Agile Agriculture Summit ' MidScale Food Value Chains

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Agile Agriculture Summit .
Mid-Scale Food Value Chains

• Fayetteville AR
• June 30July 1, 2009
• (gwsteven_at_wisc.edu)

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(No Transcript)
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AOTM Task Force Structure
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Business Marketing Options
Value- Added
1. Direct Marketing

• Opportunity Area

Strategic Alliances Food Value Chains
Farmers Markets CSAs Internet Sales
Very Small
Very Large
3. Commodity Marketing
4. Troubled Zone
Mid-scale Commodity Producers
Large-scale commodity Producers
Commodity
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Strategies for The Middle
Value- Added
1. Direct Marketing
2. Opportunity Area

• Differentiate with Value-added Attributes
• Aggregate for necessary volume
• New kinds of business rules

Very Small
Very Large
3. Commodity Marketing
4. Troubled Zone
Mid-scale Commodity Producers
Commodity
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Definition of Mid-tier Food Value Chains

• Values-based strategic business partnerships
• Featuring mid-scale agri-food enterprises that
• Create and distribute responsibilities and
  rewards equitably across the supply chain, and
• Operate effectively at regional levels with
• Significant volumes of high-quality,
  differentiated food products.

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Case Studies

• Country Natural Beef www.oregoncountrybeef.com
• Shepherds Grain www.shepherdsgrain.com
• Organic Valley Family of Farms www.organicvalley.
  coop
• Red Tomato www.redtomato.org

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Key Characteristics of Mid-tier Food Value
Chains

• Engage value/values in products and business
  relationships
• Emphasize organizational interdependence. trust
  and transparency shared support shared reward
• Achieve scale volume through cooperation and
  aggregation of mid-scale producers
• Enable mid-scale enterprises to be competitive

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Farmers, Ranchers, and Fishermen

• Are treated as strategic partners, not as
  interchangeable input suppliers
• Negotiate prices based on production and
  transaction costs, plus a reasonable margin
• Experience agreements/contracts as fair and for
  appropriate time frames
• Control brand identity up the supply chain
  co-branding with strategic partners
• Participate fully in value chain decisions

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Challenges and Opportunities

• Creating Marketing Significant Volumes of
  Differentiated Food Products
• Creating Effective Internal Organizational Forms
• Selecting Value Chain Partners
• Shared values, different competencies, and
  complementary business models

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Challenges and Opportunities Cont.

• Developing Effective Supply Chain Logistics
• Achieving Economic Sustainability
• commitment to the economic welfare of all
  strategic partners supply management, stable
  pricing, and cost-of-production-based pricing
• Future Dynamics
• engaging consumers as strategic partners and
  deeper differentiations

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Big Themes

• Building Out a Middle Tier in the U.S. Food
  System
• 1) Develop, test, communicate, and
• proliferate a new business logic
• 2) Address key systemic issues Climate
  change, peak oil water, food security access

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Big Themes Cont.

• Value Chains Can Be Both Smart and Right
• 1) Smart Business strategic partnerships
  (social capital) replace economic capital and
  expertise nimbleness in the market quality
  control efficiencies food miles and food safety
  efficiencies geographical identities
• 2) Ethical Business equitable
  distributions participatory organizations and
  alliances ethical differentiations

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Other References

• www.agofthemiddle.org
• Thomas Lyson, G.W. Stevenson, and Rick Welsh,
  eds. 2008. Food and the Mid-Level Farm Renewing
  an Agriculture of the Middle. The MIT Press,
  Cambridge MA.