Supply chain (re)alignment in New Zealand’s sheep meat and dairy industries : knowledge, networks and learning at the farmer-processor site

Abstract

Emerging from the agricultural crisis of the 1988s, producers and processing companies in New Zealand's sheep meat and dairy industries, found themselves in an evolving neo-liberalised environment. By the late 1990s major structural (re) alignment had taken place in production and processing to accommodate shifts in markets and regulation, centring on 'food safety', 'quality' and "availability" For both farmers and processing company staff, this meant venturing into unfamiliar jointly occupied spaces and unchartered relational territory, Through a participatory research approach using multiple methodologies, this thesis examines supply chain (re)alignment at a macro and micro-scale, focussing on the farmer-processor relationship and knowledge, network and learning processes of farmers in (global) lamb and dairy supply chains in New Zealand. In seeking to account for evolving agri-food chain relations at multiple scales, this research turns to the global commodity chains (GCC) literature and draws on pragmatic solution-oriented ideas emerging from the developing field of Supply Chain Management (SCM). It also includes theoretical input from the cognitive and behavioural sciences to interpret the empirical data on farmer's knowledge, networks and learning in different supply chains, which it argues are key features of globalising agri-food economies. In this research these literatures and theories are enveloped by a broader yet, incomplete, theoretical foundation - that of evolutionary political economy (EPE), which is extended in this thesis, The thesis argues that an EPE framework provides a useful window on the governance of New Zealand's relations at a distance because it allows the specificity of micro-scale coordination activities and relations (in jointly occupied spaces) in New Zealand to be embedded in local and macro scale governance regimes and historical development processes. The findings show global market and regulatory pressures continue to drive supply chain (re)alignment in New Zealand, and chain building is occurring in different ways at the farmer-processor interface, between and within the different industries. Farmers' place specific on-farm knowledge co-evolves with off-farm knowledge through a combination of concrete experience, trial and error, socialisation and reflection, with both on and off farm knowledge becoming more overt in practice and strategy as supply chain specifications becomes more precise. Farmers utilise a range of networks (informal, formal, specialist and general), which serve as both information channels and learning forums. New Zealand's agricultural industries are like many in competitive globalising economies -'new' know ledge is being generated and used to broker global and local social, economic and environmental contexts and values, and in the process, supply chain partners' capacities and relations evolve.