Nontraditional agriculture: An economic development alternative

This chapter analyzes the economic feasibility of non-traditional agriculture as an employment generation alternative for rural areas. It explains non-traditional agriculture as crop and livestock production and related processing and marketing services that are in some sense unusual or atypical, at least for that part of the country. The chapter deals with a discussion of the necessary conditions for successfully promoting non-traditional agricultural activities as employment generation alternatives for rural America. Two additional marketing strategies that assist the firm in gaining a strategic advantage are product differentiation and marketfocus. A new or existing food processing firm is interested in the present value of its investment and its competitive environment. Commercial vegetable production in the United States was spatially decentralized before the technological innovations leading to the development of refrigeration and the construction of interstate highways. Commercial banks, agricultural credit associations, and input suppliers are uneasy with their credit risk exposure in financing emerging crops or high risk food processing facilities.