Recipient Organization
KANSAS STATE UNIV
(N/A)
MANHATTAN,KS 66506
Performing Department
Agri Economics
Non Technical Summary
The specialty crops and food systems play an important role in the economy. The viability and sustainability of specialty crop industries such as fresh fruit and vegetable industry is important for continual efforts to improve dietary habits and promote public health and wellbeing. Recent advancements in technology, growing trends in consumer preference for natural, organic, and locally grown products, combined with new policies and regulations and increasing volatility in commodity markets have resulted in unprecedented shifts in competitive dynamics in the specialty crop industry. The managers and policy makers need to quickly understand and adapt to ongoing changes in competitive forces and market drivers in order to maintain industry competitiveness and sustain customer value. Through combined application of supply chain management theory, economic modeling, and data analysis this project will generate and communicate new insights to industry stakeholders, policy makers, and academics regarding issues related to technology adoption, risk management, contracting and coordination of supply chain relationships, as well as resilience and sustainability of specialty crop systems. The ultimate goal of the project is to enhance the viability, sustainability, and global competitiveness of the U.S. specialty crop industry and to ensure the efficient flow of fresh fruits and vegetables from growers to consumers.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Assess the changing coordination and supply chain management strategies being implemented in the fruit and vegetable sector and identify strategic organizational and marketing implications for a set of firms that are diverse in terms of commodity, marketing approach and size of operation (including small and mid size farms).
Project Methods
The methods for conducting this project will include: literature review and initial analysis to highlight most relevant research issues; collection and analysis of primary qualitative and quantitative data through designing and conducting surveys of specialty crop industry stakeholders; analysis and synthesis of available secondary data from industry associations, government agencies, and non-governmental and private organizations; application of management and economic theory for modeling the supply chain relationships and transactions, formulating research questions and hypothesis regarding strategic management, vertical coordination, supply chain facilitation, and marketing in the specialty crop industry; application of advanced econometric methods for estimating the impact of changing competitive forces and market drivers on the management, performance, growth, and competitiveness of individual firms and the overall specialty crop industry.Recent advancements in technology, growing trends in consumer preference for product attributes such as natural, organic, locally grown, combined with new policies and regulations and increasing volatility in commodity markets have resulted in unprecedented shifts in competitive dynamics in the specialty crop industry. These changes are forcing specialty crop producers, processors, and retailers to continually re-evaluate their growth, coordination, and marketing strategies in order to stay competitive and offer relevant value proposition to customers. The specialty crop supply chain actors need to quickly understand and adapt to ongoing changes in competitive forces and market drivers that are re-shaping the global specialty crops and food systems.Efforts will be directed towards generating and communicating new insights to industry stakeholders, policy makers, and academics regarding issues related to technology adoption, risk management, contracting and coordination of supply chain relationships, as well as resilience and sustainability of specialty crop systems. The new insights will be communicated to relevant stakeholders through: conference presentations, refereed journal articles, case studies, audio-visual material, and industry forums.The success of the project in its ability to generate new insights and inform management decision making, public policy, and academic research will be tracked and measured through the number of the research outputs (e.g. papers, presentations, publications) as well as their impact (e.g. impact factors of research outlets, number of citations, number of stakeholders reached).