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

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Tom Reardon is a University Distinguished Professor at the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics (AFRE) at MSU. He 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 researches and teaches about the transformation of food value chains: (1) the “supermarket revolution” and the "food service revolution" (2) the “Quiet Revolution” in the “Hidden Middle”, the latter 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) fruit breeding sector coevolution with product value chains; (4) outsource agricultural services supply chains; (5) 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. He also researches the fruit breeding and supermarket retail of produce in the US. His current field survey projects and primary data analysis are in India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania.

Tom was elected in 2014 as Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and elected in 2021 as 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 published in top economics and field journals such as Journal of Economic Literature; Journal of Economic Geography; American Journal of Agricultural Economics; Agricultural Economics, IAAE; Food Policy; and Annual Review of Resource Economics. Tom has also published in top interdisciplinary journals such as Science; Nature Food; Nature Sustainability; World Development, Agricultural Systems; Aquaculture; Applied Energy; Obesity Reviews; and Economic Development and Cultural Change.

Tom ranks in the top 5 agricultural economists globally in Google Scholar, with 54,668 citations and an h-index of 107 of May 2026; he has 10 articles with more than 1000 citations (the highest number globally in agricultural economics). He is listed in the Who’s Who of Economics; and is ranked in the top 1.7% globally of the 75,000 economists followed by IDEAS/REPEC. He and coauthors received the AAEA award for Publication of Enduring Quality in 2026, Quality of Communication in 2025, Honorable Mention for Enduring Quality in 2019. In 2021 the AAEA charged the Tom Reardon Appreciation Club and in 2025  UC Berkeley ARE selected Tom as “Alumnus of the Year” (joining the list of prior awardees including Dennis Aigner, Richard Just, Gershon Feder, and Jill McCluskey)

Tom’s graduate teaching is focused on system organization and his undergraduate teaching on international food markets and industries. He has mentored more than 100 doctoral and masters students since 1992.  

Selected articles:

Belton, B., L. Baldiga, S. Justice, B. Minten, S. Narayanan, T. Reardon. 2025. Can the global drone revolution make agriculture more sustainable? Science. September 4: 972-976.

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

Swinnen, J., L. Ronchi, T. Reardon. 2024. Harnessing agrifood value chains to help farmers be climate smart. Science. 386: 974-977. 

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. 

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: 810-813.

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

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.

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.

Reardon, 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.

Belton, B., T. Reardon, D. Zilberman. 2020. Sustainable commoditization in seafood. Nature Sustainability. May 18.

Lu, L., T. Reardon. 2018. An Economic Model of the Evolution of Food Retail and Supply Chains from Traditional Shops to Supermarkets to e-Commerce. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 100(5), October: 1320–1335.

Reardon, T. 2015. The Hidden Middle: The Quiet Revolution in the Midstream of Agrifood Value Chains in Developing Countries. Oxford Review of Economic Policy.31(1), Spring: 45-63.

Reardon, T. and CP Timmer. 2012. The Economics of the Food System Revolution. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 4: 225-264.

Reardon, T., C.P. Timmer, B. Minten. 2010. Supermarket Revolution in Asia and Emerging Development Strategies to Include Small Farmers. PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA. 109 (31), July 31: 12332-12337.