Managing Opportunism in Value-Added Supply Chains

Andrew Baker and Stuart Smyth

No 187979, 14th ICABR Conference, June 16-18, 2010, Ravello, Italy from International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR)

Abstract: In recent years there has been an increasing demand for specific characteristics in food products pertaining to origin, quality, health and environmental factors. This demand creates value-added opportunities, but requires differentiation and vertical integration of the supply chain. Due to the credence nature of many products, it is difficult to determine if products reflect the traits under which they are marketed. Cheating through misrepresentation and unauthorized practices presents a threat to the development of identity preserved production and marketing (IPPM). In Canada, value-added IPPM systems have not been highly formalized except for the organics sector, but new traits from biotechnology may lead to greater market segmentation. Fraud is always a potential problem when there exists an incentive for opportunism, but there is a general lack of direct research applied to identity preserved production. Through interviews with organic supply chain stakeholders in the organics sector, we will achieve a better understanding of the efficacy of formalized quality-control regulation. By understanding which characteristics of these supply chains are susceptible to opportunism, future research will determine how to incorporate more effective regulatory mechanisms within the constraints of the high enforcement costs of complete information required for new value-added production.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Environmental Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2010-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/187979/files/Baker710.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:itic10:187979

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.187979

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 14th ICABR Conference, June 16-18, 2010, Ravello, Italy from International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().