IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/umaesp/14189.html

Managing Agricultural Operations Overseas: Lessons From The Past

Author

Listed:
  • Johnson, Nancy L.

Abstract

The prospect of trade liberalization at both the regional and global level opens up the possibility of increased agricultural investment in developing countries. Such opportunities can be very appealing to developed-country producers who face high domestic costs, particularly for land and labor. Further, foreign investment could be an extremely positive development in terms of using developed country technical knowledge to increase global food production. However putting this experience into practice overseas has not always been successful in the past. The history of expatriate investment in developing country agriculture does not offer many encouraging examples. Often overlooked in the literature of both agricultural economics and management, private investment in large-scale agricultural production, mostly undertaken by agribusinesses, has a poor record. Five case studies examined in this paper offer examples of what goes wrong which such investments. Based on the experience of these operations, it is the thesis of this paper that the main adaptation that these projects might have made is in the role of management.

Suggested Citation

  • Johnson, Nancy L., 1993. "Managing Agricultural Operations Overseas: Lessons From The Past," Staff Papers 14189, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:umaesp:14189
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.14189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/14189/files/p93-04a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.14189?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ronald H. Coase, 2025. "The Institutional Structure of Production," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, edition 0, chapter 3, pages 37-46, Springer.
    2. John M. Brewster, 1950. "The Machine Process in Agriculture and Industry," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 32(1), pages 69-81.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johnson, Nancy L. & Ruttan, Vernon W., 1994. "Why are farms so small?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 691-706, May.
    2. Alex Trew, 2012. "Contracting Institutions and Development," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 3(3).
    3. Audra L. Boone & J. Harold Mulherin, 2009. "Is There One Best Way to Sell a Company? Auctions Versus Negotiations and Controlled Sales1," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 21(3), pages 28-37, June.
    4. Rita YI MAN LI, 2008. "Nature Of The Firm: A Study On Developers In China And Hong Kong," Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, Spiru Haret University, Faculty of Financial Management and Accounting Craiova, vol. 3(4(6)_Wint).
    5. Alan L. Olmstead & Paul W. Rhode, 2000. "The diffusion of the tractor in American Agriculture: 1910-1960," ICER Working Papers 13-2000, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    6. Schmid, Andreas, 2007. "Incentive Compatibility and Efficiency in the contractual Insurer-Provider Relationship: Economic Theory and practical Implications: The Case of North Carolina," MPRA Paper 23311, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    7. Yujiro Hayami, 2022. "Family farms and plantations in tropical development," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(1), pages 62-80, December.
    8. Michel S. Zouboulakis & John Kamarianos, 2002. "Racionalidad y cooperación entre firmas. Examen del comportamiento habitual de las industrias griegas," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 4(7), pages 98-113, July-Dece.
    9. Ingmar Geiger & Manuel Kluckert & Michael Kleinaltenkamp, 2017. "Customer acceptance of tradable service contracts," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 155-183, February.
    10. Aurélien Acquier & Bertrand Valiorgue & Thibault Daudigeos, 2017. "Sharing the Shared Value: A Transaction Cost Perspective on Strategic CSR Policies in Global Value Chains," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 139-152, August.
    11. Ugur, Mehmet, 2010. "Institutions and economic performance: a review of the theory and evidence," MPRA Paper 25909, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2010.
    12. Iván Darío Hernández Umana & Luis Arturo Rosado Salgado, 2010. "Las instituciones del estado y los grandes conglomerados industriales como determinantes del cambio estructural en corea del sur y Colombia," Revista de Economía del Caribe, Universidad del Norte, vol. 0(0), pages 1-68.
    13. Kloss, Mathias & Petrick, Martin, 2014. "The productivity of family and hired labour in EU arable farming," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 183041, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Kapás, Judit, 2003. "A piac mint intézmény - szélesebb perspektívában [The market as an institution - in a broader perspective]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(12), pages 1076-1094.
    15. Theodore C. Bergstrom, 2010. "The Uncommon Insight of Elinor Ostrom," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(2), pages 245-261, June.
    16. Michael Brookes & Philip James & Marian Rizov, 2018. "Employment regulation and productivity: Is there a case for deregulation?," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 39(3), pages 381-403, August.
    17. Yingyi Qian, 2002. "How Reform Worked in China," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 473, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    18. Banterle, Alessandro & Stranieri, Stefanella, 2008. "The consequences of voluntary traceability system for supply chain relationships. An application of transaction cost economics," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 560-569, December.
    19. Wiser, R. H., 2000. "The role of public policy in emerging green power markets: an analysis of marketer preferences," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 177-212, June.
    20. Gaeta, Davide & Begalli, Diego & Corsinovi, Paola, 2012. "The alignment of European Law in pre-candidate countries: the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina wine law," 126th Seminar, June 27-29, 2012, Capri, Italy 126100, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:umaesp:14189. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/daumnus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.