Impacts of Changing Food Safety Policies and Product Verification Strategies on the Production and Marketing of Food and Fiber Products

The overall objective of this project is to evaluate possible ways in which agricultural production and the value-added agribusiness industries may change in the near future as a result of regulatory changes and the use of product verification marketing strategies, with a specific emphasis on Oklahoma and surrounding states. Specific objectives are:Examine economic factors such as input availability, transportation costs, infrastructure requirements, and labor availability affecting the location and/or relocation of agribusinesses to Oklahoma and surrounding states. More specifically, identify factors that might, along with regulatory changes in the food industry, contribute to an industry's presence, expansion, and/or decline.Assess the market potential for new and/or niche value-added food and agricultural products based on certification/verification labeling. These assessments are a crucial component of the strategic planning process that will help ensure the success and "legitimacy" of small/niche agribusiness firms (Inman et al. 2018).Identify and evaluate the opportunities for and feasibility of value-added activities for Oklahoma's primary agricultural commodities and alternative crops under various regulatory and marketing scenarios, including assessments of business and market risks.To achieve these objectives, research projects are proposed for testing the following hypotheses. Hypotheses associated with factors affecting agribusiness processing activities plant location decisions include:A. A better understanding of regulatory impacts and market potential will result in better forecasts of the location, relocation, expansion, and/or exit of value-added processing industries.B.Given the increasing diversity of production agriculture in the Southern Plains and the increasingly innovative food and non-food uses for co-products from production agriculture, unexplored market opportunities exist for technology-generated derivatives from agriculture in Oklahoma and surrounding states.C. Opportunities exist for agricultural producers and agribusiness firms to generate additional income from their raw agricultural production and further processed products if they can understand and comply with the changing regulatory environment and adopt innovative marketing strategies.