Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
G022 MCCARTY HALL
GAINESVILLE,FL 32611
Performing Department
Food and Resource Economics
Non Technical Summary
The field of Agribusiness may be defined as the study of economic and managerial problems, including private strategies and public policies, as they pertain to the global food and fiber system. The term, agribusiness, first appeared in the seminal book by Davis and Goldberg, A Concept of Agribusiness, which described three distinct yet interdependent sectors in a global food system. The sectors include suppliers of agricultural inputs, producers of agricultural commodities, and all institutions that perform the functional aspects associated with marketing food and fiber products. These include product exchange, processing, storage, and transportation, as well as suppliers of market information, risk management, and financial services related to product distribution. Fundamental to the concept of agribusiness is that many problems related to agricultural production are interrelated and dependent upon political and economic issues affecting the entire supply chain. This leads to the primary thesis of agribusiness scholarship, which postulates that many of the fundamental problems in the food and fiber supply chain are intrinsic to the interconnected and interdependent nature of the system. We adopt a broad definition of scholarship, one that includes the creation of knowledge through research that utilizes economic, management, finance, marketing and supporting methodologies (albeit quantitative and/or qualitative) pertaining to problems in Agribusiness; the use of new teaching pedagogies as they pertain to educating undergraduate and graduate students in Agribusiness; as well as, development and implementation of industry outreach and extension programs that target managers, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in the agribusiness sector. Fundamental issues in the food system include a myriad of economic and management problems inherent to the biological nature of food production, processing, distribution and consumption, as well as their implications for numerous private and public policies that affect decisions of agribusiness managers, investors and consumers. The WERA-72 Coordinating Committee plays an important role in facilitating and promoting agribusiness scholarship by providing a research and educational forum that focuses on fundamental issues in agribusiness. These issues include business competitiveness, strategic management, industrial organization, international trade, evaluation of business performance, analysis of consumer preferences, agricultural industrialization, transportation and logistics, supply chain management, traceability, food protection, and public policy as they pertain to the global food system.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
To provide faculty from land-grant and other universities, and industry and government decision-makers a forum to interact, share information, and collaborate on research, teaching and extension programs as they pertain to food production, distribution and consumption, and a safe and sustainable food supply.
To coordinate timely research, teaching and extension objectives of researchers and educators by drawing on the expertise of academic and industry professionals in the agribusiness system.
To maintain and develop electronic communication methods to facilitate the exchange and dissemination of information among industry, government, and academia in the agribusiness system.
To improve the quality of agribusiness scholarship and enhance the effectiveness of coordinating committee participants by facilitating integrated and multi-state research and extension programs and greater access to extramural funds.
Project Methods
In order to facilitate information exchange, the committee undertakes several activities including organization of an annual meeting at which specific issues related to the stated objectives as well as other timely topics are addressed. Participation in the project includes university faculty with research, extension, and teaching orientation. In addition, the group has enjoyed active participation from government and industry. Further, university participation has included traditional land grant institutions as well as selected private universities that also have programs targeting the agribusiness sector. The coordination of publicly and privately funded research, teaching and outreach programs is a unique contribution of WERA-72. We encourage graduate students to participate as well, providing them with not only opportunities to discuss their research efforts and get constructive feed back from the group as a whole, but also opportunities to shape new directions for agribusiness scholarship.