Pl. Pres. - Competing In Tomorrow's Marketplace: Trends and Strategic Implications For Agricultural Producers

Over the past two decades the world’s agricultural markets have undergone rapid expansion and structural change as a series of important trends including increasing global consumer wealth, expanding populations but decreasing household sizes, increased market access, and effectively unconstrained availability of technology and capital have dramatically changed the competitive landscape. As a consequence, agricultural producers today find their local marketplace and marketing channel partners (buyers and sellers) often placing increased and often unwanted demands upon them to gain access to specific channels, including food safety, certification, and various production practice constraints. Are these demands really warranted? What is driving these demands? How can and should different agricultural producers respond? This paper synthesizes these trends and provides a strategic framework for assisting agricultural producers evaluate the impact and implications of alternative strategic positioning choices within this new global marketplace.