MARKETING WINTER VEGETABLES FROM MEXICO

The North American winter-vegetable industry is highly integrated, with Mexican production supplying a large part of U.S. winter consumption needs. Imports from Mexico undergo a rigorous inspection procedure before entering the United States. In addition to Mexican firms, many U.S. firms are also involved in sourcing winter vegetables from Mexico. To compete well, both U.S. and Mexican firms must adapt to the changing market pressures, which reward firms that can source from many locations to provide a year-round supply and vertically integrated or coordinated firms that can control quality and pursue aggressive marketing.Marketing,

TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE: A CASE STUDY OF PHYTOSANITARY BARRIERS AND U.S. - JAPANESE APPLE TRADE

Concern about the use if technical barriers as restrictions to trade has increased since the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture. In this analysis, we quantify the phytosanitary barriers to U.S. apple exports to Japan by calculating tariff-rate equivalents. We examine the trade and welfare impacts of removing phytosanitary barriers and tariffs under two assumptions regarding transmission of the bacterial disease fire blight: first, that transmission via commercial fruit is not possible, and second, that it can occur. The disease losses required to eliminate the grains to trade are estimated to be much larger than those experienced in other countries.International Relations/Trade,

Greenhouse Tomatoes Change the Dynamics of the North American Fresh Tomato Industry

The rapid growth of the North American greenhouse tomato industry has changed the longstanding dynamics of the fresh tomato industry. During the 1990s, Canada emerged as the largest North American producer of greenhouse tomatoes, a prominence it never attained in the fresh field tomato industry. The United States and Mexico have also become important greenhouse tomato producers, consistent with their long dominance in North American fresh field tomato production. Greenhouse tomatoes have changed the look of U.S. retail tomato sales, where they now account for 37 percent of the quantity sold of fresh tomatoes. While the primary U.S. fresh field tomato product, the mature green tomato, long dominated retail sales, its share has decreased significantly due to the growth of greenhouse tomatoes. The U.S. mature green tomato industry is now more dependent on the continuing growth of the foodservice market, which generally prefers its product.Greenhouse tomatoes, field tomatoes, mature green tomatoes, United States, Canada, Mexico, market integration, product differentiation, seasonality in production, Crop Production/Industries,

Case study Guatemalan raspberries and cyclospora

"The Guatemalan raspberry industry began exporting to the United States in the late 1980s, filling a market niche in the spring and fall when supplies were low. By 1996, Guatemalan raspberry exports were increasing rapidly, up 113 percent from the previous season. That spring and early summer, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health Canada received reports of more than 1,465 cases of food-borne illness from Cyclospora, a protozoan parasite. Although no one died, the large number of cases generated substantial adverse publicity. Initially, investigators linked the outbreak to California strawberries, but they finally decided that it was associated with Guatemalan raspberries. This case study reviews the efforts to resolve this food safety problem. It is a cautionary tale about the serious impact a food safety outbreak can have on a promising industry. " from TextFood safety ,food security ,Public health ,

Market Response to a Food Safety Shock: The 2006 Foodborne Illness Outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 Linked to Spinach

In 2006 FDA announced that consumers should not eat fresh spinach in the wake of a large foodborne illness outbreak of E. coli O157:H7. This paper investigates response of consumers to the announcement. We use an AIDS demand model with 5 food safety shock variables and retail scanner data to analyze market response. Even fifteen months after the outbreak, predicted sales of spinach in bags were still down 10 percent from what they would have been in the absense of the food safety shock. After the outbreak, consumers shifted to other leafy greens such as bulk iceberg lettuce, other bulk lettuce, and bagged salads without spinach.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Food Safety and Spinach Demand: A Generalized Error Correction Model

We estimate an error correction model representing demand for leafy green vegetables but generalize the structure to allow for adjustment to one conspicuous shock. We investigate whether the adjustment rate to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2006 warning that fresh spinach was contaminated with deadly bacteria was distinct from the overall adjustment rate. Our model allows consumers to correct both for past errors and for any errors in their reaction to the shock. This method yields an estimate of the adjustment rate to the policy shock and points to an improved estimate of the duration of policy impacts.error correction model, adjustment rates, AIDS demand model, retail food demand, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy,

Traceability for Food Safety and Quality Assurance: Mandatory Systems Miss the Mark

Traceability systems are record-keeping systems that are primarily used to help keep foods with different attributes separate from one another. When information about a particular attribute of a food product is systematically recorded from creation through marketing, traceability for that attribute is established. Recently, policy makers in many countries have begun weighing the usefulness of mandatory traceability for managing such diverse problems as the threat of bio-terrorism, country-of-origin labelling, mad cow disease, and identification of genetically engineered foods. The question before policymakers is, When is mandatory traceability a useful and appropriate policy choice?Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

TRACEABILITY IN THE U.S. FOOD SUPPLY: ECONOMIC THEORY AND INDUSTRY STUDIES

This investigation into the traceability baseline in the United States finds that private sector food firms have developed a substantial capacity to trace. Traceability systems are a tool to help firms manage the flow of inputs and products to improve efficiency, product differentiation, food safety, and product quality. Firms balance the private costs and benefits of traceability to determine the efficient level of traceability. In cases of market failure, where the private sector supply of traceability is not socially optimal, the private sector has developed a number of mechanisms to correct the problem, including contracting, third-party safety/quality audits, and industry-maintained standards. The best-targeted government policies for strengthening firms' incentives to invest in traceability are aimed at ensuring that unsafe of falsely advertised foods are quickly removed from the system, while allowing firms the flexibility to determine the manner. Possible policy tools include timed recall standards, increased penalties for distribution of unsafe foods, and increased foodborne-illness surveillance.traceability, tracking, traceback, tracing, recall, supply-side management, food safety, product differentiation, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

Social Workers Who Left the Profession: An Exploratory Study

Why professional social workers leave the field of social work for other types of employment has implications for social work practice and education. The study suggests that economic advantage is but one of the factors involved in choosing other employment

U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Marketing: Emerging Trade Practices, Trends, and Issues

In the past year, trade practices between fresh produce shippers and food retailers gained national attention. Shippers are concerned that recent retail consolidation has led to market power and the growing incidence of fees and services. Retailers argue that these new trade practices reflect their costs of doing business and the demands of consumers. Trade practices include fees such as volume discounts and slotting fees, as well as services like automatic inventory replenishment, special packaging, and requirements for third-party food safety certification. Trade practices also refer to the overall structure of a transaction-for example, long-term relationships or contracts versus daily sales with no continuing commitment. This study compares trade practices in 1999 with those prevalent in 1994, placing them in the broader context of the evolving shipper/retailer relationship. Most shippers and retailers reported that the incidence and magnitude of fees and services associated with transactions has increased over the last 5 years. Fees paid to retailers are usually around 1-2 percent of sales for most of the commodities we examined, but 1-8 percent for bagged salads. Information on the incidence and magnitude of these new practices is scarce. To augment information that is publicly available, we interviewed a limited number of shippers, retailers, and wholesalers about their firms and trade practices. We received a high level of voluntary cooperation from the interviewed firms.produce, fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh-cut produce, trade practices, fees and services, slotting fees, retail consolidation, produce shipper consolidation, Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,