Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the globe, starting in developed and migrating to emerging countries, the growth
of supermarket retailing is forming a principal link between food producing indus-
tries and their consumers. A relatively few, sophisticated international retailers are
establishing businesses in both geographic hemispheres and, in doing so, are trans-
forming the nature and operations of international supply chains. The implications
of international horticultural supply chains being transformed from “supply push”
to “demand pull” are profound for all stakeholders, including growers, exporters
and importers, and the international research and development (R&D) community.
Commodity markets are fragmenting into specific consumer segments. The R&D
focus is shifting from input traits (e.g. yield or pest and pathogen resistance) to
consumer-led output traits (e.g. taste, size, shape), and is becoming an increasingly
private sector function. The challenge is to identify and commercialize product at-
tributes that consumers' value and will pay premiums for.
Those businesses capturing the intellectual property associated with value-added
products will take the lion's share of the consumers' dollars. The trend towards
“privatization” of R&D will cause current supply chains, which are open and com-
modity-orientated to become closed, with exclusive providers of genetics and as-
sociated production systems linking with specific producers, exporters, importers
and retailers. The horticultural industry will come under increasing price pressure
in the future, as fewer, larger businesses control access to higher income consum-
ers. Competition will evolve however, from solely price-based to innovation-based
systems providing novelty in products, processes, and services. Successful horti-
cultural businesses around the world will seek to build trust and longer-term com-
mercial relationships with those who have immediate contact with the grower and
consumer, bringing in an era of interdependence, rather than independence. This
will steadily manifest itself in closer relationships between producers and the con-
sumers. The latter are making it abundantly plain that they wish for contact with
producers through increasing consumer demand for information regarding the ori-
gins and qualities of food. The internationalised food chains will have to accommo-
date growing demands by consumers for localisation of production, the provision
of fresh and processed products carrying health and welfare benefits, minimisation
of adverse environmental impacts in the production and delivery of food and other
services, and a desire for a reconnection between urban and rural societies. Over-
laying all of this will be the increasingly severe impacts of climate change, water
scarcity and increased urbanisation on opportunities for horticultural production.
This echoes Sumner's ( 2007 ) contention, that horticultural science has a dichotomy
of purpose of serving the requirements of transnational corporations and supporting
basic human needs, community survival and environmental sustainability.
Possibly a solution lies in what Larsson et al. ( 2009 ) now describe as their Triple
Helix Concept of co-operation between academia, industry and government. That
revives the founding principles of the American Land Grant Colleges and what were
once the Scottish Schools of Agriculture. They resolved the dilemma whereby in-
dustry requires short term problem-solving research while there must be a provision
of basic seed-corn research investing in studies which will only ripen into industrial
technology over an indeterminate period. To some extent, in pursuit of these goals
Search WWH ::




Custom Search