This report presents a general assessment of the demand and supply conditions affecting the Michigan frozen potato industry. The information has been drawn from various secondary sources and interviews with key industry informants. The report is one of the major outputs of an ongoing study being...

Implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) is fraught with difficulty due to the divergent perspectives and demands of stakeholders in the process. In "Part I: Agricultural Producer Concerns," the authors reviewed the concerns of food producers about potential FQPA threats to farm...

Traditional notions about the "farm problem" may have to be reconsidered in light of the changing economic characteristics of industrialized agriculture. These changing conditions will affect the opportunity set ofpolicy alternatives available to policy makers in developed countries. Changes in...

To create and sustain a competitive advantage in markets that increasingly value animal welfare attributes, meat companies need to meet public and private production standards while communicating to final consumers through their brands. Data are collected from a representative sample of 460 U.S....

Labels, certifications and endorsements signaling the quality of food have an impact on the purchasing choices of multiple segments of US consumers. At the same time, not much is known about the relationships between the sources providing information through these quality signals and consumer...

Starting from the generalized notion of a vertical coordination continuum introduced by Williamson and others, the article more specifically defines the nature of the continuum, especially the array of hybrid strategies. The continuum as presented includes five distinct groups of strategy –...

The qualitative and quantitative results of a study undertaken to test a decision framework firms might consider in choosing a vertical coordination strategy are presented. The posited five-step decision making process tested that a change in coordination strategy would occur if and only if a...

This paper provides an empirical validation of the Peterson, Wysocki & Harsh (PWH) framework for coordination strategy decisions, drawing evidence from four firms' procurement strategies in São Paulo's fresh produce markets. The results support the hypothesis that the PWH framework provides...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In the Fall of 1994, researchers in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University identified the following two questions: 1.To what degree (if any) are smaller agribusiness and food industry firms involved in international markets? 2.To what degree (if...

This paper reports the results of market place and consumer research for hard apple cider. The objectives of the research were to determine potential demand for and constraints to the supply of hard apple cider in Michigan. The research was undertaken using on-site and focus group interviews of...