This chapter serves as an introduction to the book and therefore depicts the main features of the two main concepts that this book endeavours to link, i.e. agri-chain transformations and sustainable development. It first discusses the origins of the concepts of Filière, supply chain and value chain, which the term agri-chain used in this book encompasses, their rationale and the evolution of the associated development approaches in Southern countries. It then examines the emergence, enrichment and dissemination of the concept and agenda of sustainable development in the political and economic world; and it discusses its implications and manifestations in agriculture. The chapter concludes with presenting the different parts of the book, which reflect the different facets of the links between agri-chains and sustainable development: the agri-chains as vectors of development, as spaces of innovation, as objects of evaluation, and as arenas of regulation. This book proposes to address these issues of sustainable development, from the perspective of tropical agri-chains in their wider sense (agriculture, livestock farming, forestry).