Crop production is shifting to much larger farms. Since government commodity payments reflect production volumes for program commodities, payments are also shifting to larger farms. In turn, the operators of very large farms have substantially higher household incomes than other farm households,...

Economic change and market dynamics have fundamentally altered the structure and performance of agricultural markets in the United States, Canada, and Mexico within the last 25 years. Many factors have helped shape the current North American food and fiber system, including technological change,...

Retail consolidation, technological change in production and marketing, and growing consumer demand for produce have altered the traditional market relationships between producers, wholesalers, and retailers. Increasingly, produce suppliers are asked to provide additional marketing services and...

Empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in eight important food industries suggests that workers in acquired plants realized modest increases in employment and wages relative to other workers. Results also show that mergers and acquisitions reduced the likelihood of plant closures while...

Hog production in 2004 was characterized by wide variation in the types, sizes, and economic performance of operations. Operations specializing in a single production phase generated more than three times the product value, on average, of those using the traditional farrow-to-finish approach....

This paper examines how consolidation in the marketing system affects prices for orange juice. We isolated the pricing behavior of brand marketers, wholesalers, and retailers by observing the retail prices for specific orange juice products, including leading national brands and private label...

Consolidation in the agricultural biotechnology industry can both enhance and dampen market competition. This report examines the causes and consequences of industry consolidation and its effect on market efficiency. In some cases, concentration realizes economies of scale, which can improve...

This investigation into the traceability baseline in the United States finds that private sector food firms have developed a substantial capacity to trace. Traceability systems are a tool to help firms manage the flow of inputs and products to improve efficiency, product differentiation, food...

Meatpacking consolidated rapidly in the last two decades: slaughter plants became much larger, and concentration increased as smaller firms left the industry. We use establishment-based data from the U.S. Census Bureau to describe consolidation and to identify the roles of scale economies and...

High tariff and nontariff protection of the Indian oilseed sector imposes costs on consumers, supports an inefficient processing industry, and has led to negligible gains in oilseed output. Model-based simulations indicate that higher levels of protection would increase the burden on consumers,...