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Humphrey J. and Schmitz H. (2002) How does insertion in global value chains affect upgrading in industrial clusters?, Reg. Studies 36, 1017-1027. What is the scope for local upgrading strategies where producers operate in global value chains? The literature on industrial clusters emphasizes the role of inter-firm co-operation and local institutions in enabling upgrading. The value chain literature focuses on the role of global buyers and chain governance in defining upgrading opportunities. This paper argues that clusters are inserted into global value chains in different ways, and that this has consequences for enabling or disabling local-level upgrading efforts. It pays particular attention to the position of developing country firms selling to large, global buyers.Clusters, Value chains, Competitiveness, Upgrading, Developing countries,

Production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub-

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The increasing prevalence of private standards governing food safety, food quality and environmental and social impacts of agri-food systems has raised concerns about the effects on developing countries, as well as the governance of agri-food value chains more broadly. It is argued that current debates have been 'clouded' by a failure to recognise the diversity of private standards in terms of their institutional form, who develops and adopts these standards and why. In particular, there is a need to appreciate the close inter-relationships between public regulations and private standards and the continuing ways in which private standards evolve.

Summaries The concept of ‘governance’ is central to the global value chain approach. This article explains what it means and why it matters for development research and policy. The concept is used to refer to the inter‐firm relationships and institutional mechanisms through which non‐market co‐ordination of activities in the chain takes place. This co‐ordination is achieved through the setting and enforcement of product and process parameters to be met by actors in the chain. In global value chains in which developing country producers typically operate, buyers play an important role in setting and enforcing these parameters. They set these parameters because of the (perceived) risk of producer failure. Product and process parameters are also set by government agencies and inter‐national organisations concerned with quality standards or labour and environmental standards. To the extent that external parameter setting and enforcement develop and gain credibility, the need for governance by buyers within the chain will decline.

IntroductionThe trade in fresh vegetables between Kenya and the United Kingdom has grown rapidly in the past two decades. This growth has been accompanied by drastic restructuring. Major elements of the industry have been transformed in response to regulatory and private governance changes and new directions in product quality and logistics management. Loose trading relationships in wholesale markets have been replaced by tightly structured supply chains, with a handful of large retailers sourcing from a small number of Kenyan exporters.One way to understand the nature of these processes and their continued evolution is to look to the literature on global value chains. This analysis emerged initially out of a recognition of the role of global buyers in creating global production and marketing networks. It has become an analytical approach that explains why different types of global production and distribution networks arise and how they are coordinated. In this paper we analyse the Kenya^United Kingdom fresh vegetable trade from a global value chain perspective. In section 2 we present the concept of governance in value chains and then, in section 3, we explain why the horticulture trade has changed and, in section 4, we discuss the consequences of this change for the structure of horticultural production and processing in Africa. We then consider, in section 5, the possible outcomes of two current trends in the UK horticulture industry: the shift from company to generic standards and the introduction of category management by the leading supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Governance in global value chainsIn this paper we are concerned with the way in which linkages between producers and exporters of fresh vegetables in certain African countries and leading importers and retailers of fresh produce in the United Kingdom changed over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1970s, this trade was conducted predominantly through arm's-length

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