US Agribusiness Research Articles

Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program

Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program

Investment in the agricultural sector as a way to solve food security problems in developing countries: the example of investment activity of the US agribusiness

It is clear to everyone that investment in the agricultural sector in developing countries is one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty and hunger in the world. Agricultural investment can generate a wide range of development opportunities. However, these benefi ts cannot be expected to arise automatically. Some forms of large-scale investment pose significant risks to investor states. It should be noted, however, that, despite discussions about the potential benefits and risks of international investment, there is still no evidence of negative actual consequences for the countries receiving investments. This article examines the issues of investment activity in relation to developing countries using the example of US agribusiness entities.

COOPERATION OF AGRIBUSINESS COMPANIES OF UKRAINE AND THE USA IN THE CONTEXT OF PROCESS MANAGEMENT

The national agricultural potential is driven by its current state and agricultural structure development. To date, Ukraine is a leader among the major suppliers of agri-food products to the European Union. However, domestic agriculture sector is still facing a critical need for effective reforms, including its organizational structure, where the key element is the creation of transparent procurement and distribution infrastructure through implementation of the cooperatives paradigm and their further integration with trade as well as processing and food industry enterprises. So far globally, the idea of cooperation has long been translated in a clear economic and legal framework which effectively operates as association of small and medium-sized producers through the creation of individual affluent agricultural business entities – the cooperatives. The United States of America demonstrates best practices in their successful creation and functioning. Given the particularly strong large scale international partnership relations between Ukraine and the US in a number of economic and social areas, including assistance in boosting cooperative movement, an emphasis is put towards the need to provide insights and suggest a rationale for further development of cooperatives in Ukraine along with enhancing the process management effectiveness based on successful good practice and advancements in the US agribusiness that underpinned the research agenda of this article. The research findings have revealed that the cooperation of the Ukrainian agriculture enterprises leaves much room for improvement. The number of newly created cooperatives demonstrates slow dynamics; the legislative framework lacks consistency and is inadequate to address the burning issues. The study has identified the key barriers that hamper further development of domestic agricultural cooperation along with discussing the benefits, best practices of implementation, types and specific features of the cooperative form of doing business in the USA. Major challenges in the domestic agricultural cooperation development at macro- and microlevels have been observed and evaluated together with suggesting actions to tackle them. In particular, pathways to enhance the performance of agricultural cooperatives through the transition to more effective process management are proposed.

Ghosts in the Barn: Dead Labor and Capital Accumulation in Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus

There are ghosts in the barn, or at least Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus leads one to believe so. Instances of spectrality abound in the novel, suggesting a fundamental connection between Viramontes’s figurative appeal to the “ghostly” and her more openly political and economic concerns in telling a story about the poverty, exploitation, and violence suffered yearly by farmworkers at the hands of US agribusiness. This essay argues that Viramontes’s turn to spectrality in Under the Feet of Jesus aims to lay bare the fundamental fetishism and phantasmagoria surrounding the value form and the products of labor under capitalism—what Karl Marx suggestively calls “all the magic and necromancy” shrouding capital accumulation. Capitalism inescapably conjures its own phantoms and so remains haunted by the spectral figures of “dead labor” occulted under the sign of value. Accordingly, Under the Feet of Jesus depicts a California agricultural landscape haunted at every turn by disavowed “dead labor,” both in Marx’s figurative sense and in a tragically literal sense.

Agribusiness value impacts from highly pathogenic avian influenza

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of 2014–2015 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the largest animal health emergency in US history to date, on agribusinesses’ market values.Design/methodology/approachUsing the 2014–2015 HPAI outbreaks in US commercial poultry, event study analysis of meat processing and marketing companies is conducted to estimate the effects HPAI had on firm value and how these effects differed across meat marketing firms over distinct disease event dates. The analyses include an overall aggregate event study, chronological outbreak studies, and an analysis that separated firms specifically marketing poultry products from those marketing all other types of meat.FindingsBy tracing abnormal stock returns through the event dates, the results show heterogeneity of investors responses based on the nature of the event (i.e. backyard vs commercial flocks affected), timing of the event over the course of the entire HPAI outbreak, and if a firm marketed poultry products. Overall, negative abnormal returns, ranging from 2 to 4 percent of publicly traded meat processors’ equities, are predominant post-disease event. These negative effects are slightly higher, above 5 percent, for firms marketing poultry products.Originality/valueThis study is the first to analyze the effects of an HPAI outbreak on the market value of US agribusiness firms.

Castro's environmental legacy

If relations with US agribusiness companies are not managed carefully, Cuba could revert to relying on mechanisation, transgenic crops and agrochemicals.

The United Fruit Company's tourist business and the creation of the “Golden Caribbean”, 1899-1940

Purpose This paper aims to examine the tourist business and marketing strategies of a US agribusiness giant, the United Fruit Company (UFCO), between its incorporation in 1899 and 1940. It considers how tourist marketing served the company’s public-relations interest and tourism’s broader connection to narratives of US ascendancy in the Caribbean Basin. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on original research in a series of published company materials, including annual reports and a wide variety of marketing materials, as well as a variety of rare primary sources documenting the experiences of US tourists on UFCO cruises. Findings From its incorporation in 1899, the UFCO developed a Caribbean cruise business as a vital part of its strategies of vertical integration and expansion around the region. Marketing tropical travel at a time when tropical disease dominated US perceptions of such places required a thorough conceptual makeover, and UFCO publicity played an important part in this process. The company advertised Caribbean destinations first for their therapeutic possibilities, but by the 1920s, a framework of anachronistic space and picturesque primitivism predominated in marketing campaigns. The structure of this narrative naturalized the company’s, and more broadly, US, hegemony in the region. While on cruises, tourists became witnesses to and participants in a series of spectacles and activities highlighting the company’s technological prowess and benevolence. Originality/value This analysis centers on a largely overlooked dimension of the famed banana company’s enterprise. It is grounded in a wide collection of primary sources largely untapped by researchers, a source base that brings tourist perception and experience into the story of this company’s marketing efforts. This research brings tourism and leisure into the historical discussion of US power in early-twentieth-century Latin America.

FairTrade’s theory of change: an evaluation based on the cooperative life cycle framework and mixed methods

This study presents a quasi-experimental analysis of the impact of FairTrade certification on the commercial performance of coffee farmers in Tanzania. In doing so the study emphasises the importance of a well-contextualised theory of change as a basis for evaluation design. It also stresses the value of qualitative methods to control for selection bias. Based on a longitudinal (pseudo-panel) dataset comprising both certified and conventional farmers, it shows that FairTrade certification introduced a disincentive to farmers’ commercialisation. We explain this counterintuitive conclusion on the basis of the ‘cooperative life cycle’ theory developed by US agribusiness scholars.

Exporting obesity: US farm and trade policy and the transformation of the Mexican consumer food environment

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions, in the United States as well as among its trade partners such as Mexico. It has been established that an "obesogenic" (obesity-causing) food environment is one influence on obesity prevalence. To isolate the particular role of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, in changing Mexico's food environment, we plotted the flow of several key products between the United States and Mexico over the 14-year NAFTA period (1994-2008) and situated them in a broader historical context. Key sources of USDA data include the Foreign Agricultural Service's Global Agricultural Trade System, its official repository for current and historical data on imports, exports and re-exports, and its Production, Supply, and Distribution online database. US export data were queried for agricultural products linked to shifting diet patterns including: corn, soybeans, sugar and sweeteners, consumer-oriented products, and livestock products. The Bureau of Economic Analysis' Balance of Payments and Direct Investment Position Data in their web-based International Economic Accounts system also helped determine changes in US direct investment abroad from 1982 to 2009. Directly and indirectly, the United States has exported increasing amounts of corn, soybeans, sugar, snack foods, and meat products into Mexico over the last two decades. Facilitated by NAFTA, these exports are one important way in which US agriculture and trade policy influences Mexico's food system. Because of significant US agribusiness investment in Mexico across the full spectrum of the latter's food supply chain, from production and processing to distribution and retail, the Mexican food system increasingly looks like the industrialized food system of the United States.

Colonialism, Planters, Sugarcane, and The Agrarian Economy of Caguas, Puerto Rico, Between the 1890s and 1930

This article presents new research on the impact and consequences of the incorporation of Puerto Rico into the American economic sphere of influence and how much change truly took place during the first decades of the twentieth century. As reconstructed here, Puerto Rico's social and economic structure did change after the American invasion. However, a closer look at the data reveals that, contrary to the generally accepted conclusions, land tenure did not become concentrated in fewer hands. Puerto Rico did experience profound changes with the rapid growth of US agribusiness and the penetration of American capital. In the process of arriving on the island, these two interests found a land tenure system in the firm control of local farmers (small, medium, and large). The American invasion and subsequent incorporation of the island into the American economic/political system as a non-incorporated territory provided the conditions for the numerical increase of farms and farmers in the island during the first three decades of the twentieth century.

The effects of the BSE outbreak on the security values of US agribusiness and food processing firms

A case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was found on December, 2003 in the United States, which affected offshore and domestic demands for US beef. This study evaluates the effects of the BSE outbreak on the security values of the US agribusiness and food processing firms, using an event study. Empirical results indicate that the beef industry was significantly, negatively affected, but other meat industries benefited significantly. For the sectors not immediately involved with beef products, the effects were small or negligible.

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Information systems implementation within US agribusiness: an applications approach

The complexity and sophistication of information system depends upon the information processing needs at the firm level. Agribusinesses tend to be heterogeneous in terms of firm size, operator characteristics, and opportunities for strategic behavior. Thus, information system hardware and software sophistication is expected to differ significantly even within similar industries. This study employs survey data from US agribusiness firms in order to determine the factors that contribute to hardware and software sophistication. Sophistication levels relative to hardware and software many times are a function of firm size and sales. It is also shown that a manager needs to recognize the level of sophistication in order to gauge competitive positioning against firm rivals. To be competitive within specific agribusiness sectors a firm must maintain or acquire the requisite information technology of its rivals.

Implications of dairy development in Indonesia

This article discusses the program for large-scale dairy development in Indonesia and its implications for international agribusiness interests. The United States is currently participating in this development by exporting surplus dairy cattle and providing technical assistance. Based on future demand and supply projections discussed in the article, opportunities exist for US agribusiness firms to continue cattle exports and to also participate in other aspects of the dairy development program. Longer term prospects include increased export opportunity for animal feeds, both to Indonesia and to other countries currently buying surplus feed ingredients from Indonesia.

Status of US agribusiness masters programs

This descriptive article reports the results a study of masters agribusiness programs in existence as of May 1, 1989. A classification model for masters agribusiness programs is proposed and programs were classified into the model's seven general category structures. The graduate curricula of 95 different US agribusiness masters programs are profiled. Only 22 agribusiness masters programs require graduates to take courses in both the college of Business and the College of Agriculture.

A Profile of tomorrow's agribusiness leaders: The US perspective

This article profiles the characteristics required of future agribusiness leaders. Top executives from 543 agribusiness firms rank ordered 74 alternative characteristics for their importance as a required characteristic of future leaders in their agribusiness firm. The US agribusiness executives identified interpersonal characteristics and communication skills as the most important. Business skills were also ranked as important for success in agribusiness firms.