Journal of Experimental Agriculture International

Inclusive agribusiness is increasingly proposed as a means of connecting smallholder farmers to remunerative markets while improving the distribution of benefits within agricultural value chains. Yet participation, commercial upgrading and equity are analytically distinct outcomes, and improvements in one do not reliably secure the others. This critical narrative review examines the institutional designs, value-creation mechanisms and distributional consequences of contract farming, producer organisations, coordinated value chains, sustainability certification and digitally mediated market services. Peer-reviewed theoretical, observational, quasi-experimental, experimental and review evidence was assessed with attention to selection, counterfactual validity, contract governance, heterogeneity and geographical transferability. The evidence indicates that coordinated marketing can reduce transaction costs, support quality upgrading and improve access to inputs or information. Nevertheless, observed income gains are contingent on crop characteristics, procurement reliability, bargaining conditions and who is able to enter and remain in a scheme. Stronger causal evidence exists for particular contractual and information interventions than for the broader claim that inclusive business models routinely reduce inequality. Commercial standards may provide price or market advantages while excluding farmers unable to finance compliance. Cooperatives can improve coordination but may reproduce unequal membership and representation. Gendered work, payment arrangements, dependency on powerful buyers and governance of farmers' digital data remain insufficiently captured by conventional farm-income evaluations. This review develops a four-gate analytical perspective that distinguishes access, contractual terms, effective voice and durable benefits, and argues for evaluating the distribution of value and risk across participants and those excluded. Research priorities include longitudinal and experimental comparisons of governance features, disaggregated welfare and labour measures, transparent accounting of value captured along chains, and assessment of resilience under buyer withdrawal or climatic disruption. Inclusiveness should therefore be treated as a verifiable property of institutions and outcomes, not as a label attached to market participation.