Investigating the Drivers of Farm Diversification Among U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Operations

Abstract

Diversification of an agricultural operation’s crop mix is considered an environmental and financial management strategy. Environmentally, crop diversification can stabilize the ecosystem via the introduction of biodiversity, allowing for more rapid response to physical and social changes. Economically, crop mix diversification can mitigate risk. Though there are environmental and economic benefits of crop diversification, little economic work has been conducted on crop diversification outside of the row crop industry. This study estimated how internal and external factors affect crop diversification among fruit and vegetable (FV) operations. External factors included access to markets and land; internal factors included farmer beliefs and access to information from extension and network sources. An OLS regression was conducted using data from 1532 farmers across 16 states in the United States. Endogeneity was addressed using an instrumental variable approach and a score endogeneity test indicated that endogeneity was not an issue. OLS results indicate that selling locally increases diversification, while reliance on other farmers for information decreases diversification. A conditional quantile analysis was conducted to reveal factors’ effects across different degrees of diversification. Quantile results indicate that selling locally, season extension technologies, and use of organic practices positively influence crop diversification across all levels of diversification. Receiving information from farmers negatively influences diversification for specialized farms, but positively influences diversification for highly diversified operations.

Exploring Consumers’ Preferred Purchase Location for Fresh Fruits

“…Interestingly, the same marketplace attributes influencing customers to purchase fruits at local markets are those deterring them to purchase at chain stores. Our findings are consistent with those of Archambault et al (2020), Kumar and Smith (2018), and Lancaster and Torres (2019), who reported that friendliness and access to local fruits entice customers to purchase at local markets. Initiatives like "know your farmer, know your food" efforts to support local farmland and local economy and local food programs at the state and community levels seem to be encouraging the demand for local foods.…”

“…To gain a better understanding of the changes in consumer demand, several researchers have investigated what drives consumers to purchase and consume fresh fruits. Researchers have reported fresh fruit purchases can be driven by product attributes and consumer attitudes (Bir et al, 2019;Canova et al, 2020;Lancaster and Torres, 2019;Massaglia et al, 2019;Torres et al, 2020;Witzling and Shaw, 2019). For example, consumers are increasing their knowledge of the benefits of eating fresh fruits (Canova et al, 2020) and valuing the experience of eating fresh fruits (Torres et al, 2020).…”

Influence of transaction costs on choice of marketing outlets among smallholder peach farmers in Lesotho

“…On the contrary, the negative effect between communication costs and local market outlet choice could be due to proximity of a farm to the market, which is also within vicinity of the buyers and eases communication through word of mouth between farmers and buyers thereby increasingpeach sale at relatively low advertisement costs. Information spreading by word of mouth is equally important in the flow of information (Lancaster and Torres, 2019).…”

Development Trends in the Crop Production in Slovakia after Accession to the European Union—Case Study, Slovakia

“…Several studies confirm that farmers use different strategies to mitigate expected risks. In addition to financial instruments, farmers respond to these events via crop diversification, which, in addition to economic benefits, also brings environmental benefits [65][66][67].…”