Research On Agri-Product Marketing Channel Evolution And Development

With Fostering and developing of the modern agricultural and circulation system, traditional and modern agri-product marketing channel patterns have been interacted, substituted and integrated intensely. On one hand, changes in food consumption expenditure and resident income in China draw new requirements for agri-products marketing channel organizations; on the other hand, demands for food safety and the traceability system compel channel members cooperating closely; at the same time, because there were lots of difficulties for small scale production to match with the lager consumer market, it has been a very important practical problem how small farmers decking into modern agricultural marketing systems. Therefore, research on the evolution and development of marketing of agricultural products under the new situation was of great theoretical and practical significance.The main contents and conclusions of this study were illustrated as following:1. Research on the evolving and developing process, stages and characteristics of agri-products marketing channel. Agr-products marketing channels of different countries and regions all around the world were mostly in the stage of "traditional marketing channels", "Organizational marketing channels," "integrated marketing channel", which some were in one particular stage period, and some were in a period transforming from one Stage to the other stage. The underdeveloped countries and developing countries, mainly in the stage of traditional marketing channels, while the major developed countries were in the stage of integrated marketing channels. Meanwhile, some of the rapid economic developing countries were in the period of transforming towards the organizational marketing channel. In China, the special policy and practice history mainly formed three development stages, which are "planned marketing channel", "traditional marketing channel" and "organizational marketing channel". The channel structure transformed toward much shorter and flat with numbers of channels, distribution outlets and increasing density; while the channel organization show much more diversity on its participating members, such as farmers, brokers and retailers; the agri-products marketing channel function expanded significantly among exchange activities, logistics and support activities.2. Discussion on the drivers and their influences on the change and evolution of the agri-products marketing channel. On the one hand, the external macro-socio-economic factors are important forces affecting agri-products marketing channels, including economic development, transportation, urbanization rates, consumption patterns, foreign direct investment, and public policy. The Ridge Regression analysis on the main agricultural products markets in China found that, these external factors show different effects respectively, which increased food consumption expenditures, transport conditions improvement and market-oriented public policy may compel shorter channel length. On the other hand, it shows strong interaction relationship among the members of the agri-products marketing channel. By Using "Structure-Behavior-Performance" (SCP) method and the Panel Data, the study on performance changes and interaction relationship on Chinese scale-above food wholesalers and retailers found that, the improvement of retailers (wholesalers) performance will promote wholesalers (retailers) performance arising; and channel members'distribution density strategy will effect the financial performance itself or other vertical channel members; there the high degree of channel concentration, the low the wholesalers margins performance and the high the retailers margins performance will be; the large the channel price difference, the much more the margins performance of wholesalers and retailers will be significantly improved. Furthermore, by using small-scale vegetable farmers'survey data and Multi-group SEM method, this paper found that, the group of " bulk vegetables in agricultural area " was much more affected to environment uncertainty compared to another group of "fine greenhouse vegetable in suburb", and these main shocks from environment uncertainty were induced by food quality security demands and market supply and demand fluctuations; when external environment occurs changes, the channel organization and the channel functions may be take adjustment as fast as possible, and then compelled the channel relationship and the channel governance taking further adjusting.3. Analysis on the diversity and the selection of various governance patterns of agri-products marketing channel. In light of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) theory, it summarized and overviewed different marketing channels governance patterns and its selection. This Study found that the ownership forms, special assets investment and relationship norms affected the governance arrangements of agri-products marketing channel. By regulating the use of special assets investment levels, ownership control, and the strength of relation norm, there are twelve types of governance arrangement forms rendering continuity, and all reached its minimized costs, by Shapley solution method of the Cooperative Game Theory, this paper compared six hybrid types of intermediary channel governance patterns, and it found that, channel Members were likely to form various sub-consolidation under different ownership control level and investment options. Thus it achieved the coherence between the channel members'rationality and the channel chain'rationality, by taking full advantage of the complementary effects of diversified governance patterns.Innovations of this research may be:(1) innovation on the research views. It focus on analysis of agr-products marketing channel change and evolution, and extends the meaning of the key concepts about evolution from four dimensions which named as the channel structure, channel organization, channel function, channel relationship and channel governance. These views may be new on the related research. (2) Innovation on the main research contents. This paper illustrates the evolution of agri-product marketing channel from single channel Member, member dyad, and channel chain respectively. It analyzed the environmental uncertainty and marketing channel system adaptation based on small scale vegetable-planting farmers, and explained the performance interaction and evolution based on food wholesalers and retailers, and discussed the channel structure evolution based on the channel length and density. These studies also corresponds to the micro, meso and macro researches, which is a beneficial exploration for the existing application research on agri-products marketing channels. (3) Innovation on the research methods. This paper analyzed the farmers'perceptive environmental uncertainty and channel system adjustment by using Structural equation Model (SEM), and compared the differences between two important marketing patterns, which are "pattern of bulk vegetables in agricultural area " and " pattern of fine greenhouse vegetable in suburb", by further using Multi-group SEM. the method be used here may has some new on relative researches.