Marketing Behavior Of Apple Growers

China is a large country for apple production, after nearly 30 years initial starting, rapid expansion and quality improvement, the scale advantage of apple production has been formed. However, there are large price fluctuations in domestic fresh apple market and the competitive advantage in the international market is not obvious. Many factors have an influence on the competitive strength of Chinese fresh apples, but from the microcosmic perspective, the connecting efficiency between apple growers who are both in small scale and decentralized operation and the market is the most important factor. Based on the above judgment, this paper uses the case study of Shanxi province's apple growers and adopts both empirical and theoretical methods, to analyze apple growers'selection behavior on marketing partners, intermediary organizations, the business model of"storage+sales", participation in the contraction farming, the safety and quality control as well as the characteristics and law of their main behavior such as the acquisition of sales information. This paper also explores the paths, ways and policies that can promote the effective connection between apple growers and markets. The behavior of apple growers is an important field in the research of modern apple circulation system. This paper is divided into nine parts according to the logical relationship.The main research contents and conclusions are as follows:Chapter 1 Introduction. With the purposes of analyzing the marketing behavior characteristics as well as influence factors of apple growers'selection of market partners and exploring the law of the behavior relationship between apple growers and other market organizations. This chapter puts forward the research approach based on literature review of current development both at home and abroad.Chapter 2 The definition of conceptions and theoretical analysis. This chapter defines the marketing behavior of apple growers, grasps apple industry's characteristics, analyses the transaction costs in the marketing process of Chinese apple growers, and discusses the mechanism in Chinese apple growers'marketing behavior.Chapter 3 The analysis of selected behavior of apple growers for marketing partners. This chapter uses the survey data of apple growers and the Tobit model to discuss the influence factors of selected behavior of apple growers for marketing partners. It is shown that, the main sales partners of apple farmers are the small retailers and the juice companies. The quality, adoption of technology, orchard management level, purchase price, criterion of separation and classification of apples are the dominating factors which impact the selected behavior for marketing partners. The sales and managing experiences of growers, written contracts contribute to the farmers increase the sales proportion of commercial grade to the small retailers, while the farmers who are aged and lacking of ability for market transaction may tend to sale more substandard apples to the juice companies. Due to the less business coverage area, the fresh apple trade and distribution corporations have tightened criterion than the small retailers and pay behind time, thus, the percentage of farmers who sale apples to companies is small, except those whose area of mellow orchard is large and the apples are high-quality. Besides, responsible information can induce farmer households to supply more high-quality apples to companies. Moreover, regional disparity also exists in selecting marketing partners.Chapter 4 The analysis of selected behavior of apple grower for intermediary organizations. This chapter use the qualitative and quantitative analysis methods to research the law in the relationship between apple growers and the three kinds of intermediary organizations. The conclusions are as follows: the scattered apple buyers and growers urgently need organizations or groups to bridge them. Presently, the role is mainly relied on farmer brokers. The low organizational level makes it difficult to achieve the effective cooperation in production and marketing between the apple trading companies and apple growers. Furthermore, the development of the farmers'professional cooperative association improves the organizational level of apple industry. However, it causes the behavior distortion of stakeholders. This situation is mainly existed in main professional cooperative association, such as, the government leading type, the leading and large enterprises controlling type and the village and association cooperation type etc., that apple growers, to various extent, suffer from the government intervention, leading and large enterprises controlling and village-level organizations manipulation, as well. As a result, apple growers are in an inferior position and difficulty in preserving their benefit. Meanwhile, it is obvious that the post-harvest services provided by the cooperative association for apple growers are rarely existed.Chapter 5 The analysis on apple growers'behaviors of participating in the business model of"storage+sales". This chapter uses the survey data of apple growers and the Logit model to analyze the influence factors of apple growers'participation in the business model of"storage+sales". The following opinions and conclusions are formed: Growers located in the areas where there are storage facilities, fruit associations and good transport facilities are more likely to participate in the"storage + sales"business model; There is a positive correlation between the quality grade of after-storage apples assessed by growers and their participation in the"storage + sales"; however, the growers who are in good sales status and think the cost of storage are high are less likely to participate in the business model of"storage + sales". Besides, there are obvious regional differences in growers'participation in the business model of"storage + sales".Chapter 6 The analysis of the participation behavior of apple growers in contract-farming. Through the survey date of apple growers and the Logit model, this chapter first makes an analysis on apple growers'desire of participating in the contract-farming and its influence factors, then use the survey date to give a descriptive analysis on the apple growers'expectation of orders. The research shows that, there exists a negative correlation between contract-farming participation and other factors, such as average age of trees in the orchard, whether or not there are family members undertake the non-agricultural profession, encounter severe natural disasters in the last three years and the proportion of apple-selling earning in the whole family income. Besides, there is regional difference in the intention to participate in contract-farming of apple growers. The apple growers prefer to choose the informed villagers as the intermediator. They sign the short term written contract with apple trading firms, and the expecting contractual price centralizes between market price and the one plus 0.3 Chinese Yuan. The perfect times to sign the contract focus on the period of purchase, flower and fruit thinning, and bagging off. The demand for every clause is different according to various worries about contract-farming of apple growers. The legal device is developing to be an important method that the growers protect their own rights and benefits under the condition that the order parties breaching of contract.Chapter 7 The analysis on apple growers'safety and quality control behavior. This chapter uses the survey date of apple growers and two Logit models to make an analysis on apple growers'current behavior of selecting the safe pesticides and its influence factors. By case studies, this chapter analyzes safety quality control system of the apple growers as the base of apple trade companies. The research shows that apple growers'selection on safety pesticides is dominated mainly by personal characteristics of household heads, planting characteristics, family characteristics and market characteristics. In particular, there is a positive correlation between the safety of pesticides selected by apple growers and the following factors which are the education level of household heads, the cognitive level of pesticide residue, family per capita income levels, whether or not to be members of the production base of the enterprises and the stringent specification of apple vendors'sorting; the former is negative dependent on the age of household heads. Besides, there is clear regional difference on selection of safety pesticides. In the Shaanxi apple production area, the quality control system of the organization form, company, demonstration base and farmer households, is not able to play its role based on the decentralized operation, low competitive level and weak recognition ability of safe apples by the public.Chapter 8 The analysis on the behavior of apple growers'sale information acquisition. This chapter uses the survey data to give a descriptive analysis on the sauce and quality of apple growers'sales information. Through case studies, it gives an analysis on the information service of the base of apple trade companies. The research shows apple growers have strong incentive to apple sale information, investigating price and demand changes by using all the available information sources. However, low availability of market information and high cost on analysis and recognition of getting signals cause such problems, including convergence of information sources, limitation in the local market, and low reliability of information. There is a positive correlation between diversity of apple sale information sources and other factors, such as growers'education levels, management scale of apple orchards, whether or not to be the member of fruit growers'association in the village.Chapter 9 Conclusive comments and policy proposals. The theory and empirical study in this paper indicate that there is an obvious rational tendency in apple growers'market behaviors, as they are able to pursuit the maximum interest from sales under the constraints of existing external environment and family endowment. The apple growers'existing market behaviors and their sales action inclination are mainly influenced by their product's market characteristics and the external environment, as well as the conctraints of their individual characteristics and family endowments. Specialized farmers' cooperatives and the organization form, company, demonstration base and farmer households, play a limited role in the aspect of guiding growers to participate in market; separate management obstructs the effective connection between apple growers and market. Lacking reliable market information seriously affect the scientificalness of apple growers'production and marketing decisions. In accordance with the main research conclusions, this chapter presents the relevant policy proposals.