Net Gains from 'Net Purchases? Farmers' Preferences for Online and Local Input Purchases

E-commerce represents both threats to and opportunities for rural communities. This study addresses one element of the issue: farmers' willingness to substitute online merchants or national farm input stores for local businesses. Results of a conjoint analysis of contingent choice experiments suggest that farmers are willing to purchase from online or national stores outside their communities if compensated with lower prices or greater services. Results also demonstrate that the context of the input purchase, such as time constraints, was very important not only in valuing these services, but, more broadly, in terms of the farmer's loyalty to a local merchant.e-commerce, farm input purchase, willingness to pay, contingent choice, rural communities, Farm Management, Marketing,

A SOCIOECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF MARKETING INFORMATION USAGE AMONG OHIO FRUIT PRODUCERS

Farm producers attempt to mitigate risk and uncertainty by utilizing accurate and reliable information. This research attempts to identify sources of information used by Ohio fruit producers and then determine which of these sources are best meeting their information needs. Results are based on a logit analysis of Ohio fruit producers and several factors are shown to influence producers' evaluation of the "adequacy" of their marketing information. Among these factors are age, business size, education, type of enterprise, and types of information sources. Reported findings have implications for marketing efficiency, particularly if producers' evaluation of information as adequate is positively related to its efficient use.Marketing,

Tractors on eBay: Differences between Internet and In-Person Auctions

Internet auction platforms are changing the face of transactions in many business sectors, including agriculture. We provide one of the first systematic examinations of the differences between internet and in-person auctions in agricultural input markets. A hedonic model estimated with used tractor transactions from Midwestern sellers pooled between eBay and in-person auctions reveals statistically distinct price surfaces for the two auction venues and predicts significantly lower prices for comparable equipment sold on eBay, though this difference is attenuated for tractors fully covered by eBay's buyer protection program and is fully absent for the most frequently traded tractor. An endogenous venue-selection model reveals that larger, more-valuable tractors are less likely to be offered on eBay, a choice that should enhance seller revenues. Furthermore, sellers in states with more valuable stocks of machinery, more frequent tractor sales, and a lower propensity to use the internet for agricultural marketing are more likely to offer tractors for sale via in-person auctions than on eBay.auctions, electronic commerce, eBay, farm equipment, hedonic models, Marketing, D44, Q13,

Adoption of Variable Rate Technology

Site Specific Management (SSM), which also variously referred to as Variable Rate Technology (VRT), is an emergingtechnology that enables producers to make more precise input application decisions based on soil and fieldcharacteristics. This study analyzes factors influencing the adoption of VRT for fertilizer application for cash grainproduction in Ohio. Results show that producer and field characteristics might influence the adoption decision onvarious SSM components differently. It also provides insight as to the sequence of adoption of SSM componenttechnologies and how this sequence might differ for producers of differing characteristics

Willingness to pay for locally produced foods: A customer intercept study of direct market and grocery store shoppers

Increasingly, grocery stores are marketing foods differentiated as locally produced. Freshness and taste are obvious reasons for consumer preference for these goods, but also important may be home-bias. Whatever the motive, there is substantial evidence that some consumers are willing to pay premium prices for food characterized as locally produced. A customer-intercept survey and a choice experiment of food shoppers in direct markets and traditional grocery stores was analyzed using Conjoint methods to evaluate WTP for characteristics related to locally grown fresh strawberries. Our results suggest that consumers are willing to pay more for locally produced berries: Customers intercepted in grocery stores would pay an average of 64 cents more per quart, while those intercepted at direct markets would pay nearly $1.17 more per carton of strawberries that was grown locally rather than berries identified simply as "produced in the U.S." These conclusions provide a solid rationale for the existence of niche market potential for local berry producers.Consumer/Household Economics,

Information Usage by Commercial Ohio Cash Grain Farmers: Sources, Uses and Adequacy of Marketing Information

Exact date of working paper unknown.Farm marketing decisions are made in a risky environment. Reliable information about prices and the resulting outcome distribution for different decision alternatives is useful in the decisionmaking process. The objective of this research is to better understand the usage of market information by cash grain farmers. Results of a 1987 survey of Ohio commercial farmers are reported. Logit analysis is utilized to determine factors associated with manager perceptions of the adequacy of marketing information sources currently used by the farmer