AgMRC-Developed Materials

• California Wine Industry Evolving to Compete in 21st Century, University of California, 2008 -  Research on changes in marketing, consumer taste and industry structure. Presented from national and global perspective.
• Economic Issues with Vertical Coordination, Kansas State University - This research focuses on contract production and marketing and integration through cooperatives and public companies.

Other Information

• Concentration of Agricultural Markets, University of Missouri, 2007 - This study, commissioned by the National Farmers Union, provides data for livestock production and processing, grain milling, and food retailing and processing.
• Economics of Animal Agriculture Production, Processing and Marketing, Choices magazine, 2006 - This article summarizes the changes in market structure, fundamental forces of consumer demands, cost drivers and regulations for the North American livestock industry.
• Effect of Food Industry Mergers and Acquisitions on Employment and Wages, Economic Research Service (ERS), USDA, 2005 -  Results of empirical analysis on eight food industries suggests mergers and acquisitions reduced the likelihood of plant closures while high relative labor costs encouraged plant shutdowns.
• Food Circles Networking Project, University of Missouri - This project lists papers and presentations on the consolidation of the food system.
• Food Market Structures, ERS, USDA - This portal provides an overview of marketing structures and lists other related USDA information.
• Food Wholesaling, ERS, USDA.
• The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Value Chain Faces New Forces for Change, University of California, Davis, 2000 - This paper addresses changes taking place in the produce food system. 
• The Industrialization of Agriculture: Vertical Coordination in the U.S. Food System, University of Nebraska-Lincoln - This site provides ordering information for a book published in 1998 that compiled papers written by economists and management scientists. It has a link to selected highlights. 
• Meat Packer Vertical Integration and Contract Linkages in the Beef and Pork Industries: An Economic Perspective, Iowa State University (funded by the American Meat Institute), 2000 - This 103-page report summarizes linkages between meat packers and livestock producers for the U.S. pork and beef industries.
• The Transformation of U.S. Livestock Agriculture: Scale, Efficiency and Risks, ERS, USDA, 2009 - U.S. livestock production and processing are more tightly coordinated through formal contracts and shared ownership of assets.
• U.S. Agriculture: Retail Food Prices Grew Faster than the Prices Farmers Received for Agricultural Commodities, but economic research has not established that concentration has affected these trends, U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2009.
• Vertical Coordination in the Pork and Broiler Industries: Implications for Pork and Chicken Products, ERS, USDA, 1999 -  This 48-page report compares vertical coordination changes in the U.S. pork to the U.S. broiler industry.
• Vertical Coordination of Marketing Systems: Lessons from the Poultry, Egg and Pork Industries, ERS, USDA, 2002 - This 45-page report reviews how these three industries placed a premium on quality control and information to improve the control of production. (A six-page shorter version can be found at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib747/aib74705.pdf.)

 Links checked December 2009.