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The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumer preferences towards innovative rice products, and cross-cultural determinants of customers’ perceived value and loyalty.

A self-administered survey was designed to obtain participants’ perceptions about Thai rice, and preferences towards innovative Thai rice products. A total of 937 surveys were distributed and 908 valid surveys were returned, yielding a 96.7 per cent overall response rate. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assure the reliability and validity of the measures used in the survey instrument. Structural equation modelling was employed to assess the five hypothesised relationships between the four elements of the marketing mix, customer perceived value, and post-purchase behaviour, and to compare the path coefficients across the two cultural groups.

The findings reported herein show that eastern and western customers’ perceptions of marketing mix variables positively impact their perceptions of value, in turn, enhancing their loyalty to Thai rice. A successful marketing strategy should meet changing customer needs through adopting new products, services and unique marketing mix bundles. Such strategies should be tailored to the differing needs across cultures, and can address issues arising from changing competitive and environmental landscapes.

The first limitation concerns the scope of the study. Specifically, the authors only conducted surveys during a two-month time period in 2018; the sampling sites were limited to several shopping malls in Bangkok; and the authors surveyed a high proportion of young, single, educated participants. The second limitation pertains to the selection and adaptation of constructs and their observed variables (such as the 4P indicators). Most of the observed variables were selected based on a literature review and the opinions of the scholars who participated in this study.

These results should be beneficial to members of the international rice industry, Thai rice exporters, the Thai government and to academics. Long-term success will be supported by focused attention on target segments and launch of innovative rice products that match differing preferences across nationalities.

Understanding consumers’ perspectives and preferences are critical to appropriate positioning and marketing of value-added Thai rice products. This study represents one of the first attempts to integrate marketing mix decisions, customers’ perceived value and loyalty within a Thai rice purchase behaviour context across eastern and western customers.

Rice is an important grain in Indian scenarios, and the purpose of the research work is to identify the attributes which can be the possible barriers in the traditional rice supply chain network.

A multilevel conceptual model is developed based on the literature review, and a field study is conducted by administering a questionnaire from the experts. Fuzzy logic methodology and a ranking score method is applied to identify the rice supply chain performance and the barriers of the traditional rice supply chain network.

The rice supply chain performance index for the traditional rice supply chain network is obtained, and the performance of the existing rice supply chain is found to be “fair”. The “information flow” is the attribute that can be a critical weak attribute in the traditional rice supply chain network. A proposed model of the blockchain technology-enabled rice supply chain network is developed as a solution for the “information flow” barrier.

The present research work is focussed on the generalized rice supply chain model of the Indian scenario, and more detailed studies can be carried out based on the regional issues.

The rice supply chain plays an important role in Indian economic development, and hence the current research paper focusses on identifying the barriers and the performance of the existing rice supply chain network.

In spite of the government’s support for small-scale rice farmers in rural areas of Thailand, several problems still affect their production and marketing performance. This study aims to assess a rice production community enterprise (RPCE) through an in-depth investigation of its problems and capabilities; and formulate internal strategic guidelines for enterprise development.

This study used a qualitative approach through in-depth interviews with the community enterprise leader and committee members, and focus group discussion with eight farmer-members, purposively selected in Chachoengsao, Thailand. Data were transcribed, sorted and organised to determine themes and patterns. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths (TOWS) matrix situational analyses were done to develop strategic options. Strategic guidelines were formulated through a final deliberation with all members to ensure strategies aligned with the enterprise’s goals and objectives.

The results have identified three main problem categories encountered by the community enterprise in the areas of membership and labour; production and milling operations; and product design and marketing. The enterprise’s main strengths and opportunities include its product certifications and support from external organisations. Strategic points were developed, and policy support programmes are recommended for capacity building and product development as most problems identified relate to these aspects.

The utility of this study is its focus on an RPCE. The findings will help policymakers and concerned government agencies implement better programmes and policies to develop RPCEs. Furthermore, this study will be a source for future qualitative literature that will provide helpful information to other studies aiming to develop other types of community enterprises (CEs).

The article offers a study of the central food marketplace in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The purpose of the study is to explore how changes in the marketplace reflect transformation of urban food systems resulting from neoliberal restructuring during the final decades of the twentieth century.

Drawing on long-term qualitative research conducted during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including ethnographic and survey methods, the article illustrates how central urban marketplaces offer a window into transitions in both international and domestic food economies.

Research findings illustrate that the marketplace in Santiago operated in a state of economic hybridity, intermixing long established regionally produced domestic crops such as yuca, plantains and pigeon peas deeply rooted in Dominican agrarian culture with products dervived from liberalization of the Dominican economy such as imported rice, beans and eventually numerous Dominican food staples.

The study is limited by the scope of analysis which is one urban marketplace. More sites for researching marketplaces could be added for more comparative analysis.

The research findings have implications for how governments define social and economic policy that impacts domestic food producers and intermediary brokers that aggregate and debulk food to feed cities.

The scholarship raises questions about how the social and economic organization of urban marketplaces in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere reflect historical transitions in local, national and global economies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of climate change on economic development in Bangladesh. More specifically, the research aims to figure out the influence of climate change on gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate related to different sectors such as agriculture, forest, water, health and infrastructure. It also attempts to explore the effect of climate change on the coastal economy of Bangladesh.

A set of statistical and econometric techniques, including descriptive and correlation analysis and time series regression model, was applied to address the objective of the research. Sector-wise time series economic data were collected from the World Bank for the period between 1971 and 2013. Climate data were received from the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council online database for the period between 1948 and 2013.

The results from the statistical analysis show that climate variables such as temperature and rainfall have changed between 1948 and 2013 in the context of Bangladesh. The econometric regression analysis demonstrates that an increase by 1°C of annual mean temperature leads to a decrease in the GDP growth rate by 0.44 per cent on average, which is statistically significant at the 5 per cent level. On the other hand, the estimated coefficients of agriculture, industry, services, urbanization and export are positively associated with GDP growth rate, and these are statistically significant at the 1 per cent level. Sector-wise correlation analysis provides statistical evidence that climate change is negatively associated with various sectors, such as agriculture, forest, human health and arable land. In contrast, it has a positive relation to water access and electricity consumption. Analysis of coastal regions shows that climate change negatively affects the local economic sectors of the coastal zone of the country.

Although this study has received significant insight from the world-renowned research publication “The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review”, there is a dearth of research on the economic impact of climate change in the context of Bangladesh. The findings of the paper provide deep insight into and comprehensive views of policy makers on the impact of climate change on economic growth and various sectors in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is to examine rice attributes that are valued by the urban consumers of Cambodia and identifies the factors that influence consumers’ decisions on a set of rice attributes.

The study uses incomplete ranking choice data, gathered from a stated preference survey conducted from 350 consumers of two cities in Cambodia, to model consumers’ alternative choices of rice traits in a setting of a random utility framework. Empirically, a rank-ordered logistic regression is fitted to identify the factors influencing consumers’ perception on a set of rice attributes.

The results suggest that the probability of choosing rice that is soft is highest for consumers in Cambodia. The second and third most preferred rice attributes are taste and aroma, respectively. The results also indicate that rice consumption is significantly affected by location, economic class of consumers, family size and educational attainment.

The research was carried out using consumers in two urban cities in Cambodia as a case study; therefore, the findings might not represent all consumers’ preferences for rice traits in the country.

The present study contributes to the overall rice grain preference literature examining consumers’ perceptions on rice traits and the factors influencing their decision in choosing rice traits. The results originating from this study will help to guide rice breeders in developing new varieties with traits that will be acceptable to consumers and other value chain actors.

Despite the growing interest regarding the Brazilian rice industry, there is not much literature focusing on the role of the institutions in the process of technological capability accumulation and in the formation of the technological trajectories within this industry. This paper aims to discover the role of local institutions in the generation and dissemination of knowledge for creating the technological capability that can define different technological trajectories, using the Brazilian rice industry as an empirical field.

To achieve said objective, this paper uses secondary data (documental research) and a multiple case study design based on primary empirical evidence (content analysis and direct observation) about the Brazilian rice industry.

The paper’s main contribution is the empirical application of a framework that allows us to evaluate the institutions’ roles and activities and how these capabilities evolve as the firms’ technological levels progress and the technological trajectory is formed. Regarding aspects related to public policy, the authors found some implications that are mainly related to the need to consolidate this type of institution in developing countries with the goal of strengthening its technological capabilities, allowing these countries to operate on the technological boundary and to compete with developed countries.

There are few attempts to relate the technological capability, technological trajectories and institutions in the Brazilian rice industry. Therefore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the novelty of this study lies in the analysis of these theoretical approaches in this industrial sector, more specifically, in the Brazilian rice industry.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of several valuable resources (organizational reputation, human resource management (HRM) practices, networks, and vertical integration in production) in explaining the performance of rice-milling firms in Thailand.

Resource-based view (RBV) theory was used to explain that the particular bundle of firm resources can become the source of sustainable competitive advantage and thereby improve the business's performance. Semi-structured in-depth interviews and questionnaire were used to collect data from Thailand rice exporters. Then regression technique was employed for data analysis.

Results from a survey of rice mills involved in international export showed that organizational reputation, some HRM practices, and networks were significantly related to firm's performance, but vertical integration was not.

This study supports the basic assertion of RBV theory that a set of firm specific resources could be applied in ways that enhance sustainable competitive advantage.

Pandemics always have an impact on everything; for wildlife it is somehow positive and for human health and safety it is negative. But yet there is not any critique on its impact on the agriculture sector and farmer community. The world is not aware of the hazards which will be caused by crop loss. On the globe the largest country by population is China, where natives in China consume rice as staple food. In past few years, it was among the highest rice producing and consuming countries. Rice is planted in February to May mostly in China, and rice crop production is strongly dependent on preplanting activates which farmers are unable to perform because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread and the need to follow safety measures. So, the purpose of this documentary analysis is to indicate the impact of coronavirus disease on the agricultural sector in China specifically for rice production.

In this article, a documentary analysis approach has been utilized. Moreover, due to the new and latest issue, not much research has been published in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the agriculture industry in China. Whereas, several online reports and expert reviews have been reviewed which have been published in online platforms and blogs websites. A total of 45 resources (journal articles, expert reviews) have been downloaded from reputed databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, out of which 31 of them were more relevant and related to the context of study.

The outcome based on this study has indicated that the rice cultivators and farmers are in uncertainty and not comfortable to work in their fields without proper safety measures due to the pandemic situation which will badly affect their lives and the economy of the country. Therefore, this study suggests that to overcome this issue, a proper safety framework is needed to be developed which can be implemented and which can facilitate the rice farming community.

Agriculture is important in so many ways including providing employment to the bulk of the population and providing the basic necessity of life and also contributing to the national economy. The outcome of this study will facilitate the agricultural scientist, economist and seasonal crop production stakeholders to indicate the most problematic domain and upcoming challenges faced by the rice farming community in China due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the first documentary analysis which is addressing the current issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the agriculture industry and specifically in the rice cultivation and producing community safety concerns and issues in China which is the first and most affected nation due to the coronavirus.

Improving milling quality is expected to improve the quality of domestic rice and hence the competitiveness of Uganda's rice industry. Therefore, this study aims to assess the determinants of four aspects of milling, namely, choice of milling technology, millers' perceptions of the importance of paddy quality attributes, milling return and milling capacity.

Multinomial logit, semi-nonparametric extended ordered probit, linear regression and additive nonparametric models are applied to cross-sectional data obtained from a sample of 196 rice millers.

Physical, economic, institutional, technological and sociodemographic factors are found to be important determinants of the four aspects of milling. Physical factors include the distance of the mill from major town and availability of storage space at the milling premises, while economic factors include milling charge and backward integration of miller into paddy production. Contracting and use of a single-pass mill are important institutional and technological factors, respectively, and miller's household size, age, gender and education are the key sociodemographic variables.

The study's originality lies in its scope, especially in terms of its breadth. Without compromising the needed analytical rigor, it focuses on four aspects of milling that are critical to improving the marketing of Uganda's rice. In doing so, it provides a holistic understanding of this segment of the value chain and offers specific recommendations for improving the marketing of Uganda's rice.