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Agricultural Trade, Farm Management, Economics of Food Safety

Both undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics.

The pineapple production sector plays a very significant role in the Ghanaian horticultural industry. Production and export of fresh pineapple has been Ghana’s most developed high-value supply chain. However, the introduction of the GlobalGAP food safety standard in 2007 resulted in a fall in smallholder farmers’ participation in exportable pineapple production and subsequently led to declining trends in pineapple exports. The Ghanaian horticultural industry received quite a number of interventions over the years aimed at revitalizing the horticultural export sector and enhancing international competitiveness. However, the pineapple export sub-sector is still constrained with production and market access challenges meaning the sector struggles to survive.

The GlobalGAP standard compliance case is an appropriate way of explaining how smallholder farmers make informed decisions concerning the adoption of new farm practices. The case presents a careful evaluation of technical, institutional and socio-economic factors influencing a farmer’s decision to comply or not to comply with the GlobalGAP standard. Students should be able to apply farm management decision-making concepts and tools such as profit maximization and binary choice modelling techniques to explain a farmers’ final decisions on GlobalGAP standard compliance. This case should enable students to appreciate key factors constraining agricultural export trade performance in developing countries. The case should also contribute to students’ understanding of smallholder farmers’ decisions on food safety standards compliance, particularly GlobalGAP, and the challenges associated with the entire compliance process. Moreover, this case should provide students with possible policy considerations geared towards making food safety standards compliance easier, effective and sustainable in developing countries so as to enhance market access while ensuring food quality and safety along high-value food supply chains.

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CSS 7 Management Science

This paper aims to explain the theory of stakeholder, value chain analysis and triple bottom line sustainability approach.

The present case was developed from both primary and secondary data sources. The primary sources included visits to Global Enterprises and collected data through a structured interview. The secondary sources included enterprise annual reports and websites.

This case presents the innovative approach adopted by a for-profit social enterprise, utilizing locally available resources, changed products and an improved business model to deliver the desired social impact. It highlights the challenges social entrepreneurs face and how the people at the grass-root level are uplifted through the success of a social entrepreneurial venture. The case study is based on an interview conducted with the founder and managing director of Global Enterprises and other stakeholders (farmers, women artisans and employees). An interview schedule was used for conducting the interviews. The researchers tried to understand the business model deployed, stakeholders involved, challenges faced, competencies needed and strategic decisions made by the social entrepreneur that helped the enterprise become sustainable. The social problems identified by the entrepreneur include unavailability of quality raw material at a reasonable price on time; financial scarcity and massive dependence on non-institutional financial sources; lack of product development, market research and production; and the high price of handmade products compared to factory-made products. The case explains how the entrepreneur addressed the problems of cotton farmers, women artisans and local youths through his enterprise. The case also explains how he could make a social venture sustainable in the long run.

This case targets graduate-level students and is designed to be taught in Entrepreneurship, Social entrepreneurship, Rural entrepreneurship, Business administration and Entrepreneurship development. It can also be used for other programmes, where problem identification, opportunity recognition, stakeholder analysis and porter's value chain analysis are taught.

The learning outcomes are as follows: understand the challenges and opportunities of an unorganized business/informal economy; compare and contrast the applications of customer engagement frameworks between small and big businesses; outline the steps in product design in a services context; discuss the services marketing mix as a part of the marketing strategy; and understand the need of scaling up the business operations in wake of new opportunity.

Sukhpal Dairy Farm (SDF) is a case of unorganized milk marketing in the Indian Emerging Market. Milk was sold as a commodity with a fragmented set of suppliers to only a small population. Changes in consumer demand, technology and supply chain presented huge opportunities to the small dairy farmer. But it was also a threat to him. The large corporater, players backed by strong logistics and supply chain operations support posed a big challenge to the small farmer who lacked scale and reach. Sukhpal, owner of SDF, struggled while considering the options to grow his business. He did not want to change the success factors of his existing business model that was based on word of mouth and customer engagement.

MBA students.

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CSS: 8: Marketing.

In early 2017, after launching its successful “Greenhouse-in-a-Box” pilot project in India with fifteen smallholder farmers, Kheyti, a non-profit agricultural technology (AgTech) social enterprise, was struggling with several decisions in developing and growing its business. Kheyti was launched in 2015 to help smallholder farmers battle poverty and income variability by providing affordable technologies bundled with services. Over eighteen months, the team had developed a low-cost and modular greenhouse product to which it added financing, inputs, training, and market linkages to create a comprehensive “full-stack” solution for small farmers. The pilot project was a success in many ways, but Saumya, Kheyti's co-founder and head of product, was concerned that it revealed shortcomings that could severely affect the viability and scalability of Kheyti's solution.

Saumya had some important decisions to make. Should Kheyti redesign the product from scratch, or find other ways to reduce the cost for early adopters? Should it rely on upfront revenues from sales of the greenhouse, or consider developing an innovative financing or contract farming model? Kheyti's dwindling cash reserves meant that these decisions were urgent and critical. The path chosen now would determine whether the startup would move beyond the pilot stage and achieve its vision of serving 1 million farmers by 2025.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:▪ evaluate the difficulties of entry-level women entrepreneurs in the South African farming industry;▪ appreciate the entrepreneurial journey of a women entrepreneur in the farming industry;▪ assess the role of networking and support programmes in prompting women entrepreneurs in South Africa;▪ understand the role of diversification in building a sustainable business in today’s COVID-19-affected economic environment;▪ make an informed decision regarding how COVID-19 had negatively affected the farming industry; and▪ critically evaluate which options are available for women entrepreneurs to overcome the negative effects of COVID-19 and remain sustainable businesses.

In April 2021, managing director and co-owner Beverley-Anne Joseph, was considering the long-term business strategy options for Zelpy, her hop farm business outside George, a town in the Western Cape, South Africa. As the first black woman hop farmer in Africa, she had run a successful business supplying hops to South African Breweries (SAB), a subsidiary of the global conglomerate Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev). To date, her hop farming business had not been impacted by the South African Government’s COVID-19 lockdowns that impacted the sale of alcoholic beverages. However, it had given her a wake-up call as to the risk of having most of her eggs in one basket. She now had to consider how to diversify her farming business to minimise risk.

MBA, Masters in Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Business and Executive Education short courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Operations and Logistics.

Senior undergraduate students and postgraduate students specialising in agricultural economics/agribusiness/supply chain management and can also be used for executive training for supply chain managers and corporate social responsibility (CSR) managers of food companies.

This case presents an industry leading company – Nestlé’s sustainable initiative in its dairy supply chain in China. The case begins with the background of China’s dairy industry, followed by an introduction of the case company. The case then moves on to the comparison of Nestlé’s fresh milk supply chain operation before and after 2008 and different approaches to help the dairy suppliers’ transformation. The focus is on Nestlé’s innovative industry collaboration platform, the Dairy Farming Institute.

This case allows students to explore the following theoretical frameworks: sustainable supply chain management; supply chain leadership, supply chain learning and supply chain structure. By analysing this case, students should be able to gain an understanding of how multinational corporations (MNCs) play a supply chain leadership role in supply chain learning of sustainable supply chain initiatives.

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CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

Entrepreneurship, Small Business, Small-scale Dairy Farmers

This case is appropriate for undergraduate final year/senior as well as graduate-level programme students.

This case explores the life of Saravanan, a small-scale dairy farmer in Malaysia. He inherited the business from his father. Small-scale farmers in Malaysia own farms with 30 (or fewer) milking cows. Over the years, milk consumption had been on the rise, but production was less than promising. Besides low-quality milk, Saravanan often experienced issues of low milk yield. Selling fresh milk as his only source of income and the milk collection centre as his sole marketing channel, Saravanan was caught in a financially tight situation when product diversification and marketing initiatives were limited. Saravanan’s problems began with rejected fresh milk, which landed him with zero income for the day. This issue was detected when the authorities identified a few contaminated batches of milk during a site visit. The problem compounded when Saravanan had to settle three months’ debt with the feed supplier on the same day. Saravanan’s predicament echoed the plight faced by small-scale farmers in Malaysia. After managing the farm for more than 30 years, Saravanan had plans to pass it to his son, Mugunthan. However, doubts about the sustainability of the business remained. Would Mugunthan suffer the same dire fate? Would he be able to find a way out? Based on the problem-solving framework, the case attempts to identify and assess the problems faced by small-scale dairy farmers in Malaysia, and at the same time, to suggest solutions that will ensure the sustainability of their business.

After attempting the case, students should learn to empathise with the hardship small-scale dairy farmers endure in the pursuit of their businesses, analyse issues and determine the root causes of the problems faced by small-scale dairy farmers in Malaysia based on the problem-solving framework, generate and justify sustainable solutions to solve the problems faced by these dairy farmers and present the case, discuss and work in teams, and critically offer sustainable solutions based on framework and theories.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Stahmann Farms Enterprises is an Australian company focused on farming, processing, and marketing of pecans and the high-end macadamia nuts. While the company owns pecan farms, it depends solely on farmers for the supply of macadamia, which poses a challenge with numerous competitors trying to attract the farmers. As an agro-processing business, it is dependent on the vagaries of nature and profits fluctuate wildly. Competition exists in the form of large processors as well as new entrants. Given the company's target of becoming one of the top five macadamia processing businesses in the world, volume and profitability need to be driven up. There are a number of paths open before the company and the MD and his team need to evaluate these and draw up a strategy to be presented to the board.

After completion of this case study, students will be able to apply the triple bottom line concept to a spice manufacturing and export company (RBT 3); to examine the options before Value Ingredients Private Limited (VIPL), namely, to cultivate spices in the traditional way versus adopting integrated pest management (IPM) to cater to international markets (RBT 4); to analyse the returns for an IPM farmer vis-à-vis a conventional farmer, and to compare the returns therein (RBT 4); and to evaluate the ways and means of engaging farmers to change their way of cultivation (RBT 5)

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened awareness about the benefits of spices and buoyed its demand worldwide, which presented an opportunity to VIPL, a spice manufacturing company based in Chennai, to expand its business. However, the export markets demanded residue-free spices grown with little or no use of pesticides. Traditional farmers supplying spices to VIPL were accustomed to spraying pesticides whenever there was a pest attack. This case study discussed the options that the protagonist Mr Sijil Karim, managing director and CEO of VIPL, had, who wanted to onboard farmers for pesticide-free cultivation. The options before him were either to continue traditional farming or adopt IPM. This case study discussed the merits, demerits and challenges of each of these options.

The triple bottom line concept discussed three Ps – people, planet and prosperity – for this case as follows: The farmers and the consumers constituted the people in the spice supply chain. The farmers supplying organic, export-worthy spices under the guidance of VIPL gained 30% more than regular spice farmers, which were accrued through cost savings and better prices. The consumers benefitted from the pesticide-free, organic spices through accrued health gains. The manufacture of organic, pesticide-free spices helped the planet, as the process did not release hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere. VIPL manufactured pesticide-free spice with a focus on prosperity.

The case study can be introduced in a course on sustainability while discussing the triple bottom line concept. This case study showed how a for-profit company grew without losing sight of the planet or its focus on people. This case is best suited for students who have preliminary knowledge of supply chain management, operations and sustainability. Therefore, it is suited for sophomore-year students of MBA.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The Farmcrowdy case pursues the following aims: familiarizing students with the concept of business models for agricultural businesses and explaining the key decisions and activities within a business model; recognizing different opportunities for business model innovation by farmers and stakeholders in the agricultural sector; identifying concepts and tools from the business world that can be used in farming and other agribusiness-related ventures; highlighting opportunities for agribusiness firms to engage in business model innovation; and developing a business model canvas that highlights key components of a business model.

Agriculture stands as the leading driver of economies in most African countries. Most people depend on this sector directly or indirectly for their livelihoods on a daily basis. However, due to challenges like climate change and its variability, high initial startups capital, poor pricing, pest attacks, among other factors, people are gradually opting out of this sector. This has implications for employment, food and human security issues for farmers, their families and the society at large. Individual farmers that opt to remain in this sector are often met with challenges accessing technology in adapting to the challenges aforementioned. This decreases their resilience to the impact of climate change and its variability, pest and disease attack, securing loans to expand farming operations, among others. This raises the risks associated with investment in this sector as one cannot be assured of a fixed return on investment at the end of each crop cycle. Investors who opted to manage this risk associated with investment in the agriculture sector had challenges getting an official database of farmers to invest in as well as knowing whether individual farmers are experienced enough and committed to fixed agreements. It is against this backdrop that Onyeka Akumah founded Farmcrowdy in Nigeria with the aim of empowering farmers and connecting investors to right farmers with an assured return on investment at the end of every crop growing or animal-rearing season using online technological packages. The Farmcrowdy business model allowed Nigerians to venture into farming and other agricultural ventures at the touch of a button while empowering local farmers and boosting food production, creating employment for all stakeholders in the agricultural value chain. With ensuing challenges and competitors in the agro-technological industry, Farmcrowdy aims at extending their business model to other West African countries like Ghana. A few suggestions are made to help improve Farmcrowdy business model. First, they can add novel activities to the business model. Second, they can change one or more parties that perform business model activities. Finally, they can link business model activities in new ways like the development of model farms as a training ground for new farmers and the development of a go-back-to nature campaign to end-users of the products from farms. This case can be used by different audiences. The case can be used for teaching students at the graduate level, especially in the development of executive courses on innovation and entrepreneurship, strategy, agricultural technology and innovation. A wealth of supporting materials is available to the Professor, including videos and background information.

PhD, Doctor of Business Administration, Executive MBA

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship