A Research On Channel Integration Of Farmer-centered Agricultural Marketing

Under the trend of the globalization of markets for agricultural products, personality of the consumption and the internationalization of competition, the marketing of agricultural products face a more complex dynamic market environment. Channel strategy of the agricultural marketing becomes the effective means of competitive marketing of agricultural products, this leads to that agricultural marketing channel not only becomes the strategic choice of improving the agricultural products' competitive strength ,but also it objectively becomes the key link which brings balanced supply and demand of agricultural product. Compared with Western developed countries, the development of marketing channels of agricultural products in China is relatively backward, the key factor is the decentralized management of small farmers. As large number of farmers, small scale of operation, and the influence of the "two out" large market, it not only caused the disadvantages of the farmers in the agricultural trading, and also lagged the development of trading relations and organizational model of the marketing channels for agricultural products.Therefore, when studying the agricultural marketing channels in China, we must focus on the integration of trading relations and organizational model of it, and farmers is the center in the study. But now when you comes to the study on the farmers and relations of the marketing channels for agricultural products, you can find that the vast majority of them are descriptive research which concentrated in the external institutional and organizational forms, but the depth and empirical study on the agent, premise factor and performance evaluation of optimizing transaction relations between farmers and members of other channels and so on is less. To this end, this study will use the exchange theory, resource-based view and transaction cost theory to explore integration mechanisms and performance of the marketing channels for agricultural products which based on the characteristics of transactions in the context of agricultural products and had the farmers as the center. The specific content of the study are as follows:First of all, this study combined with the practice of our country's marketing channels of agricultural products and domestic and foreign process and trends of development and evalution, it introduced the reality of the research and theoretical background, as well as the significance of the study. It definitely gave the object, scope and procedures of this study, as well as the research objectives to be achieved.Second, this study analysis the related research results at home and abroad, defined the scope of some core concepts, such as farmers, agricultural marketing, channels of agricultural marketing and the agricultural marketing channels which had farmers as its center. On this basis, this study analysis the Connotation and nature of the exchange theory, resource-based theory and transaction cost theory, deduced the motivation of the agricultural marketing channels interpretation(that is, transaction costs and value-driven), as well as the specific dimensions of the transaction characteristics which influenced the transaction costs(transaction uncertainty, asset specificity and trading frequency and so on). It also clearly put forward the logical starting point and theoretical basis.Third, surrounding the starting point and theoretical basis, the study analysis domestic and foreign research results of integration mechanisms and performance of the marketing channels for agricultural products in detail, deduced complete connotation and nature of the study, and on this basis to build theoretical model structure on three dimensions such as the transaction characteristics, integration mechanism of agricultural marketing channels, farmers trading performance, as well as explained the basic assumption and application boundary of the theoretical models. According to the logic relations between dimensions, we measured the availability of the theoretical model, and gave the assumptions of the study.Fourthly, according to results from the research literatures, we developed a questionnaire of the study, and tested stability, reliability and validity of the scale, as well as gave an empirical analysis to the sample data which had farmers as investigation object.Draw major conclusions: (1) the main external factor which influenced the chooses of trading integration model of the farmers was the uncertainty of the market and market norms, endogenous factors were the degree of asset specificity of both sides, trading frequency or secondary number of transactions and the trust and commitments of the transaction. (2) It is not general that transaction characteristics had a directly affect on trading performance, the high uncertainty caused instability on the flexibility of the performance of farmers transactions. (3)Transaction modes of the market integration, cooperative and vertical integration existed positive correlation impact on performance of farmers transactions. (4) Agricultural market system or the transaction practices and social norms, as well as the confidence and commitment of both parties were the impact strength when farmers chose the transaction modes of integration. (5)The efforts of power from channels integration is not inadequate, so its impact on transaction characteristics and channels integration model of farmers agricultural marketing was not general. (6) Transaction modes of agricultural channels integration had an effective and improved role to farmers trading performance, and through the path selection ,performance of farmers transactions could be improved. According to research findings, we proposed some theoretical implications and strategic recommendations.Finally, the main contribution of this study was that it gave us an agricultural marketing channels integrated framework which based on farmers trading performance-oriented for theoretical analysis; It verified that the theoretical model had effectiveness and applicability for the channels research of our country's agricultural marketing; It also first came to some particular points, such as what was the role when social relations embedded in the integration of agricultural marketing channels, the asymmetric status of farmers in transactions due to the causes of insufficient dedicated—assets, the shortage of the vertical integration owing to the distribution of the channel power structure and so on. At the same time, we gave the limitations of this study and the direction for continue expand researches.