Blockchain in Food and Agriculture Supply Chain

Agriculture is one of the most important and largest sectors in Indonesia and creates jobs for at least 38.7 million workers. Although the number of workers in agriculture is relatively high and the sector contributes 14% to Indonesian GDP, many challenges still remain hampering growth. One of the key issues is the limited data availability in the agriculture sector causing imperfect and incomplete information on agriculture products. Data can provide the information about the quality of the product to the consumer to create transparency between producer and consumer. In order to facilitate data access, a big data base is needed in which all stakeholders can access the near-time data. A technology that can help to support this database is called blockchain. Blockchain is an immutable, transparent, public and append-only ledger. It is a peer-to-peer network that can maintain updates and verifies those updates to the ledger in a way that it is impossible to alter the data. This paper discusses HARA, a use-case of blockchain implementation in the food and agriculture sector.

Factors Influencing Consumers' Purchase Intentions Towards Made-to-Order Tea Drinks in China

This article aims to identify and assess the factors influencing consumers' purchase intentions towards made-to-order (MTO) tea drinks. The made-to-order milk tea drink industry in China has generated over USD 14bn in revenue in 2018. The size of the market, the nature of the preparation and delivery to consumers, combine to create opportunities for individuals, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. Relatively little is known about the drivers of purchase intentions for MTO milk tea drink consumers. For the purposes of this research, the various options that influence purchasing of tea drinks among Chinese consumers were classified into 10 factors, and data was collected through online surveys. The results indicate the extent to which Chinese consumers' purchase intentions are influenced by consumers' age, price of the drink, pursuit of a pleasant state of mind, quest for social network interaction, search for novel experiences, and concern for health.

The Industry of Tourism in Developing Countries

This article briefly describes the development of the tourism sector in Albania, summarizing consumer behavior theory at a micro prospective, and providing a few general ideas on how the Albanian market can stimulate a change in European consumers' behavior and attract a larger and constant stream of tourists. This article is elaborated from three perspectives of the environment: the economic, the socio–cultural, and the technological. Starting with the economic environment perspective, the authors explore ways to ensure the efficient development of the economy through resource management, with the purpose of creating space for future generations. Following the social-cultural environment perspective, they analyze the way social and cultural sustainability ensures and enhances people's life skills, strengthens community identity and improves food safety practices through educational campaigns in the hospitality sector. Closing with the technological environment perspective, the authors explore ways to strengthen Albania's online position and improve telecommunication channels between urban and rural areas.

Forecasting Model of Wheat Yield in Relation to Rainfall Variability in North Africa Countries

The study investigated the effect of rainfall variations on wheat yield in Morocco as a representative case study of North Africa region. The data were collected for the period 2004– 2015 from 12 meteorological stations. The wheat yield variability range was 79.5%-38.0%. It increased in poor-rain years and the regions of precipitation ≤ 350 mm. The wheat yield showed more significant response to monthly perception changes than the annual. The estimated forecasting model showed that March's rain was the critical month for wheat yield as the elasticity of production was 0.587. April and May showed an elasticity of 0.011 and 0.023, respectively. The estimated response of wheat farm price to grain yield showed that 10% increase in wheat yield would decrease the farm gate price by 4.1%, i.e. poor rainy seasons mean income foregone with the loss of inputs expenses and expansion in imported wheat. A country buffer stock, a regional strategic stock of wheat and supplementary water for irrigation in poor precipitation years are required.

Reconfiguring Household Management in Times of Discontinuity as an Open System

This article is based upon a heterodox approach to economics that rejects the oversimplification made by closed economic models and the mainstream concept of ‘externality.' This approach re-imagines economics as a holistic evaluation of resources versus human needs, which requires judgement based on understanding of the complexity generated by the dynamic relations between different systems. One re-imagining of the economic model is as a holistic and systemic evaluation of agri-food systems' sustainability that was performed through the multi-dimensional Governance Assessment Matrix Exercise (GAME). This is based on the five capitals model of sustainability, and the translation of qualitative evaluations into quantitative scores. This is based on the triangulation of big data from a variety of sources. To represent quantitative interactions, this article proposes a provisional translation of GAME's qualitative evaluation into a quantitative form through the identification of measurement units that can reflect the different capital dimensions. For instance, a post-normal, ecological accounting method, Emergy is proposed to evaluate the natural capital. The revised GAME re-imagines economics not as the ‘dismal science,' but as one that has potential leverage for positive, adaptive and sustainable ecosystemic analyses and global ‘household' management. This article proposes an explicit recognition of economics nested within the social spheres of human and social capital which are in turn nested within the ecological capital upon which all life rests and is truly the bottom line. In this article, the authors make reference to an on-line retailer of local food and drink to illustrate the methods for evaluation of the five capitals model.

Understanding the Dependence Structure Between the Futures and Spot Prices of Wheat in Egypt

The aim of this article is to check the dependence structure for the futures-spot prices link of Egyptian wheat. Co-movements between prices are assessed by a GJR-GARCH model and semi-parametric copula estimation. Results suggest a positive futures-spot prices link, which becomes stronger the closer the markets are. Evidence of asymmetric behavior of the prices at times of extreme market situations is found. As a result, increases in wheat futures prices are expected to be passed to the Egyptian spot market, while the prices decline is not passed. This implies that the Egyptian wheat market cannot protect consumers against extreme international wheat price increases.

A Qualitative Analysis of Innovation Adoption in the Olive Oil Extraction Process

Pressures on the Italian olive oil sector have increased over the past few years due to seasons of bad weather, small innovation capacity and limited long-term investment plans. Thus, it is of interest to explore signs of positive attitude towards innovation investment in the agricultural sector. The focus has been on technologies employed in the extraction process, since yield and quality of olive oil are mostly affected by this stage. To define the determinants of innovation adoption, 13 managers were interviewed. Questions covered organisation factors, personal factors, social factors, the impact of the olive oil value chain and the cost of the extraction machinery. The results of the thematic analysis showed that determinants of innovation adoption were: perceived usefulness, personal innovativeness, prior experience, influence of peers, training and managerial support, and the relative importance of quality, while major challenges are the lack of financial funds, demand pressure from customers, and lack of early warning systems to tackle bad weather conditions.

Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior of Fresh Packaged Food in Tunisia

This article provides current information about the consumer buying behaviors for fresh packaged food in Tunisia, and studies the Tunisian consumers' attitudes and perceptions of fresh packaged food quality. Based on this study, a potential marketing strategy can be introduced or improved to attract the consumer to purchase fresh packaged food. In this article, the quantitative method was applied by categorical regression which resulted in two models based on the consumption of fresh packaged food and the quantity purchased of the product.

Analyzing Consumer Impulse Purchasing Behaviour Using Observational Data

This article identifies consumers' impulse purchasing behavior in supermarkets. The study includes an interpretation of the impulse decision relationship with the final purchase and an analysis of the distribution of impulse purchasers' demographic characteristics (age and shoppers' company). SPSS was used to analyze the observed data at a national retail supermarket chain. The logistic regression model was developed in order to identify the explanatory power of the variables. Categorical principal component analysis was employed to analyze the distribution of the variables. Empirical findings indicated that “impulsive decision” has a stronger intensity on “purchase” than “gender” does. Impulsive customers are split into three age groups and two company categories. These results could be used to design marketing strategies in order to increase sales. However, a few limitations occurred during the study such as: observation timing, unicity of location and observers' subjectivity.

Visitors' Multi-Dimensional Decision-Making Approach

The Samaria National Park in Chania, Crete, Greece was established in 1962 and has since been one of the most well-known protected areas of Greece. It attracts thousands of visitors every year and creates a social and economic environment for various local businesses such as hotels and restaurants. Most of those businesses operate seasonally for the same time period as the park and owe a high percentage of their turnover to the park's visitors. Tourists spend a large share of their budget for various goods and services during their visit which has a considerable impact on the economy of the whole region of Chania. However, because of the fact that the Samaria National Park is a natural asset, its value as a touristic multi-attraction is often overlooked or taken for granted. This research attempts to explore the preferences of tourists who have visited the island of Crete and the Samaria National Park, and the overall impact of that activity on the local economy. The approach involves collecting questionnaires during the period that the park operates, from May to October, in order to derive primary data about the preferences, attitudes, socio-demographic profiles and satisfaction criteria of tourists towards the park.