During the recession, the decline in home value and home ownership reduced the demand for ornamental plants, lawn and garden products, and related services, which resulted in significantly negative effect on the green industry revenues.Postrecession consolidation in the United States green industry has forced smaller firms to re-evaluate their marketing strategies. New-media marketing has gained attention as a relatively low-cost and high-exposure marketing strategy. This paper utilizes binary logit and interval censored regression to examine the use and the impact of social-media marketing in the green industry. The analysis was based on primary data from a survey of US nurseries and garden centers. The findings reveal that the daily use of social-media marketing is largely driven by the network effect and the managers' attitudes. They also indicate that the small-sized firms receive higher returns from social media use in terms of increased sales compared with larger firms. K E Y W O R D S green industry, horticulture, social-media marketing, technology adoption J E L M31, O33, Q13 Agribusiness. 2019;35:281-297.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/agr
Ornamental horticulture businesses in the United States (U.S.) face challenges to stay economically viable, particularly in rural areas. Marketing with new-media tools (e.g., websites, HTML newsletters, social media, and blogs) has the potential to increase sales over traditional methods of advertising. A survey was conducted to gauge the extent of the use of new-media marketing by ornamental horticulture businesses across the U.S. Responses from 161 businesses showed that marketing practices varied widely across business size in terms of expenses and the labor hours allocated. A majority of the sample (89%) were involved in new-media marketing, and all new-media users made use of at least one new-media tool. Facebook was used by more than 90% of new-media users, followed by the business’ own website, which was used by 82% of respondents. Respondents’ perception of how various new-media marketing tools affected sales followed the extent of use, in general.
Cropland expansion and agriculture intensification have been the primary methods to increase food production since the 19th century. The resulting landscape simplification, however, can impede long-term agricultural crop productivity. This paper examines the role of landscape diversification on resilience of corn, soy, and winter wheat production, in terms of crop yield and yield variability, in the state of Kansas. The study uses panel data analysis with county fixed effects and time trends to estimate the relationship between landscape diversity and crop production resilience. Results show that diversity has a significant positive effect on yields after controlling for weather, irrigation, and chemical inputs. We find that the yields of winter wheat increase, on average, by 28% at high levels of landscape diversity, while corn and soy yields increase 7% and 5%, respectively. In addition, we find that increases in landscape diversity are significantly associated with reduced yield variability for winter wheat and corn, and that landscape diversity mitigates the effect of extreme weather conditions on yield. Study findings suggest that within a single, relatively low diversity state, increasing landscape diversity is positively associated with crop production resilience. Future extreme climate conditions may reduce crop yields and yield stability, requiring appropriate policies to ensure food security. Our findings suggest that landscape diversification may be an important tool within a portfolio of approaches to increase crop resilience under highly variable weather conditions.
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