This paper will describe how a sector within the British agricultural industry has been required to adjust to the political and economic problems in agricultural production prevalent in the 1980's. During the Second World War and in subsequent decades, British farmers were encouraged to maximise productivity and, as an extension of this policy a free advisory service, known as the Agricultural Development Advisory Service (ADAS) was set up in England and Wales. Over this same period, plant and animal breeders, together with agrochemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers, further enhanced the industry's output and efficiency. In 1984 Professor Bell, the Director General of ADAS was asked to examine the role of the service and make recommendations as to its future operation. Consequently, Government policy determined that a substantial sum of the cost of running ADAS should be met by introducing charges for advisory work. Thus, after more than forty years of free information and advice, the British farmer would be expected to pay a commercial rate for this service.
This paper will deal with the role of the marketing researcher in corporate projects rather than traditional product/market-oriented research. The strategic nature of many corporate projects requires the researcher to have a broad level of business knowledge and an understanding of the political environment. He or she must function as a team player to provide technical assistance in a demanding context. An example of a strategic study conducted by the Du Pont Company at the corporate level shows the interactive role of marketing research and the practical resolution of certain technical and political problems.
My paper starts with a brief description of EFPIA, which was established in 1977 to represent the pharmaceutical industry in W. Europe and refers to its changing role in the animal health field within the past year. It consists of sixteen pharmaceutical industry associations. The Trade Associations representing the animal health industry in certain countries in W. Europe, saw a need for collating and issuing reliable national data on their members' sales over a decade ago. These reasons will be briefly discussed. The objectives of the Federations' audit have been to collate as accurately, and issue in as much detail as possible, the national data collated by its member Associations.
This paper outlines in very broad terms the current situation in the cereals market. The picture is one of a combination of high institutional prices and improved technology increasing industry output faster than it can be absorbed by Community markets. The result is increasing volume of exports onto world cereal markets and the possibility of rapidly escalating stocks. The budgetary implications of this are not politically viable and so changes in policy have been introduced and will continue to have effect. Other measures are being considered and the merits and demerits of these are briefly considered.
This paper describes a method of research which has proved very successful in different sectors (agrochemicals, animal health products, machinery) and in different European countries. It enables manufacturers or national distributors to identify the needs of their dealers (or co-operatives) and to evaluate the comparative ranking of their ability to satisfy these needs in relation to competitive manufacturer.
This paper deals with the reorganisation of agricultural distribution in France and the implications thereof on marketing research in the agricultural field. Due to internal as well as external factors, the current structure of agricultural distribution in France is bound to change. Previous boundaries between agricultural and mass distribution are fading away. New powers, new actors will appear in the game. These changes call for an extension of traditional approaches, such as going from the monography study of a type of distributor to an extended monography survey of all the actors in the potential new structure, i.e. agri-distributors (coops and dealers), mass distributors, veterinarians, pharmacists, etc.
The foreseeable changes in the agricultural world are likely to have repercussions in all sectors peripheral to agriculture and therefore on the distribution of agricultural products. We may suppose that the role of the distributor and his relationship to the farmer will change. With this in view, firms will probably have to modify their commercial strategies, their communication strategies and their product-marketing strategies in order to continue to exist in the competitive world of agricultural products, since the advisor role of the distributor will no longer exist as it does today. The aim of the study is to help companies control their future more efficiently by a prospective approach to agricultural distribution.
This paper briefly reviews the different procedures currently used by market researchers to predict new product success. It then describes the price and positioning model currently being developed by The American Cyanamid Company in conjunction with Maritz Marketing Research.
This paper seeks to demonstrate how a programme of research which segments farmers according to their general attitudes and approach to their work can influence the communication strategies employed by manufacturers. Many manufacturers use market research to try to maximise margins in traditional agricultural sectors. Most of these hinge on the analysis of past and present behaviour, e.g. product usage studies.
Display advertising is expensive. In the U.K. the cost of a single insertion of a full-page, four colour advertisement in the leading farming publications ranges from £1,500 to well over £3,000. Similar levels of cost are involved in other European farming publications. For all these reasons it is, I believe, important that agricultural advertisers should look much more closely at the return from their investment in advertising. The fact that it is less tangible than other investment decisions may make it more difficult to assess, but does not remove the need.
The result of this compromise is a new five-year farm bill that sharply reduces support prices for virtually all commodities while maintaining many of the income support provisions contained in previous U.S. farm bills. The FSA85 was implemented with the 1986 crop season and will provide the basic farm policy foundation for U.S. agriculture through 1990. The FSA85 was designed to reduce government intervention in agricultural markets, and improve U.S. competitiveness in world markets by dramatically lowering basic support levels' primarily the loan rate. The major problems with the FSA85 are associated with the larger than expected costs of the program and the absence of immediate results.