; 24 Land grabbing and contract farming; 25 Land, land rentals and contract farming; 26 Plant pathogens, power and contract farming; 27 Credit and indebtedness in contract farming; 28 Exploitation in contract farming; 29 Resistance and contract farming; 30 Contract farming and social movements; PART IV Regional patterns; 31 Contract farming in Sub-Saharan Africa; 32 Contract farming in South Asia; 33 Contract farming in China; 34 Contract farming in Latin America; 35 Contract farming in Central Asia; 36 Contract farming in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia