Agribusiness
In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales. The term has two distinctly different connotations depending on context.
Within the agriculture industry, agribusiness is widely used simply as a convenient portmanteau of agriculture and business, referring to the range of activities and disciplines encompassed by modern food production. There are academic degrees in and departments of agribusiness, agribusiness trade associations, agribusiness publications, and so forth, worldwide. Here, the term is only descriptive, and is synonymous in the broadest sense with food industry. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, for example, operates a section devoted to Agribusiness Development [1], which seeks to promote food industry growth in the Third World.
Among critics of large-scale, industrialized, vertically integrated food production, the term agribusiness is used negatively, synonymous with corporate farming. As such, it is often contrasted with smaller family-owned farms. Negative connotations are also derived from the negative associations of "business" and "corporations" by critics of capitalism or corporate excess. As concern over global warming intensifies, biofuels derived from food crops quickly emerged as a practical answer to the energy crisis. Adding corn ethanol to gasoline or using palm oil for biodiesel makes the fuel burn more cleanly, stretches oil supplies, and perhaps most attractive to some politicians, provides a nice boost to big agribusiness. In Europe and in the US, increasing biofuels was mandated by law. Rising fuel costs are increasingly adding financial burdens on the day-to-day running of agricultural companies.
Examples of agribusinesses include Monsanto, seed and agrichemical producer; ADM, grain transport and processing; John Deere, farm machinery producer; Ocean Spray, farmer's cooperative; and Purina Farms, agritourism farm.
To promote exports of food products, many government agencies publish on the web economic studies and reports categorized by product and country. Among these agencies include four of the largest exporters of food products, such as the FAS of the United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Austrade, and NZTE . The Federation of International Trade Associations publishes studies and reports by FAS and AAFC, as well as other non-governmental organizations on its website GlobalTrade.net.
See also
Notes and references
External links
- Cornell Food and Brand Lab
- "Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction" - video by Democracy Now!
- The Globalization of Agribusiness and Developing World Food Systems by John Wilkinson, Monthly Review
- Agribusiness at the University of British Columbia
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agribusiness
