Abstract. Under the communist regime, consumers in Central and Eastern Europe bought most of their food in state-run retail shops and cooperatives as well as some fresh foods in private shops and green-markets. During the transition period in the 1990s, the retail sector was privatized, and some domestic-capital supermarket chains gradually emerged. In the late 1990s and 2000s massive inflows of foreign direct investment in retail and competitive domestic investments pushed a rapid takeoff of large format modern retail sector development. For example, in what we term “first wave ” countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary, the supermarket sector went from a tiny “luxury ” niche of around 5% of food retail in the mid 1990s to 40-50 % by 2003; in the “second wave ” countries such as Bulgaria and Croatia, the share is now 20-40%, and in the “third wave ” countries such as Russia, it is now only 5 % but, as in the other countries, growing very fast. In most of the countries there is rapid multi-nationalization and consolidation of the supermarket sector. Moreover, the food product procurement systems of supermarkets differ substantially from those of traditional retail, whether state or private. The changes in procurement systems include: (1) a shift from local store-by-store procurement to nationally centralized big

The character of the food system and the nature of food policy are both changing, as urbanisation, technical change and the industrialisation of the food system transform the way food is produced, marketed and consumed in developing countries. This overview presents an evaluation framework and explores new policy options. Some issues feature more prominently in richer, more urbanised, more industrialised developing countries, but the new food policy agenda is relevant in all countries – and it is in the poorest countries where challenges are set to emerge most rapidly. The agenda is more one of ‘food policy ’ than ‘food security’: developing countries need both, but particularly a greater engagement with the new food policy. Remember ‘food policy’? It is what some of us used to do before we discovered ‘food security’. The very term ‘food policy ’ induces nostalgia for the 1970s and early 1980s: the first meetings of the World Food Council (following the World Food Conference in

Urbanization and globalization may enhance access to non traditional foods as a result of changing prices and production practices, as well as trade and marketing practices. These forces have influenced dietary patterns throughout the developing world. Longitudinal case study data from China indicate that consumption patterns closely reflect changes in availability, and that potentially obesogenic dietary patterns are emerging, with especially large changes in rural areas with high levels of urban infrastructure and resources. Recent data on women from 36 developing countries illustrate that these dietary shifts may have implications for overweight/obesity in urban and rural settings. These data emphasize the importance of developing country policies that include preventive measures to minimize further adverse shifts in diet and activity, and risk of continued rises in overweight.

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high-value agriculture and modern marketing channels on poverty:

Peasant agriculture has been neglected as modern farming occupied its space in the production of basic foods. Exclusion of smallholders in LDCs is the outcome of declining prices for basic foods now produced and marketed globally by developed countries. This is an effect of globalization: it responds to advances in information technologies, communications, and biotechnology. Productivity gains in capital intensive agriculture have evolved since the Green Revolution to today’s knowledge technology in agriculture. As productivity in modern farming depends on genetic improvement of crops, biodiversity is essential to maintain the pool of genes necessary for genetic engineering. Biodiversity is reduced because of the increasing space for cash crops in smallholder agriculture in response to declining prices, thus threatening the sustainability of modern farming. This paper suggests the concept of multifunctionality to compensate peasant farmers for biodiversity maintenance. It would be a mean of insertion of peasant agriculture into globalization. Key words: peasant agriculture, exclusion, knowledge agriculture, declining prices, biodiversity conservation, biotechnology.

Abstract. Under the communist regime, consumers in Central and Eastern Europe bought most of their food in state-run retail shops and cooperatives as well as some fresh foods in private shops and green-markets. During the transition period in the 1990s, the retail sector was privatized, and some domestic-capital supermarket chains gradually emerged. In the late 1990s and 2000s massive inflows of foreign direct investment in retail and competitive domestic investments pushed a rapid takeoff of large format modern retail sector development. For example, in what we term “first wave ” countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary, the supermarket sector went from a tiny “luxury ” niche of around 5% of food retail in the mid 1990s to 40-50 % by 2003; in the “second wave ” countries such as Bulgaria and Croatia, the share is now 20-40%, and in the “third wave ” countries such as Russia, it is now only 5 % but, as in the other countries, growing very fast. In most of the countries there is rapid multi-nationalization and consolidation of the supermarket sector. Moreover, the food product procurement systems of supermarkets differ substantially from those of traditional retail, whether state or private. The changes in procurement systems include: (1) a shift from local store-by-store procurement to nationally centralized big