Progress 09/01/09 to 08/31/13
Outputs
Target Audience: Lentil Growers in the United States Consumers in Sri Lanka Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Enhanced the knowledge of stakeholders of the U.S. lentil industry based on the development of the international lentils marketing plan and research findings by the students. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Educational Objectives 1) Exposed Rutgers students to global socio-cultural, economic, trade and geo-political environment and helped them to understand how the supply chain of lentils works beyond the U.S. borders. 2) Provided two weeks hands-on training to Rutgers students in Sri Lanka on lentils supply chain management and educated the students to impart practical experiences in their learning process. 3) Educated the undergraduate and graduate students of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya on key issues on global agribusiness marketing and specifically on lentil supply chain marketing with a focus on retailers/wholesalers/importers. 4) Fostered on-going research collaborations between the Rutgers University faculty and Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Research Objectives 1)Documented the evolving structure of the supply chain in the lentil industry in the U.S. as well as Sri Lanka, by tracking from the farm gate to port in the U.S. and from the port in Sri Lanka to the ultimate consumer. 2) Analyzed and characterized consumer perceptions and awareness of country of origin labeled lentils in Sri Lanka, documented the willingness to buy and estimated the demand for such lentils. 3) Developed an international marketing plan for American lentils in developing countries including Sri Lanka. 4)Enhanced the knowledge of stakeholders of the U.S. lentil industry based on the development of the international lentils marketing plan and research findings by the students.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: During third year of the project we mainly focused on survey data relating to wholesalers and retailers, dealing with lentils in Sri Lanka. Summary of the survey results are presented in this report. Fifty eight wholesalers and 47 retailers were surveyed to collect data relating to expectations about the lentil market. Most of wholesalers in the sample were in urban areas. About 57% of sellers from the sample were in urban locations. About 42% sellers were in rural locations. About 45% sellers were retail shop keepers. Among them only 30% sellers were in rural areas. Different types of lentils were sold by sellers in different districts. When considering Colombo district there was high demand for red lentils among both wholesalers and retailers. Most of wholesalers showed willingness to sell packet lentils with a label. When comparing Colombo and Galle district Anuradhapura district had considerable number of green gram sellers than other districts. Different quantities have been purchased by sellers in different districts. When considering average quantities of lentils purchased by sellers in different districts, sellers in Colombo have purchased highest amount of lentils. Sellers in Kandy district also have purchased higher amount of lentils than Anuradhapura, Kurunegala and Kandy districts. Demand for red lentils is higher than other types of lentils in every districts. Amount of toor dhal, Green gram purchased by sellers was very low. Sellers have different opinion about the importance of meeting customer needs. 48% sellers agreed with "Meeting customer needs is extremely important" while 45% sellers agreed with "Meeting customer needs is somewhat important". Only 8% of sellers neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement "Meeting customer needs is important". It says that majority of lentil sellers believe that meeting customer needs is important. Different sellers have different opinion about the importance of price in decision making. About 42% sellers agreed with the statement "Extremely important". About 23% sellers agreed with the statement "Somewhat important". About 4% sellers neither agreed nor disagreed. Only 18% of sellers considered that quality is not an important factor. According to the results, majority of sellers believed that "price is an important factor in decision making to purchase lentils. About 31% sellers considered that demand is an important factor in making decision to purchase lentils while 20% of sellers agreed with the statement "somewhat important". About 13% sellers neither agreed nor disagreed. And 7% sellers considered that demand is not an important factor in making decision to purchase lentils. According to the results obtained, there were different factors that affect the lentil marketing in Sri Lanka. Competition was the critical factor to lentil marketing in Sri Lanka. Inflation, Quality, Consumer preference and tax were the other main factor that influence to the lentil marketing. PARTICIPANTS: James E. Simon, Co PD. Professor Director, New Use Agriculture and Natural Plant Products Program (NUANPP), Rutgers University Department of Plant Biology and Plant Pathology-Foran Hall 59 Dudley Road New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901 Tel: 732-932-9711, ext. 355; Fax: 732-932-9377 jesimon123@hotmail.com William J. Sciarappa County Agent, Agricultural & Resource Management Agents 4000 Kozloski Road, P.O Freehold, NJ 07728 Phone: (732) 431-7278 Fax: (732) 409-4813 sciarappa@rcre.rutgers.edu Anoma Ariyawardana Ph.D. Senior Lecturer in Agribusiness Management School of Agriculture and Food Sciences Faculty of Science The University of Queensland QLD 4343 TP: 07 5460 1106 Fax: 07 5460 1342 TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
The results from the wholesaler/retailer survey will help the intermediaries better serve the consumers. By knowing what consumers want, intermediaries will be able to better move the products through the system.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: During second year of the project we mainly focused on survey data cleanup, tabulation and preparation of report. About 10 wholesalers/retailers/importing agents were interviewed to collect data on the supply chain practices. Based on the consumer survey data, econometric models have been developed to identify the factors that significantly contribute towards willingness to buy country of origin labeled, branded lentils given the characteristics of consumers. In addition we also contacted marketing director of U.S. Dry Pea & Lentil Council and discovered abundant new information that will change what Rutgers students had learned during their market research in Sri Lanka. According to the middlemen of Sri Lanka, the exporting process of United States was more complicated than it needs to be. They had expressed that most of the lentils from the United States had to be transported to Canada before it is distributed to the rest of the world. We wanted to confirm the claims made by the Sri Lankan business people and understand the whole picture of U.S. lentil production. The rumor from Sri Lanka was that most U.S. lentils go to Canada to be distributed to the rest of the world. We wanted to make sure the realities of this statement and improve the Unites States lentil exports to Sri Lanka. In fact, lentils leave to the rest of the world from the U.S. There is only one processing plant in America dealing with splitting lentils. Most U.S. lentil dealers prefer to sell lentils in split form due to the mark up available. The U.S. market is not conformed to Sri Lanka's market needs due to numerous reasons. Currently only 50,000 acres of land in the United States is used for red lentil farming. American farmers prefer to grow high quality red lentils. Those high quality red lentils are mostly sold to various countries other than Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, although we detected that consumers in Sri Lanka prefer quality over pricing, the importers will ultimately make the decision. The choices that are offered to the consumer will dependent on the importer side. The importers choose pricing over quality at the moment in Sri Lanka. In addition, United States' red lentil farmers tend to prefer growing the higher quality of red lentils at a higher price, while Canada is more concerned with volume rather than quality. Based on the information from Lentil Council, Idaho, Washington, Montana, and North Dakota are the main states producing lentils. The reason is because of the climate available. The farmers of United States first decide what types of lentil to grow. These decisions are decided when the farmers gain feedback from the processing plant as to what kind of market is profitable in the world. After planting the lentils in spring, the farmers will harvest the lentils in August and store them at the farm until the processors pick them up. Another way, the processors usually hold a meeting in the spring to determine what type of lentils to tell the farmers to grow. It is the processors' job to communicate. The lentil market in the United States is consistently growing as the consumption in the world grows. PARTICIPANTS: James E. Simon, Co PD. Professor Director, New Use Agriculture and Natural Plant Products Program (NUANPP), Rutgers University Department of Plant Biology and Plant Pathology-Foran Hall 59 Dudley Road New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901 Tel: 732-932-9711, ext. 355; Fax: 732-932-9377 jesimon123@hotmail.com William J. Sciarappa County Agent, Agricultural & Resource Management Agents 4000 Kozloski Road, P.O Freehold, NJ 07728 Phone: (732) 431-7278 Fax: (732) 409-4813 sciarappa@rcre.rutgers.edu Anoma Ariyawardana Ph.D. Senior Lecturer in Agribusiness Management School of Agriculture and Food Sciences Faculty of Science The University of Queensland QLD 4343 TP: 07 5460 1106 Fax: 07 5460 1342 TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Students at Rutgers received training and prepared an international marketing plan and were exposed to wholesale/retail global trading environment as well as they learned to conduct a consumer survey in eliciting information. Furthermore, the benefits of this exercise has been shared with the American lentil producers to make better production and marketing decisions and be able to process, grade and brand the products to enhance their sales and profits. Specifically, producers and exporters in the U.S. learned to target those consumers in Sri Lanka who is willing to pay a premium for branded and labeled quality products. This will enhance both the bottom line as well as top line of the producers and exporters of the U.S. Policy makers in Sri Lanka as well as in the U.S. will be able to identify and address specific impediments to the growth and development of the global lentil industry. Furthermore, U.S. lentil producers and intermediaries will be able to understand the Sri Lankan supply chain and develop appropriate marketing strategies accordingly in achieving a competitive edge in the lentil industry.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/09 to 08/31/10
Outputs
A questionnaire was prepared in English to gather relevant information from the consumers. The questionnaire was pre-tested with 10 randomly selected consumers and necessary adjustments were made for better understanding. Attributes and levels of the choice sets were presented as brief written descriptions, with pictures. Several photographs of large and small sized lentils, packed and non packed lentils and lentils with high and low visual quality were taken with a digital camera. The price attribute would not be observable in photos and hence it was explained in the text. These photos were also pre-tested with the same consumers to see whether they can interpret the photos in the choice set. The questionnaire was translated into Sinhala. After considering the limitations imposed by research costs and time we decided to collect the sample of 300 consumers from 5 districts of Sri Lanka. These 5 districts represented the highly populated districts as well as pulse producing districts of Sri Lanka as well as different levels of development and economic activities. The proportion of the sample among selected districts was decided based on each district's population share. The final samples from some districts were adjusted for convenience in survey logistics. There are three types of shops where consumers buy lentils and they are the a) retail shops owned and operated by individual private businesses, b) supermarkets operated as national chains or established by large businesses in regional cities, and c) retail shops operated by consumer co-operative societies. First two types of shops usually operate on open market conditions while the co-operative shops get benefits of various government support schemes aiming to keep food prices low. Retail shops are the most prevalent in all areas of the country. We first decided to allocate 50 percent of the sample to retail shops and to divide the rest equally between other two types of shops. It is however noted that prevalence of shop types differ depending on urban rural location and the proportion was changed accordingly to get an accurate representation of consumers. Consumer interviews were conducted by intercepting consumers who bought lentils on the date of conducting the survey. Prior to the interviews, an introduction was given about the survey and an official letter was handed over to request their consent. Upon obtaining their consent, basic details about their consumption patterns of lentils and socio-economic characteristics were gathered. Then each respondent was given 2 sets of photos each having 4 choice combinations. They were asked to rank the choice combinations from one to four selecting the most preferred combination of attributes in the first place. Likewise data collection was carried out in 41 cities in 5 districts of Sri Lanka. Data were entered in an Excel spread sheet to be used in further analysis. PRODUCTS: Developed one questionnaire to interview consumers Developed one questionnaire to interview wholesalers and retailers As a component of this collaboration, a 2-day workshop on Agribusiness Export Marketing was also held at the Postgraduate Institute Agriculture. Twenty five (25) undergraduate students majoring in Applied Economics and Business Management at the Faculty of Agriculture participated in this workshop. Resource persons were from the Faculty of Agriculture, Rutgers and from the marketing managers of leading agribusiness firms. Certificate awarding was done by the Dean, Faculty of Agriculture and the Head, Department of Agricultural Economics and Business Management and Prof. Ramu Govindasamy. OUTCOMES: Students developed a global marketing plan to export lentils to Sri Lanka based on their 2-week hands-on, data collection trip to Sri Lanka. They also presented their findings at University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka as well as Rutgers University. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: We will be contacting the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council once we complete the report for dissemination of findings from the survey. FUTURE INITIATIVES: We are planning for a seminar to all undergraduates at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences with Environmental and Business Economics majors. We are working with the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council and U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka in taking a delegate of farmers to Sri Lanka to learn about the supply chain of lentils in Sri Lanka.
Impacts
Rutgers students spent 2 weeks in Sri Lanka to collect data relating to lentil supply chain management. This trip exposed students not only to global marketing but also to cultural and economic environment in Sri Lanka. As can be seen from student's trip reports, this experience will have a lifelong impact on their views about economic, cultural and political environment in a typical developing country. Main component of the training program was to facilitate students to familiarize to different segments of the lentil market chain. Students visited different types of consumer outlets in Kandy to get a first-hand experience on operations. Types of shops included retail shops, selected supermarkets, central city market and cooperative shops. Students observed the behaviour of purchasing, discussed with consumers on their purchasing decisions and perceptions and also talked to operators on their decisions to offer commodities. Students also had an opportunity to carry out the consumer and retailer survey during these visits.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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