College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

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Thomas Reardon is a University Distinguished Professor at the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics (AFRE) at MSU. Tom is Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and Honorary Lifetime Member (equivalent of Fellow) of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). Tom was the first agricultural economist to be invited in individual capacity to the World Economic Forum at Davos, in 2009 and to be featured on the front page of the New York Times, in 2005. Tom has 50,685 citations and an h-index of 103 in Google Scholar as of April 2025; is listed in the Who’s Who of Economics; and is ranked in the top 1.7% globally of the 72,000 economists followed by IDEAS/REPEC.

Tom joined MSU in 1992; was International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Research Fellow in Washington DC1986-1991; and Rockefeller Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow with IFPRI in Burkina Faso 1984-1986. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1984, and two masters degrees, one from the Université de Nice, and one from the School of International Affairs (now SIPA) at Columbia University. Tom is also Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at IFPRI since 2022.

Tom has published in top (A, A*) economics and field journals such as Journal of Economic Literature (1 time); Journal of Economic Geography (1 time); American Journal of Agricultural Economics (12 times); Agricultural Economics, IAAE (12 times); Food Policy (21 times); Annual Review of Resource Economics (3 times). Tom has also published in top (A, A*) interdisciplinary journals such as Science (3 times); Nature Food (3 times); Nature Sustainability (2 times); World Development (18 times), Agricultural Systems (3 times); Aquaculture (3 times); Applied Energy (1); Obesity Reviews (1); Economic Development and Cultural Change (1).

Tom teaches the graduate course AFRE 841 on food system organization and the undergraduate course AFRE 427 on international food markets and industries. He mentors doctoral and masters students (100 since 1992).  

Tom researches the transformation of food value chains: (1) the “supermarket revolution” and the "food service revolution" (2) the “Quiet Revolution” in the “Hidden Middle”, a term coined by him for SMEs in the midstream of value chains, and the rapid development of wholesalers, wholesale markets, processors, and logistics firms; (3) R&D and farm inputs supply chain transformation; (4) e-commerce and food delivery intermediaries. He studies the impacts of these transformations on food industry business strategies, on farm commercialization and technology choices, on consumption/nutrition, and on farm sector employment. Tom also researches “Rural Nonfarm Employment” inside and outside of food systems. 

Tom works mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and has stayed 21 years in those regions. His current field survey projects and primary data analysis are in India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania.

Selected articles:

Reardon, T. 2025. Rocking the Boat to Change the Debate: Identifying and Testing Conventional Wisdom. Agricultural Economics. e70014.

Belton, B., P. Fang, T. Reardon. 2025. Combine harvester outsourcing services and seasonal rural non-farm employment in Myanmar. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy.  47(1), March: 97-124.

Swinnen, J., L. Ronchi, T. Reardon. 2024. Harnessing agrifood value chains to help farmers be climate smart. Science. 386(6725). Policy Forum. 29 November: 974-977.   

Belton, B., A. Cho, M. Hall, B. Minten, T. Reardon. 2024. Wholesalers and the transformation of Myanmar's maize value chains. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. November 28: 1-29.

Reardon, T., T. Awokuse, B. Belton, L.S.O. Liverpool-Tasie, B. Minten, G. Nguyen, S. Qanti, J. Swinnen, R. Vos, D. Zilberman. 2024. Emerging outsource agricultural services enable farmer adaptation in agrifood value chains: A product cycle perspective. Food Policy. 127: 102711.  

Hazell,  P., S. Haggblade, T. Reardon. 2024. Transformation of the rural nonfarm economy during rapid urbanization & structural transformation in developing regions. Annual Review of Resource Economics. 16, July:14.1–14.23.     

Meemken, E-M., D. Charlton, L. Christiaensen, M. Maertens, C. Oya, T. Reardon, H. Stemmler. 2024. Better data and knowledge for decent work in the global food system. Nature Food. 18.  

Reardon, T., L.S.O. Liverpool-Tasie, B. Belton, M. Dolislager, B. Minten, B.  Popkin, R. Vos. 2024. African domestic supply booms in value chains of fruits, vegetables, and animal products fueled by spontaneous clusters of SMEs. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. 46(2), June: 390-413.

Dzanku, F.M., L.S.O. Liverpool-Tasie, T. Reardon. 2024. The Importance and determinants of purchases in rural food consumption in Africa: Implications for food security strategies. Global Food Security 40: 100739.

Barrett, C.B., T. Reardon, J. Swinnen, D. Zilberman. 2022. Agri-food Value Chain Revolutions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Journal of Economic Literature. 60(4): 1316-1377. 

Macchiavello, R., T. Reardon, T. Richards. 2022. Empirical Industrial Organization Economics to Analyze Developing Country Food Value Chains. Annual Review of Resource Economics. 14, October: 193-220.

Meemken, E-M., M.F. Bellemare, T. Reardon, C.M. Vargas. 2022. Research and policy for the food-delivery revolution. Science. 377(6608), August: 810-813.

Zilberman, D., T. Reardon, J. Silver, L. Lu, A. Heiman. 2022. From the Lab to the Consumer: Innovation, Supply Chain, and Adoption with Applications to Natural Resources. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA (PNAS). 119(23): e2115880119.

3Reardon, T., L.S.O. Liverpool-Tasie, B. Minten. 2021. Quiet Revolution by SMEs in the midstream of value chains in developing regions: wholesale markets, wholesalers, logistics, and processing. Food Security. 13: 1577-1594.

Sauer, C.M., T. Reardon, D. Tschirley, S. Liverpool-Tasie, T. Awokuse, R. Alphonce, D. Ndyetabula, & B. Waized.  2021. Consumption of processed food & food away from home in big cities, small towns, and rural areas of Tanzania. Agricultural Economics, 1-22. 

Reardon, T., A. Heiman, L. Lu, CSR Nuthalapati, R. Vos, D. Zilberman. 2021. “Pivoting” by food industry firms to cope with COVID-19 in developing regions:  e-commerce and “co-pivoting” delivery-intermediaries. Agricultural Economics. 52(3), June.