Determining the Role of Communication and Distribution Channels for Organic Foods

While, the market for organic foods is growing; the proportion of consumers who buy organic foods is still considered low. The role of communication activities is very important for promoting the organic food consumption. In order to create awareness and generate demand for organic foods, companies need to use effective communication tools. Companies in the agribusiness sector try to take advantage of the information and communication technologies in the digital era with the purpose of communicating the value of their offer to consumers. Companies need to know which information sources (channels) are most influential in purchase decision while communicating with consumers. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine consumers' credibility perceptions of communication channels that are used to promote organic food. The great majority of the respondentsin this study mentioned that they had never seen organic food ads. However, a significant number of consumers who had seen organic food ads declared Internet as the medium they had exposed to organic food ads. Nevertheless, our study revealed that the respondents did not perceive Internet as a credible source of information about organic foods. Yet, online social networks were perceived as more reliable source of information about organic foods when compared to majority of traditional media such as radio and newspaper ads. The distribution channels that consumers prefer to purchase organic foods was also investigated; and it is found that a significant portion of the consumers choose supermarkets and neighborhood bazaars for their organic food shopping whereas Internet/online shops and pharmacy stores were shown as the least preferred shopping alternatives. Finally, a substantial majority of the consumers mentioned high prices and availability as the main barriers against buying organic foods.

A Virtual Supply Chain Architecture to Grant Product Transparency in Agribusiness

Especially in the food sector, fraud and counterfeiting are affecting the trust of consumers, who are more and more oriented to chose products basing on quality and traceability attributes rather than the price. Recently, the Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard was introduced to provide specifications for the representation of product traceability information. The collection and analysis of such information allows supply chains to be monitored and controlled through virtualization. Several applications of EPCIS were presented in literature, even if most of them are mainly focused on enabling technologies, with less emphasis on assessing how the available information can be used for a control at a higher level. This chapter review the relevant literature available on this topic, and present an architecture allowing the traceability of information about products throughout the entire supply chain by exploiting both the EPCIS standard and a NoSQL database. An application showing the potentiality of the proposed system in a case study is also reported.

Does Nonfarm Income Affect Agricultural Income and Investment in Pakistan?

The study investigates the impact of nonfarm income (NFI) on agricultural income and investment using the Pakistan Social and Living Measurement survey data for the year 2005-06. Results show that NFI negatively affects agricultural income and investment whenever it is statistically significant; and these effects are not same across the four provinces of Pakistan. The one to one comparison between the four provinces of the country shows that the effects of NFI on agricultural income and investment differ across provinces. The policy implication is that as compared to other sectors of the economy, agriculture generates low returns and consequently NFI is invested in other more productive sectors of the economy.

Multiple Exploration of Entrepreneurs' Suggestions for Agricultural Development of Local Regional Units in Greece

The purpose of the present article is to evaluate the factors which are considered to be important for the agribusiness development of a local economy, with data derived from the entrepreneurs' perspective. For this purpose, an appropriate methodology was designed, in order to include the most of the aforementioned factors. Emphasis was given to questions which can illustrate the level of technological innovation with actions and initiatives like digital marketing, innovative ability and others. Therefore, a questionnaire was created and was then applied to many regions in northern Greece. In respect of data analysis, the contribution of Correspondence Analysis (CA), a method from the multidimensional statistics field, was crucial because it easily revealed the characteristics that intensively differentiated themselves. The above methodologies and their special characteristics facilitated also the implementation of SWOT analysis. In the case of the Regional Units examined in the current research, the positive and negative factors-points were easily revealed and presented.

Risk Management in Agriculture

Risk has always been part of the business of agriculture. It's an industry built on the unpredictable forces of nature. What looks like a promising crop or herd can suddenly fall victim to the weather, insects or disease. Farmers are continually developing new ways to manage risk, from the use of hardier and higher yielding crop varieties and animal breeds to the application of new technologies on the farm to innovative marketing strategies. Smart agricultural policy has also evolved toward risk management programming that helps farmers deal with short-term income fluctuations as a result of risks largely outside their control. But the risks in agriculture today are greater and more complicated than ever before. International competition is fierce. Technological improvements are increasing world production and driving down real commodity prices. Public demand for higher food safety standards and better environmental practices requires new investments in the food system. Advances in science and technology are raising moral and ethical questions about the way food can and should be produced. At the same time, Smart agriculture itself has never been more diverse, ranging from specialty crops planted in small plots to grain farms covering thousands of hectares. In between being livestock operations of all sizes, greenhouses, organic farms and a growing number of agricultural businesses catering to unique consumer demands? It's an environment that is demanding new approaches to how business is conducted on the farm and consequently, how governments conduct agricultural policy.

Segmenting Paddy Farmer's Attitude and Behavior

Agriculture is the major driving force of Malaysian economic. The aim of this research study is to segment the behavior of paddy farmers in Malaysia and understand how they influence adoption, a green fertilizer technology (GFT). The first objective of this chapter is to establish the thinking which enables a society to bridge the gap between embracing GFT among paddy farmer in Malaysia. Furthermore, the study builds the conceptual framework and examine the relationship among the relevant construct of this conceptual framework which was found by critically examining the different agricultural innovation literature. To make this conceptual framework robust it is found in the literature that theory of planned behavior and theory of reasoned action play a major role in segment farmer's behavior towards the adoption of GFT. Policy implications and/or suggestions for future research are deliberated for each issue and factor that affecting the adoption of GFT.

Stakeholder Agriculture

The shift in agricultural production and agribusiness may be a solution in reducing unemployment and particularly that of young people which is dramatically high in several European countries that are experiencing the negative consequences of the recent global financial crisis that led to a dramatic decline in their GDP per capita and has affected all sectors of economic activity, including agriculture. The overall scope of this chapter is to present an Agricultural Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Framework that can lead to a new business model with social aspects, contribute to the economic growth and sustainability and hence combat the phenomenon of unemployment and poverty in rural areas that have been seriously affected by the recent financial crisis.

Reasons for Adapting Information Connectivity in the Short Supply Chains of Local Food Producers

Local food production is becoming increasingly popular in developed post-modern economies. Attention has been directed to developing such forms of food supply by adapting information connectivity. A case study of a local food network in Norway indicates that local food supply paradoxically attempts to mimic the dominant industrialised modes of food production. It is suggested that the fact that local food supply is “personal” and associated with close proximity makes it more closely resemble service supply chains. Applying contingency theory, a conceptual model is developed that indicates how the local food supply must take into consideration the degree to which customer value is associated with tailoring food supply. The high need for tailored local food production implies that information connectivity should support mutual adaptation while, in cases of less need for tailoring information, connectivity should seek automation. Local food production is always a hybrid of these approaches.

Social Marketing

Consumers purchase food from different sources, mainly via traditional/long chains where hypermarkets are the final link between producer and consumer. However, consumers are seeking direct relationships with producers. This, together with the increase of social media usage offer producers the potential to build short chains for promoting/selling their products. The aim of this work is to summarize the role that online short food supply chains could play as an opportunity for SMEs in the agri-food sector. Moreover, it highlights a new perspective based on social media as potential short supply chains. To this end, a thorough review of the literature has been carried out, together with an online survey where social networks as food marketing channels have being studied. The chapter concludes pondering about the different food products/sectors that could take advantage of the creation of short supply chains and of the wider use of social networks as marketing tools.

Assess and Prognosticate Operational and Environmental Efficiency of Primary Sectors of EU Countries

Efficiency assessment in agriculture is a research field were quite important methodologies have been implemented. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in one of the most recognized approaches due to the considerable advantages of it. In this paper the implementation of DEA Window analysis assesses efficiency scores of the primary sectors of EU member states on both operational and environmental level, verifying considerable efficiency differences among them and a continuous improvement after the application of the latest Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform. Regarding prognostication of crop and animal output, as well as Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) is being proposed, succeeding satisfactory quality characteristics for the models being proposed for operational and environmental predictions in EU agriculture.