Executive Counsellor Guild

AGRICULTURE OVERVIEW

Agribusiness firms sell farm inputs and services to farmers, buy output from farmers to manufacture and process into food products, or sell food to consumers. A significant trend is agribusiness concentration -- the emergence of fewer but larger firms in certain markets -- and the resulting impact on farm and retail food prices, industry structure, and innovation.

Food processors transform raw agricultural and marine products into intermediate foodstuffs and edible final products. New procedures and technologies are changing this sector's organization and production costs. These changes affect farm prices, food prices and product qualities.

Retail stores, like grocery stores (supermarkets, superettes, small grocery stores, and convenience stores) and specialized foodstores (including retail bakeries, meat, seafood, and produce markets) sell 82 percent of all retail food consumed at home, and the top 20 retailers now account for 51.9 percent of sales compared with 34.8 percent in 1972. Consolidation (merging) of retail food stores affects consumers and grocery suppliers, expenditures by households on food-at-home, and whether low-income households face higher food prices than other households.

Food wholesale firms assemble and store goods, and transport them to retailers, food service firms, farmers, other wholesalers, and institutions such as schools and government. Structural changes in the number and size of food wholesaling firms and their contracting methods affect prices and other market outcomes.

Emerging agricultural inputs, such as genetically modified seeds and pharmaceuticals for livestock, are the products of expensive R&D programs. Factors such as complementarities in research and production, and ownership of the intellectual property embodied in these inputs can shape competition in these industries. Understanding R&D requires keeping up with industries evolving structure of input industries—including the strategic behavior and economic consequences of mergers and acquisitions.

Commercial inputs-including pesticides, fertilizer, machinery, energy, seed, and biotechnology products—have an impact on crop production, as well as on natural resources such as air, water, and wildlife.

Online Recourses:

American Farm Bureau
www.fb.org
An independent, non-governmental, voluntary organization governed by and representing farm and ranch families united for the purpose of analyzing their problems and formulating action to achieve educational improvement, economic opportunity and social advancement and, thereby, to promote the national well-being. Farm Bureau is local, county, state, national and international in its scope and influence and is non-partisan, non-sectarian and non-secret in character. Farm Bureau is the voice of agricultural producers at all levels.

American Farm Bureau
Voice of Agriculture Ag Links
www.fb.org/links/
Provides links to 24 agriculture associations.

Agriculture Council of America
www.agday.org
The Agriculture Council of America (ACA) is an organization uniquely composed of leaders in the agriculture, food and fiber communities dedicated to increasing the public awareness of agriculture's vital role in our society. ACA's primary focus is to conduct the National Agriculture Day Program that occurs on the first day of Spring each year.

Culinary.net
www.culinary.net/resources/links/links_commoditiesassocs.html
Provides links to 76 agricultural associations and commodity groups.

Agri-Find
www.agri-find.com
The information source for professionals in Agriculture. The Internet contains millions of sites that pertain to agriculture. This site offers a convenient, quick, and friendly way to locate the best ones. Agri-Find.com offers: index of sites, calendar of events, classified ads, auction listings.

Government Agencies
United States Department of Agriculture
www.usda.gov
The USDA remains committed to helping America's farmers and ranchers. But USDA also:

• leads the Federal anti-hunger effort with the Food Stamp, School Lunch, School Breakfast, and the WIC Programs.
• is the steward of 192 million acres of national forests and rangelands.
• is the country's largest conservation agency, encouraging voluntary efforts to protect soil, water, and wildlife on the 70 percent of America's lands that are in private hands.
• brings housing, modern telecommunications, and safe drinking water to rural America.
• is responsible for the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products.
• is a research leader in everything from human nutrition to new crop technologies that allow us to grow more food and fiber using less water and pesticides.
• helps ensure open markets for U.S. agricultural products and provides food aid to needy people overseas.

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