1) Introduction (who and where) Integration to both domestic and international dynamic markets is still crucial for medium and small-sized producers in emerging economies. This market integration is determined by several endogenous and exogenous conditions with respect to producers themselves, which yields different levels of success within a specific sector. Transaction costs, price uncertainty, and lack of confidence along the agri-chain are some of the structural problems that hinder a better integration. As the agricultural policy over the past 20 years has been strongly biased toward the promotion of export-oriented cash crops, with little attention to important food crops for the Costa Rican population (i.e. rice, beans, horticulture in general). In the long term, food security in Costa Rica may be endangered by transaction costs and lack of a real public policy in this matter, while the country may progressively depend on the import of partially or totally processed food. Contract farming and the implementation of grades and standards (G&S) are two important instruments aimed to gain a better market integration. Contract farming has been mentioned in the literature as an instrument to considerably reduce transaction costs, and provide a better institutional environment for integration small and medium-sized producers into the market. On the other hand, G & S becomes an important complement of contracts for compliance of several clue issues, such as regularity and confidence on extrinsic products' characteristics (biosecurity, environmental effects), and improvement of social conditions at primary production level. Under certain conditions, both instruments can be part of a successful strategy to integrate producers into dynamic chains and assure sustainable production. Nevertheless, synergies and competition between contract and G&S strategy has been poorly documented. 2) Objective of the action (what) In this presentation we analyze two different