E-Commerce in Agribusiness: Transforming Agricultural Input and Food Markets in Emerging Economies

E-commerce is altering the organisation of agricultural input distribution, farm-output marketing and urban food procurement across emerging economies. Yet the proposition that digital platforms necessarily reduce intermediation, raise farm incomes and improve food-system efficiency is not established by the evidence as a whole. This critical narrative review examines transaction-based digital marketplaces, electronic agricultural auctions, input e-stores, digitally mediated procurement and consumer-facing food platforms, with attention to China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. Peer-reviewed empirical studies, reviews and selected methodological sources were purposively assessed for identification strategy, outcome validity, external relevance and conflicting results. The literature indicates that electronic commerce can broaden market reach, enable comparison of input offers, reorganise procurement and support sales continuity during disruptions. The magnitude and distribution of these benefits depend on logistics, verification of goods, intermediary services, buyer competition, digital capabilities and platform rules. A randomised expansion study in rural China found limited producer-income effects, whereas several observational and quasi-experimental studies report gains for selected participants; recent evidence also indicates diminishing returns, unequal benefits and adverse spillovers on offline farmers. Indian electronic agricultural markets demonstrate that price transparency does not guarantee effective cross-market competition, while African evidence documents both opportunities for input dealers and persistent fulfilment and trust constraints. Consumer-facing platforms complicate food-safety oversight and create new informational and nutritional concerns alongside possible improvements in monitoring. The synthesis advances an institutional transaction-chain framework that distinguishes online discovery from fulfilled, contestable and equitable trade. Policy evaluation should prioritise net margins, realised transactions, quality, distributional spillovers and durable market access rather than registrations or platform sales alone. Longer-term, independently evaluated comparisons across crop types and regions remain necessary before broad transformation claims are warranted.