Marketing Arrangements Research Articles

How Does Online Streaming Affect Antitrust Remedies to Centralized Marketing? The Case of European Football Broadcasting Rights

Abstract: The collective sale of football broadcasting rights constitutes a cartel, which, in the European Union, is only allowed if it complies with a number of conditions and obligations, including inter alia, partial unbundling, and the no-single-buyer rule. These regulations were defined with traditional TV-markets in mind. However, the landscape of audiovisual broadcasting is quickly changing, with online streaming services gaining popularity and relevance. This also alters the effects of the conditions and obligations for the centralized marketing arrangements. Partial unbundling may lead to increasing instead of decreasing prices for consumers. Moreover, the combination of partial unbundling and the no-single-buyer rule forces consumers into multiple subscriptions to several streaming services, which increases transaction costs. Consequently, competition authorities need to rethink the conditions and obligations they impose on centralized marketing arrangements in football. We recommend restricting the exclusivity of (live-) broadcasting rights and mandate third-party access to program guide information to redesign the remedies.

Food and beverage marketing in primary and secondary schools in Canada

BackgroundUnhealthy food marketing is considered a contributor to childhood obesity. In Canada, food marketing in schools is mostly self-regulated by industry though it is sometimes restricted through provincial school policies. The purpose of this study was to document the type of food marketing activities occurring in Canadian schools and examine differences by school characteristics.MethodsAn online survey was sent to public primary and secondary schools from 27 school boards in Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia and was completed by 154 Principals in spring 2016. This survey queried the type of food marketing occurring in schools including advertisements, food product displays, fundraising, exclusive marketing agreements, and incentive programs, among others. The occurrence of food marketing was described using frequencies, medians, and ranges. Chi-square and Fisher Exact tests were conducted to assess school-level differences in the frequency of marketing activities by school type (primary versus secondary), province (Ontario versus British Columbia), and the socio-economic status of most students (low versus middle/high income). The significance level was set at α < 0.05 for all tests.ResultsOverall, 84% of schools reported at least one type of food marketing and the median number of distinct types of marketing per school was 1 (range 0–6). The most frequently reported forms of marketing were the sale of branded food, particularly chocolate, pizza, and other fast food, for fundraising (64% of schools); food advertisements on school property (26%), and participation in incentive programs (18%). Primary schools (n = 108) were more likely to report participating in incentive programs (25%) and selling branded food items (72%) compared to secondary schools (n = 46; 2 and 43% respectively; p < 0.01). Conversely, secondary schools were more likely to report food advertising on school property (56%), exclusive marketing arrangements with food companies (43%), and food product displays (19%) than primary schools (13, 5 and 2%, respectively; p < 0.01).ConclusionThe presence of food marketing in most participating schools suggests that the current patchwork of policies that restrict food marketing in Canadian schools is inadequate. Comprehensive restrictions should be mandated by government in both primary and secondary schools to protect children and youth from this marketing.

Beef cattle farmers’ marketing preferences for selling local beef

AbstractTo meet the growing consumer demand for local foods, there has been increased interest by farmers to produce local foods. One facet of meeting this demand is how farmers may prefer to market their locally produced products. In this study, we examine beef cattle farmers’ marketing preferences for selling a Tennessee Certified Beef product. Data from a 2016 Tennessee beef cattle farmer survey (n = 428) was used to estimate a multinomial logit model of the probability of farmers preferring a particular marketing arrangement. The most commonly selected marketing arrangement was a farmer cooperatively owned processing facility (43%), followed by a beef marketing cooperative (39%), and private contracting of finished cattle to a third party for slaughter (18%). Factors influencing participation in the specific marketing arrangements included farmer and farm characteristics, risk preferences, and location.

English

In 2000, Uganda instituted a tax rebate of 10 to 15% to industries willing to use locally sourced raw materials. This attracted Nile Breweries Ltd (NBL) to start using locally produced sorghum for beer production in 2002 and intervened in the sorghum value chain through mobilization of farmers into producer groups, established bulking centers and appointed buying agents. Despite these interventions, some farmers still sell their sorghum individually to open markets, hence limiting the volumes of sorghum sold through collection centers and eventually to the breweries. This study explored the marketing arrangements of sorghum farmers in Oyam district and their influence on marketable surplus. Using a cross sectional household survey, data were obtained from a random sample of 150 farmers in four major sorghum growing sub counties of Loro, Iceme, Acaba and Aber. T-tests and chi-square tests were used to determine the relationship between socio-economic and farm specific factors and marketing arrangements, and a two-step Heckman procedure was used to ascertain the determinants of collective marketing and the influence of collective marketing on marketable surplus. Chi-square results showed that gender of the household head, marital status, and road type significantly correlated with marketing arrangements while T-test results showed that distances to inputs and buyers significantly influenced marketing arrangements. From the two-step Heckman procedure, the Probit model showed that buyer distance and sales income significantly influenced the probability of collective marketing while the OLS model in the second step showed that marketable surplus significantly increased with input access, and selling price. Sorghum farmers in Oyam district can potentially increase their sorghum marketable surpluses and reduce rural poverty if they fully participate in collective marketing, access inputs and negotiate for better sorghum price with the breweries. Therefore, agri-businesses and policy makers should promote and enhance collective marketing to improve sorghum marketing in Uganda. Keys words: Sorghum farmers, socio-economic characteristics, collective marketing and marketable surplus.

School districts and their local food supply chains

AbstractThe 2015 Farm to School Census reports that during the 2013–2014 school year there were over 5200 farm to school (FTS) programs in the USA that involved 39,000 schools and 24.1 million children. These FTS programs are intended, in part, to increase market access and therefore the viability of farms and ranches. Accordingly, the majority of FTS programs involve local food procurement directly from farmers, from non-traditional suppliers that market locally branded food products such as ‘food hubs’, or from traditional suppliers such distributors and food service management companies. Yet, there is reason to believe that transaction costs vary based on the supply chain that schools use to procure local food. Moreover, that the supply chain that schools use to procure local food has a relationship with school's expenditures on local food. We use the 2015 Farm to School Census to estimate the relationship between school district's local food expenditures per student and supply chain structure. We analyzed data using ordinary least squares regressions, controlling for the region of the USA, the type of local food products purchased, and other school-specific characteristics. Importantly, we find a negative and significant relationship between school district's non-milk local food expenditure per student, and purchases directly from the farm and from non-traditional suppliers. This implies that schools that purchase local food from traditional distributors are likely to have higher on average expenditures per student compared with schools that purchase local food directly from farmers or non-traditional distributors. Results point to the need for additional research in determining the efficacy of policies to support direct and non-traditional FTS marketing arrangements.

Who and what set the price of walnuts for small-scale farmers in Southwest China?

PurposeDomestic demand for walnuts has been on the rise for the last decades. Consumption outstrips domestic production capacities, which led to increasing prices until recently. Small-scale farmers are at the centre of walnut tree planting and walnut collection efforts. Farmers are now integrated into rapidly expanding agrifood value chains. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the walnut value chain originating in Yunnan (the dominant producer of walnuts in China). The authors are especially interested in the position of small-scale farmers in the chain and the factors affecting the price that they receive.Design/methodology/approachPrice and intra-chain governance information were collected through structured interviews with value chain actors like certified and conventional small-scale farmers, traders, processors, food manufacturers and wholesalers. The resultant price data set was analysed using a multiple regression analysis.FindingsTiming of harvest, distance to market and sales volume are correlated with the village-level price. Farmers are in a market governance segment of the chain. Lead firms (e.g. supermarkets) are price-setters and determine the value distribution, with farmers receiving a smaller share relative to downstream actors’ shares.Research limitations/implicationsImproved connectivity to markets, transparency of standards and price (formation), processing and certification could improve farmers’ profits.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the growing literature of value chain studies focussing on farmers’ integration into food systems at different scales. The authors investigated the price determinants at the village level and additionally provide information on an organic marketing arrangement.

SC29.05 The Thai Experience to Overcome High Cost Drug in Cancer

With limited resources for health, Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) struggle to guarantee all members of their society toget cancer treatments, especially the innovative but expensive cancer medicines.1,2 Cancer is a leading cause of deathin Thailand, which is an upper-middle income country in South-East Asia. From 2003 to 2011, the mortality rate from cancer rose from 79 to 95 per 100,000 populations.3 Since the Thai health care reform in 20014,5 several stakeholders have initiated policies and programs to facilitate access to medicines. The Thai NLEM is different from the one listed by WHO, due to the fact that WHO listed only the minimum required medicine, while the Thai list included an optimum list. At the present, the Thai NLEM has more than 700 items of active ingredients and 1000 dosage forms.6,7 When the NLEM was first introduced in 1981, only cost, safety, and efficacy were considered as criteria for inclusion whereas effectiveness was added to the list of criteria in 2004. Since 2008, economic evidence has become important for the Sub-committee of the NLEM to justify the new costly medicines such as type E2 to be included in the list of NLEM. As of 2009, the NLEM can be divided into six categories, which are A, B, C, D, E1, and E2. Type A: Basic medicines that every health facility must make available Type B: Alternative, second line medicines of those in category A Type C: Medicines prescribed only by specialists Type D: Medicines used only for particular indications and diseases Type E1: Medicines used only for special or vertical programs Type E2: Medicines that are high costs but are important for particular groups of patients Heath Care Coverage for Thai residences are divided into 3 categories: 1. Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) Cover 75% of Thai population; 2. Social Security Scheme (SSS) Cover 19%, Private sector employees, excluding dependents; 3. Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme (CSMBS) Cover 9%, Government employees plus dependents (parents, spouse and up to two children age <20) The CSMBS has covered most of the cancer drugs including the expensive drugs, however UCS and SSS have covered only drugs listed in the NELM; thus there are unmet need for cancer patients with these two healthcare schemes. Thai government set up several policies to enable access to the cancer drugs such as Compulsory Licensing, Pooled purchasing (price negotiation), Special marketing arrangement (price negotiation), and E2 access program. Several pharmaceutical companies provide their own scheme for patients who are willing to pay for the drug by themselves (patient access program). Even with all the programs available, the problem of accessibility of costly anticancer drugs still persists. There should be more input into this problem. 1. Kanavos P, Das P, Durairaj V, Laing R, Abegunde DO (2010) Options for financing and optimizing medicines in resource-poor countries World Health Organization. 2. American College of Physicians (2011) How can our Nation Conserve and Distribute Health Care Resources Effectively and Efficiently? Philadelphia: American College of Physicians. 3. MoharaA, Youngkong S, Pérez Velasco R, Werayingyong P, Pachanee K,et al. (2012) Using health technology assessment for informing coverage decisions in Thailand. J Compar Effect Res.1:137–146. 4. Damrongplasit K, Melnick GA (2009) Early results from Thailand's 30 Baht Health Reform: something to smile about. Health Aff (Millwood). 28: w457–466. http://dx.doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.28.3.w457 PMID: 19336469 5. Towse A, Mills A, Tangcharoensathien V (2004) Learning from Thailand's health reforms. BMJ. 328: 103–105. PMID: 14715608 6. Yoongthong W, Hu S, Whitty JA, Wibulpolprasert S, Sukantho K, et al. (2012) National drug policies to local formulary decisions in Thailand, China, and Australia: drug listing changes and opportunities. Value Health. 15: s126–131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2011.11.003 PMID: 22265059 7. Turongkaravee S, Rattanavipapong W, Khampang R, Leelahavarong P, Teerawattananon Y, et al. (2012) Evaluation of high-cost medicine scheme (Category E2) under the 2008 National List of Essential Medicines. Nonthaburi: Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program. Thai Health Care System, National List of Essential Medicine, Compulsory License, E2 access

Differences in prices and price risk across alternative marketing arrangements used in the fed cattle industry

Information on prices and price risk differences across marketing arrangements aids fed cattle producers in making choices about marketing methods. As part of the congressionally mandated Livestock and Meat Marketing Study, we investigated fed cattle price and price risk differences across marketing arrangements. The analysis uses data representing cattle purchased by 29 large beef packing plants from October 2002 through March 2005. Results indicate that marketing agreements offered the best tradeoff between price level and price risk. Forward contracts had the lowest average yet highly volatile prices. Auction barn prices were higher than other methods but also the most volatile.

Can Agricultural Traders be Trusted? Evidence from Coffee in Ethiopia

Summary Traditional food marketing systems in developing countries are often not trusted. In consequence, policy makers frequently try to regulate them and modern marketing arrangements are increasingly emerging to address some of their presumed deficiencies. However, it is unclear how trustworthy these markets actually are. The purpose of this study is to look at these issues in the case of coffee marketing in Ethiopia. Coffee markets in Ethiopia present an interesting case study due to the high price and quality differentiation linked to a number of both easily and not so easily observable characteristics. Moreover, modern marketing practices, such as modern retail, branding and packaging, are becoming increasingly common in Ethiopia’s urban coffee markets. When we define and examine trustworthiness in the Addis Ababa coffee market as a function of weights and quality, we find that traditional traders are relatively trustworthy on observable quality characteristics and weights. However, there is a consistent pattern of over-representation of not so easily verifiable quality characteristics. We further find that modern marketing outlets or formats, including modern domestic retail and branded packaged products, deliver higher quality at a higher price, but are not more trustworthy than traditional marketing arrangements in terms of these dimensions of trade transactions.

Institutional economics of grain marketing in Russia: Insights from the Tyumen region

Grain marketing arrangements in modern Russia are far from what they were in the 1990s. Given that grain marketing is crucial for farm revenues and an adequate functioning of the agri-food system, this paper examines why different grain marketing contracts co-exist and how well they fit the local agri-food context. Semi-structured interviews with farmers, grain buyers and regional authorities were conducted in the region of Tyumen in 2013-2014. The analysis, grounded in new institutional economics, found that the traders’ contracts, compared to those offered by grain elevators, are often better suited to account for uncertainty as a salient property of marketing transactions, but discourage quality improvements and differentiation of grain. Furthermore, both contract types encourage strategic behaviour on the part of grain buyers. The paper also discusses the case in a broader theoretical and international context and offers a number of policy implications, such as those related to independent grain quality assessments and extension.

Factors affecting farmers’ decisions to participate in direct marketing: A case study of cherry growers in the Kemalpasa District of Izmir, Turkey

AbstractThe objective of this study is to explore the main factors that drive decisions of farmers to sell their products directly to consumers through farm direct marketing channels. A case study on cherry growers on the subject of direct marketing, which is one of the alternative marketing options in agricultural products marketing for farmers, is examined in this study. In addition, further suggestions are put forward on how to improve the use of direct marketing strategies by farmers in Turkey. An ordinal logistic regression analysis model was used to analyze the effects of agricultural businesses and demographic features on the tendency of growers to choose direct marketing channels in cherry selling. According to these model results, the cherry farming experience of the growers, the size of the cherry orchard, the level of specialization in cherry production, and the gross margin per hectare for cherry production have a statistically significant impact on the tendency of the growers to choose direct marketing channels in cherry selling. In particular, the growers whose experience is more than 20 yr, the farms that are semi-specialized, the farms providing a gross margin of more than US$5506 ha−1, and the farms having a cherry orchard between 1 and 2 ha in size were determined to have more of a tendency for direct marketing. These results show that owners of medium-sized farms are more interested in direct marketing. According to the interviewed cherry growers, the most important factor limiting their participation in direct marketing is that there are no organizations that will help them meet their direct marketing goals and build direct marketing arrangements between themselves and their consumers.

New Paths to Capitalist Agricultural Production in Africa: Experiences of Ghanaian Pineapple Producer–Exporters

With the global restructuring of agri‐food markets since the 1980s, an impressive amount of scholarship has examined its impacts in African countries. However, little has been written on the emergence of local medium and large‐scale commercial farmers selling to export companies or controlling their own export marketing arrangements. This article examines Ghanaian commercial farmers producing and exporting fresh pineapples to European markets. This group of pineapple producer–exporters represents a path to capitalist agricultural production that can be conceptualized as capitalism from outside: where capital flows into the countryside, rather than accumulation occurring from above or below within the agrarian economy. The emergence of this form of agrarian capitalism is stimulated by opportunities in new high‐value agricultural export markets, but its stabilization depends on country‐specific characteristics such as rural social structures, property rights and state support. The article documents the conditions of emergence of this new group of Ghanaian capitalist farmers, the period of destabilization caused by increasing international competition that resulted in a small number of large‐scale agribusiness firms surviving, and the challenges that these agribusiness firms faced in stabilizing their capitalist agricultural production.

Broiler production in an urban and peri-urban area of Zimbabwe

ABSTRACTBroiler chicken production is an important livelihood option for urban households in Zimbabwe. A study was carried out to document the technical, demographic and socio-economic parameters characterising the production of broilers in an urban area of Zimbabwe. Findings showed that producers have quite diverse livelihoods and broiler production is not restricted to a survival strategy for the urban poor with no livelihood alternatives, but mostly involved the more privileged. Access to start-up capital and property ownership were pre-requisites for the business. Broiler units were small-scale, informal, backyard businesses dominated by women. Flock sizes averaged 398 (range 25–3500) birds per cycle. However, 79% of the producers kept at most 200 birds per cycle. The mean stocking density was 9.5 birds/m2 and reported mortality averaged 7.4%. Respondents have ad hoc marketing arrangements, and face constraints with regard to lack of sectoral support, shortage of capital, prohibitive council by-laws, market access and disease. Poultry production is therefore an important livelihood and business option in the urban and peri-urban area studied.

‘The want of sufficient men’: Labour recruitment and training in the British North Sea fisheries, 1850–1950

Between 1815 and 1950 the British fishing industry underwent fundamental and far-reaching changes. The industry expanded rapidly in the half-century prior to the First World War, before entering a period of stagnation thereafter. The technology of fishing was transformed by the spread of trawling, and the application of steam, and later motor power to the catching sector. All of this was driven by an expansion of demand for fish, consequent upon improvements in overland transport, which saw distribution and marketing arrangements transformed. This had major implications for labour in the industry. Fishermen became more numerous, and in many cases more specialised, as technological development introduced specialists such as the engineer and wireless operator into fishing vessels’ crews. The period also saw the rise of tied labour in the industry, in the form of thousands of teenaged apprentices brought in to man the North Sea trawling fleets, before apprenticeship declined in favour of more informal training arrangements. The impact of all of this was highly uneven. Some sectors of the industry were rapidly transformed, whereas others developed more slowly. The rapid growth and evolution of trawling promoted the widespread use of apprenticeship, for example, whereas concomitant developments in the herring fisheries had no such ramifications. This article seeks to provide an overview of labour recruitment and training in the British fisheries between 1815 and 1950, highlighting the scale and scope of the most important developments, and setting the best known facet of the subject, the apprenticeship system, in context.

The role of risk and risk-aversion in adoption of alternative marketing arrangements by the US farmers

The objective of this article is to analyse the relationship between farmers’ risk-aversions and the riskiness of various agricultural enterprises to see which marketing arrangements would typically emerge. Relying on the basic agency theory model, we hypothesize the prevalence of alternative marketing arrangements (AMAs) in situations with high risk-averse farmers and high-risk enterprises and the prevalence of spot (cash) markets for low risk-averse participants and less risky enterprises. Our empirical tests are carried out using the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). The empirical results are largely supportive of the agency theory of contract choice.

Accounting for Nonconvergence in Global Wool Marketing before 1939

From the mid-nineteenth century, raw wool became a global commodity as new producing countries in the Southern Hemisphere supplied the world's growing textile industries in the North. The selling practices of these big-five exporters—Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, and Uruguay—ranged from auction through a hybrid of auction and private sale to exclusively private sale. We explore why these countries persisted with different marketing arrangements, contradicting two streams of literature on institutions: isomorphism and the new institutional economics. The article makes several important contributions through blending distinct branches of theory and by focusing on the international constraints to convergence in an earlier period of globalization.

Local seafood: rethinking the direct marketing paradigm

Faced with strict regulations, rising operational costs, depleted stocks, and competition from less expensive foreign imports, many fishers are pursuing new ways to market and sell their catch. Direct marketing arrangements can increase the ex-vessel value of seafood and profitability of operations for fishers by circumventing dominant wholesale chains of custody and capturing the premium that customers are willing to pay for local seafood. Our analysis goes beyond a paradigm that understands direct marketing arrangements as solely economic tools to consider how these emerging business configurations create a set of conditions that can result in increased bonding and bridging capital among fishers by incentivizing cooperation, communication, and information production and organization. To build our case, we report on the economic value being generated for fishers in a cooperatively owned and operated direct marketing arrangement in eastern North Carolina. Over the course of 2 years, fishers participating in the Walking Fish community- supported fishery received 33% more revenue for their catch compared to the average monthly ex-vessel price of finfish and shellfish landed in the surrounding region, and an additional 14% to 18% more per dollar by way of year-end profit sharing. We argue that these economic benefits create an incentive to participate, resulting in cooperation among fishers and increased communication skills that foster bonding and bridging capital that put fishers in a position to identify and respond to challenges that threaten the social- ecological resilience of the systems within which they operate. We suggest that institutional starters like these can play a critical role in increasing the resilience of social-ecological systems, including fisheries.

Non-timber forest products certification and management: a socioeconomic study among the Kadars in Kerala, India

Debates on linking livelihoods and conservation through the commercialization of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) continue to hold significance considering the increasing market demand for NTFPs, its high economic value for forest-dependent communities and “enabling” neoliberal policies that are in place. Kerala, located on the southwest coast of India, flanked by the Western Ghats—a UN declared biodiversity hot spot, on its windward side, is of particular significance due to the presence of the Ayurvedic industry—a traditional medicine industry that procures 90 % of its raw materials from the wild. In addition, the presence of a resource-dependent tribal population re-affirms the economic, social and cultural significance of NTFPs. Unsustainable practices and poor co-management and marketing arrangements have rendered the sector ineffective in terms of meeting livelihood as well as conservation goals in the region. Although new approaches such as NTFP certification are being recommended for India not much has been reported on its feasibility and/or implementation challenges. Focusing on the Kadar community of Kerala, this study attempts to highlight some of the issues within the sector and using an “instrumental model”, present the benefits accrued from new strategies such as NTFP certification through quantitative and qualitative assessments. Last but not least, recommendations for the adoption of sustainable strategies in context with the existing policy environment are provided that may be broadly applicable to other forest-dependent communities in India and elsewhere.

Risk management strategies on small-scale commercial farms in three zobatat of Eritrea

In this study the perceptions of small-scale commercial farmers in Eritrea of the importance of various risk responses are ascertained and analysed to gain insight into their risk-management strategies. Data were elicited through a survey of 186 small-scale commercial farmers conducted in three zobatat (regions) of Eritrea. Factor Analysis is used to investigate heterogeneity in sample farmers’ responses. Results indicate that relatively more important risk responses include the use of internal and external sources of information, on-farm and off-farm diversification, choice of production system and product marketing arrangements. Farmers’ perceptions of risk responses vary according to farm type, geographical location, farm and farmer characteristics, as well as the existence of enterprise specific risk responses (e.g. livestock insurance) and differences in the marketing regulations of various agricultural products.

Quantifying the benefits associated with the use of alternative marketing arrangements by US farmers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to quantify the benefits to farmers from using alternative marketing arrangements (AMAs) in the USA. The authors first estimate a behavioral model explaining farmers' joint decisions on which commodities to produce and which marketing channels to use when selling their outputs. The authors then use the estimated model to quantify the benefits to farmers from using AMAs. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use the discrete choice random utility maximization model to examine farmers' choices on production regimes, where a regime is defined as a possible combination of all the individual commodity/marketing arrangement channels that the farmer can choose to use. The farmer is assumed to compare the utilities he gets from each of the possible production regimes and then selects the production regime that yields the highest utility to him. The benefit of having access to a particular AMA is measured as the negative of the welfare loss associated with forcing the farmer to abandon that particular AMA. Findings – The results indicate that AMAs yield an economically significant amount of benefits to farmers who rely on them to market their outputs. At the national level, the benefit of using production contracts to hog farmers is valued at $336.4 million. The benefits of using marketing contracts are valued at $374.2, $156.6 and $92.1 million for corn, soybeans and wheat producers. Originality/value – The paper is the first study that uses the farm-level data to study the welfare effects of marketing contracts in the grain sector. The results show that considering a multi-enterprises farm, farmers' welfare loss might be smaller when the hog production contract is no longer existed.