Over the past decade, U.S. agriculture started down a path that promises a fundamental restructuring of the food chain as we have known it. While all of this restructuring has important implications for suppliers of agricultural inputs, none is more important than the changes which are occurring at the farm level. Farms are larger. Producers are more sophisticated. Their decision-making structures are more com-plex. The demands these farmers and ranchers make on their suppliers have increased explosively, ranging from operations of unprecedented size that literally provide their own inputs and need little from an outside vendor, to operations that depend on their suppliers for everything from the basic product, through financing, to production and marketing advice.

Such changes have radically reshaped the nature of the relationship between producers and farm input supply firms. For farmers, these changes have resulted in new expectations of their suppliers. And, for farm suppliers, the questions raised are almost endless. During July and August of 1993, Purdue University’s Center for Agricultural Business and Top Producer magazine (Farm Journal Publications) embarked on a major research project to explore these issues. The focus of the project is to document changes in producer expectations and to examine the implications of these changes. The bottom line is to help agribusiness build a viable strategy in the 1990s to serve this rapidly evolving marketplace.

Phase One of the Agricultural Producers: Today and Tomorrow project focuses on the large commercial producer. More than 1000 large commercial farmers/producers participated in the research from the following agricultural segments: corn/soybeans, wheat, cotton, hogs, dairy, and beef. The opinions of these large producers will be com-pared and contrasted to the opinions of a group of mid-sized producers. Differences between the two groups will more clearly define the direction producer expectations may take over the next decade, providing agrimarketers with some highly useful information with which to fine-tune their market strategies for the future.

Phase Two of the research involves collecting information from several hundred agribusiness leaders on their beliefs and ideas about the large commercial producer of the future. The results, compared with the opinions of commercial producers, will be used to identify differences between the agribusiness perspective and those of commercial producers and will be presented at a national conference in November.

1993 National Conference for Agribusiness – Marketing to the Commercial Producer

The results of the Agriculture Producers: Today and Tomorrow project will be presented to agribusiness managers at the 1993 NATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR AGRIBUSINESS —Marketing to the Commercial Producer, sponsored by the Center for Agricultural Business. The November 8 – 9 conference will be held on the Purdue University campus and will focus on the unique needs of the large farmer customer.

This conference is expected to provide a valuable outside perspective on a set of issues that agribusinesses have spent millions of dollars researching. This multifaceted look at the challenges ahead offers a unique opportunity to facilitate further discussion between agrimarketers and university researchers on how best to approach the evolving needs of the agricultural marketplace. The project — and the conference dialogue — will lay the foundation for a closer, more efficient relationship between farm producers and their input suppliers.

For more information, please con-tact Ms. Sharon L. Wall at the Center for Agricultural Business, 1145 Krannert, Room 781, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1145, phone: (317) 494-4247, FAX: (317) 494-4333.