Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies – IAMO
Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies – IAMO (www.iamo.de), established in 1994, is a foundation under public law that provides applied research in agricultural economics, trains scholars, and acts as a forum for scientific exchange. IAMO investigates the development of agri-food sectors and rural areas, particularly in the New Member States of the European Union, candidates and potential candidate countries, as well as other transition issues in countries and regions in Central Asia, and China. Research at IAMO focuses on policy reform and institutional change, the development of agricultural markets, and structural changes in rural areas regarding agricultural and food enterprises. Particular emphasis is placed on changes caused by transition. IAMO has recently collaborated on many European projects that focus on structural change in rural areas, agriculture, farms and agri-food supply chains. For example, IAMO coordinates an interdisciplinary project: Global Food Security and Grain Markets in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan (GERUKA). Also, IAMO is coordinating large EU (FP 7) projects such as: International comparison of product chains in the agrofood sectors: determinants of their competitiveness and performance on EU and international markets (COMPETE); Exploring the potential of agricultural and biomass trade in the Commonwealth of Independent States (AGRICISTRADE). IAMO has been a partner in AgriPolicy Network under FP7 as well as other FP6 Projects including: MEA-Scope; IDEMA; and FOODCOMM. In addition, IAMO manages several projects funded by national sources (e.g. German Research Council or Volkswagen Foundation).
IAMO is leading WP5 on upstream and downstream food chain analysis and will contribute to the work of other WPs. The main involvement will be within the WP5 where IAMO is responsible for the tasks: 5.4 Food supply chain organisation, price formation and market power; 5.5 Persistence of supply chain relations; 5.6 Economies of scale and technical change along the food supply chains. Furthermore, IAMO will be directly involved in data collection (e.g. surveys), and will actively support other WPs concerning modelling, scenarios creation, and dissemination of the results.