A Supply Perspective on the Feasibility of a Georgia-Branded Beef Program

The feasibility of a local branding scheme for Georgia’s beef industry is explored by determining producers’ participation interests and supply decisions. Specifically, the analysis will focus on producers’ participation interests by ascertaining their supply decisions crucial in ensuring the feasibility of the proposed program. Two primary state territories—North and South Georgia—are analyzed to discern important regional considerations for selecting and designing either a central or a regional beef-processing model. Heckman selection model results provide important contrasting expectations of North and South beef farmers. The model’s considerations include processing capacity,strategic location (accounting for each regional producer’s revealed tolerable hauling distances), and pricing (factoring premium expectations related to acceptable hauling distances in each region). Results indicate that as the hauling distance to the centrally located facility increases, the premium that producers desire to make the endeavor worthwhile increases. The most appropriate and practical solution then is to consider the establishment of separate regional processing facilities that will cater to each region’s producers’ differentiated demands and expectations for hauling distances and pricing as well as their diverse demographic and structural attributes.