Agribusiness System Research Articles

Modernizing African agribusiness: reflections for the future

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to look forward to explore the links between projected rapid rates of agribusiness expansion and Africa's economic growth, equity and spatial development.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws inferences from 30 years of agribusiness value chain research in Africa.FindingsAfrica's agribusinesses stand poised for exceptionally rapid growth over the coming 40 years. Because of strong interdependencies between agribusiness and agriculture, productivity growth in agribusiness systems will critically affect Africa's overall economic growth rate, its spatial development patterns and progress toward poverty reduction. But the necessary efficiency gains in agribusiness performance will not appear automatically. They will require substantial private investments, a competitive private sector and heightened public attention in areas where governments have historically proven weak: promoting regional trade, improving town and regional planning, financing scientific research, funding higher education and building commercially viable rural financial systems.Research limitations/implicationsResearchers can help by assembling empirical evidence in these topic areas and by examining value chain models that stimulate private sector investment, accelerate efficiency gains and facilitate access and egress by the poor.Originality/valueDrawing on 30 years of value chain research in Africa, the paper examines links between agribusiness trajectories and economic growth, equity and spatial development.

PERDAGANGAN UBIKAYU INDONESIA DI PASAR DUNIA (Indonesia Cassava Trade in World Market)

There are lack of information andmisunderstanding, amongeconomic agents in agriculture farming system related to cassava potencies as food, feed, and industrial resources in agribusiness system. There are, among others, due to assymetric information system for economic potential of cassava marketing system (export and domestic market) in Indonesia, as well as, the information of production and potencies of cassava market in Indonesia, export and domestic market. Economic strategic to develop strive the cassava productivity is feasible to fulfill export and domestic requirement. Information in production allocation and marketing system for export and domesti consumption of cassava will be useful to design strategies for the product development in order to support food security.Key words: Cassava; Production; Potencies; Export and domestic marketing system.

STRATEGI PENGEMBANGAN KELEMBAGAAN KOPERASI PERTANIAN BERBASIS JAGUNG DI PROVINSI GORONTALO

success of an integrate agribusiness system of a commodity must be followed by the increase of farmers’ bargain position, especially the small scale agribusiness runs by farmers. Otherwise, farmer will continue to be marginalized, and sustainable production is hard to be achieved. Farmer organization in Indonesia is relatively has weak position and cannot improve farmers’ bargain position since it is still in social institution form (i.e. farmer group), and yet become a socio-economic institution (cooperative). In many countries, farmers’ cooperative not only improves the production, productivity and product quality, but also lead to increase in welfare and life quality of its members. This study specifically aimed to develop corn farmer co-operative in Gorontalo Province. SWOT analysis was being used to formulate the strategy, followed by strategy mapping in road-map as guidance for local government to develop corn farmer co-operative that suitable with its character.Keyword: agribusiness, corn, farmer group, farmer co-operative, Gorontalo.

Governance and Coordination in Brazilian Beef Alliances: An Analysis Based on Transaction Cost and Relational Approaches

The research aimed at finding the link between the governance structures and the coordination in Brazilian beef alliances. The paper provides a review of the literature on the coordination of the Brazilian and International beef agribusiness system that shows the importance of adequate governance to the system’s players. The theoretical analysis is based upon the transaction cost economics in order to identify the transactions’ dimensions and on the concepts of relative scope and embeddedness to find the density of relations among agents. The analytical model makes use of the transactions cost dimensions – asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency in order to explain the choice for the alliance hybrid governance structure. The governance specificities of each alliance that arise from the leadership profile – cattle producers, breed association, pack industry, retailer – are explained by the combined analysis of members’ relative scope and embeddedness. The research methodology was based on multiple case studies with data obtained through interviews with alliances’ managers. The study found evidence that agents’ coordination is strengthened in same basis by cattle producers’ leadership in a horizontal network of dense relations, and also through retailer vertical control.

O desafio da coordenação e seus impactos sobre a competitividade de cadeias e sistemas agroindustriais

Este artigo pretende apresentar alguns dos conceitos de coordenação de sistemas agroindustriais (SAGs) e de competitividade entre cadeias, mais especificamente as cadeias de carnes (bovinos, suínos e aves). Em seguida, são analisados alguns exemplos recentes de diferentes formas de coordenação de SAGs e como elas afetam a competitividade entre as cadeias.

Protected geographical indications and integration into the agribusiness system

AbstractThe aim of this article is to analyze beef retailers' behavior with respect to the sale of beef under a protected geographical indication (PGI). The study was based on a survey of a representative sample of beef retailers in the Spanish region of Navarra, where there is a well‐established PGI. The data were then evaluated by means of logistic regression, in which the decision whether or not to sell PGI meat was explained by the set of variables drawn from the survey. The results show that the guarantee of quality provided by the PGI, the importance given by consumers to “origin” as a quality attribute, and the quality and conditions offered by the regular supplier, to be the main motivating factors behind the retailer's decision to join the PGI beef supply chain. [JEL Codes: Q01, Q12, Q13]. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Método para planejamento e gestão estratégica de sistemas agroindustriais (GESis)

The objective of this paper is to propose a method for strategic planning and management of agribusiness systems. For this, a literature review onsystems and networks, strategic planning and management methods, collective actions and contracts was done to design the preliminary method proposed. Empirically, applications of the method in Brazilian agribusiness systems (wheat, orange, and milk), also in Uruguay (wheat) and Argentina (milk), were done in the last five years. The final version proposed here already incorporates changes, suggestions and inputs got by the empirical research.

Testing market integration for Kenyan pineapples.

In this article, we analyzed the integration of pineapple markets using the Ravallion-type model with price data collected through personal interviews with thirty-one market actors from producing and consumption markets in Kenya. The market structure was found to be oligopsonistic in nature with aspects of collusion amongst the urban middlemen and local market traders thus barring further entry by other potential actors. There was little market integration between urban markets and producing markets, and very low or no integration between the remote producing markets. Market information flow between production and consumption markets influence integration. Highly integrated horticultural markets are likely to increase market efficiency through efficient resource allocation and price transmission which would result in lower transaction costs and increased incomes and profits to market actors. Improved marketing efficiency for fresh pineapple calls for improving integration process of the markets. We recommend deliberate efforts to promote market integration as a strategy for improving rural incomes since more incomes and profits would encourage more market actors to enter the marketing agribusiness system. Keywords: Marketing chain, market efficiency, market integration, pineappleEastern Africa Journal of Rural Development Vol. 21 (1) 2005: pp. 23-33

Sistema agroindustrial da cana: cenários e agenda estratégica

O artigo apresenta números recentes do sistema agroindustrial da cana-de-açúcar no Brasil e tendências para o álcool, açúcar e energia. Utilizando a metodologia de análise macroambiental, traz as principais ameaças e oportunidades ao sistema, nas variáveis político-legais (institucionais), econômico-naturais, socioculturais e tecnológicas. Da mesma forma, por meio de uma análise interna, levanta os pontos fortes e fracos em cinco dimensões analíticas: produção, comunicação, logística, capacitação e coordenação. Finaliza, por intermédio do método de planejamento e gestão estratégica de sistemas produtivos (GESis), propondo uma agenda estratégica, com políticas públicas e privadas, para o crescimento contínuo e sustentável deste importante sistema produtivo da economia brasileira e mundial.

A Method for Demand Driven Strategic Planning and Management for Food Chains (The Chainplan Method)

In the modern world, it has certain that system and network construction with inclusion of small producers, innovation and marketing will give to agribusiness the chance to reduce unemployment and poverty in developing countries. These concepts of transnational systems (chains) have come for good bringing with them coordination, transaction costs and uncertainty reduction, control and value creation, being able to benefit production in Brazil. Therefore, how important is studying and formulating a strategic planning and management of production systems (chains) method, which is the objective of this study. For this, a theoretical framework was made, with a literature review on production systems (chains) and networks in agribusiness, strategic planning and management methods, collective actions and contracts, and an empirical application, with the understanding of collective actions identified for solving coordination problems in three Brazilian production systems (chains) (wheat, orange, and milk). The main objective of this paper is to enable readers to identify and to analyze in a systemic way a production chain (or Agribusiness System - AGS). For this purpose the method of Strategic Planning and Management for Production Systems (chains) Aiming Competitiveness will be displayed, partially applied in this book to the Milk production system in Brazil. The broaden vision of the Milk AIS will allow us by means of the analysis of the relationships between operating players, the identification of critical points in the coordination of this production system and later the formulation of collective actions that benefit the system as a whole.

DINAMIKA PETANI DALAM BERAGRIBISNIS SALAK (Kasus di Kabupaten Karangasem Provinsi Bali)

Bali salak is germ plasm of Balinese salak which has good potency for economic development, but not been handled to the seriously agribusiness system. The objectives of this research: (1) to describe internal factors of salak agribusiness farmers, (2) ) to describe external factors of salak agribusiness farmer, and (3) to analyze the relationship among internal and external factors and farmer’s dynamic in agribusiness of salak. This research used descriptive correlation method. The result of this research showed that factors, which influence the farmer’s dynamic in salak agribusiness, were: (1) internal factors are in low and middle category, (2) external factors are in middle and high category, and (3) internal and external factors had relationship with the farmer’s dynamic in agribusiness of salak.

GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS: A PLACE FOR MINDANAO PRODUCERS?

The opportunity for a vegetable supply chain from Kapatagan in Mindanao, Philippines to compete in a globalised vegetable market was assessed using a pluralistic framework involving hard and soft systems methodologies. A dualistic model of the agribusiness system helped identify constraints and opportunities to improvements. Producers currently supply the 'price-driven' wet markets which are competitive and do not provide incentives for quality production. To enable change to occur improvements need to be made to infrastructure, land tenure and credit arrangements. In addition, alliances need to be developed between Mindanao producers, their cooperatives and supermarkets, food outlets and institutional buyers.

Analyzing Supply Chains with Pluralistic and Agribusiness Systems Framework

Special problems arise when analyzing supply chains because of the complexity of the relationships in the system. In addressing this concern for a research project on a vegetable supply chain in Mindanao, the authors of this paper use a pluralistic methodology. A soft-systems framework was used to structure and analyze the problem and identify relevant systems. Issues addressed are the extent of efficiency along the supply chain (including input supply (issues), output marketing, quality control and transport) and the relationships between the various participants in the supply chain. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods have been used.

La dinámica de estructuras y relaciones espaciales en el sistema hortofrutícola

Los espacios de agricultura intensiva muestran procesos dinámicos de desarrollo en diferentes regiones de Europa. La hortofruticultura especializada se concentra en las regiones meridionales con condiciones climáticas favorables, pero también en áreas próximas a los mercados. El comercio hortofrutícola indica la creciente competencia entre diferentes lugares de producción que se complementan en el abastecimiento de los grandes centros del consumo en Europa. El papel de la distancia del mercado ha cambiado con el tiempo. La diferente estacionalidad y calidad de las producciones locales y regionales permiten un escalonamiento temporal de los espacios en el sistema agrocomercial y una diversificación del mercado. Con referencia especial a Andalucía, se analizan los espacios hortofrutícolas como componentes interrelacionados de un sistema agrocomercial complejo, orientado en los mercados europeos y modificándose en un equilibrio dinámico. También se consideran los cambios de la producción y comercialización en la proximidad de los mercados. Muchos procesos de desarrollo en un área de producción difícilmente se pueden explicar en un análisis limitado a nivel local sin tener en cuenta sus interrelaciones con cambios espaciales en otros lugares.

The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse)

Agnès Varda is a veteran of both documentary and feature production. This visually gorgeous essay-film, shot on digital video, shows her elegant eye and supple mind in top form. Gleaning, the practice of picking up crops left behind by hired pickers, is an ancient institution, and Varda makes it a powerful metaphor. Modern gleaners find nourishment in oyster beds, potato fields, street markets, and dumpsters. In Varda's collection of gleaned images, we encounter people (including famous artists), paintings, insights into our wasteful agribusiness system, and playful visual poems. The film's warmth and ingenuity made it surprisingly popular; it's now on DVD with a sequel revisiting Varda's subjects two years later.

Competitividade e coordenação de sistemas agroindustriais: um ensaio conceitual

A competitividade ganhou o lugar de destaque nos debates sobre política industrial dos anos 80 e 90. Este artigo retoma a discussão sobre o conceito de competitividade, aplicando-o a sistemas agroindustriais. São discutidos os pressupostos necessários para estender o conceito da firma para sistemas e suas limitações. Sistemas agroindustriais são definidos como nexos de contratos que viabilizam as estratégias adotadas pelos diferentes agentes econômicos envolvidos nas várias dimensões do agronegócio. A abordagem contratual permite introduzir explicitamente a coordenação intersegmentos como um dos fatores determinantes da competitividade. A Economia dos Custos de Transação e a Teoria da Organização Industrial fornecem o arcabouço analítico para desenvolvimento da análise.

Challenges for Brazil’s food industry in the context of globalization and Mercosur consolidation

This paper examines how the Brazilian food industry has been heavily affected by several recent institutional and economic changes. The food industry, including the processing and retail sectors, is part of a broader agribusiness system that conditions corporations’ strategies, performance, and adoption of adequate governance structures. The Brazilian agroindustrialization process that preceded the formation of the sub-regional free-trade area (Mercosur) and economic liberalization influenced subsequent development of the agribusiness and food system in the Mercosur countries and their investment and trade links to countries outside Mercosur. The article emphasizes business strategies for coping with challenges and opportunities that have arisen from Mercosur integration, from economic stabilization programs and, more importantly, from a broad range of institutional changes such as trade liberalization, deregulation, and the friendlier treatment of foreign capital. These changes have together fostered the globalization process in the region and have stimulated different responses from large and small firms, all threatened by the new, competitive environment.

Introduction to the Hungry for Profit Issue

The conventional view that agriculture was displaced by industry in two stages—by the industrial revolution in the late ninteenth century, and as a result of the rise of the agribusiness system in the mid-twentieth century—has left many observers of the contemporary political economy with the impression that to deal with agriculture is essentially to focus on political-economic history rather than contemporary political economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The purpose of this special issue of MR is to help compensate for the neglect that agriculture has often suffered in political-economic literature of the late twentieth century. In so doing we will continue with a line of argument that was introduced in MR more than a decade ago in the July-August 1986 special issue Science, Technology, and Capitalism, edited by Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, which included landmark essays on U.S. agriculture and agricultural research by Richard Lewontin and Jean-Pierre Berlan.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Agricultural Marketing in Germany

Traditional German analysis and teaching about agricultural markets, landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre, is concerned with supply, demand and price formation, instruments and policy decisions by policy makers influencing markets and prices, and market structure and distribution. In this contribution agricultural marketing in Germany will be understood in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon marketing concept. Attention will be paid to: (a) the Marketing environment, in particular food consumption and the competitive position of German agriculture and food industry; (b) the structure of commercialization in particular the agribusiness system and the interrelationships of agriculture with economic sectors supplying to and purchasing from the farmer; and (c) the potentials and limitations of marketing agricultural products. Our paper is primarily confined to the regional states of the former Federal Republic (West Germany). In the description of the marketing environment the present situation in East Germany will b...

Agribusiness In A Global Economy: Challenges For An Evolving Profession

In a revised definition of the Davis-Goldberg concept of agribusiness, Sonka and Hudson suggest that the food and agribusiness sector might be thought of as a sequence of interrelated subsectors made up of: (1) genetics and seedstock firms, (2) input suppliers, (3) agricultural producers, (4) merchandisers or first handlers, (5) processors, (6) retailers, and (7) consumers. In applying this ubiquitous definition to global data, Goldberg (1991a) estimates that the food and agribusiness system is the largest economic sector in the world economy representing 50 percent of the global labor force, 50 percent of global assets, and 50 percent of global consumer expenditures.