Argentina: towards wheat classification

CHIMENO PATRICIA, GORENSTEIN SILVIA

San Pablo

Congreso; VI Internacional PENSA Conference, ?Sustainaible Agri-food and Bionergy Chains/Networks Economics and Management; 2007

School of Business and Economics of Riber;o Preto-Universidad de San Pablo

The argentine wheat agroindustrial system reorganization generates on the traditional commodity trading -coordinated with one or few easily measured parameters of the commercial transaction- a strong demand for more complex and guaranteed attributes. Two issues must be solved: First, how to manage the variable biological basis of the wheat production wheat production in order to meet these industrial requirements. Second: how to redesign the traditional storage-transportation-marketing system so as to comply with this new scenario. The goal of this paper is to analyze new linkages and coordination modes required by this redefined competitiveness. Our hypothesis states that the present asymmetry between the different actors of the agri-food system constitutes an important restriction to wheat classification. The agri-food subsystem approach was used to identify the systemic perspective of actor relations. Some contributions from Transaction Costs Economy will be used to understand under which conditions new coordination forms are imposed. The selected area for our study is the Port of Bahia Blanca (Argentina) and its surrounding area. The agri-food subsystem in study, is restricted to La Pampa province, and we analyzed the interfaces "Primary Trading" and "Second Trading". We extend, in turn, to the definition of wheat quality strategies under the primary elevator´s perspective. Finally, we´ll examine four specially coordinated systems that are developing selected wheat businesses for overseas markets. We conclude that new linkages and coordination modes have been successfully designed to satisfy new segments of the wheat market. The control of the information flow stands up as a crucial factor in order to obtain grain uniformity and consistency, and to overcome market´s failure to rule wheat differentiation. We still need to determine those coordination mechanisms that will allow to make wheat classification operative on a national scale. Key words: high quality wheat, coordination modes, agri-food subsystem, contract, market failure.