Publications

February 2020
Supplement

Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

By: Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Supply Chain; Social Enterprise; Product Development; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Digital Platforms; Environmental Sustainability; Science-Based Business; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States; Massachusetts

Research Summary

Overview

Dr. Lurtz researches the history of agricultural economies in Latin America. She has a particular interest in export agriculture and attendant state- and locally-driven modernization projects. Her current work looks to the coffee economy of southern Mexico in the 19th... View Details

May 2016
Supplement

2016 Update: Argentina Turns the Page

By: David E. Bell, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred

This brief case is a supplement to “Cresud and Argentina” (515-043) and “Note on Agriculture in Argentina” (515-069). Set in early 2016, it describes developments in Argentina under newly elected President Mauricio Macri, including the country’s return to international... View Details

December 2009 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Diamond Foods

By: David E. Bell and Mary Louise Shelman

CEO Michael Mendes has transformed a grower-owned cooperative into a publicly traded top marketer of snack foods. Diamond's organization, culture, product development process, advertising and promotion strategy, and specifically its marketing department have been built... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Business Model; Customer Focus and Relationships; Leadership; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Cooperative Ownership; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

2017
Book

Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book explores whether profits and environmental sustainability are compatible through the lens of a global history of green entrepreneurship between the nineteenth century and today. It tells the story of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who... View Details

Find at Harvard

01 Oct 2000
News

Three Promoted to Full Professor

Reinhardt is currently studying the relationships between business behavior and environmental quality, particularly in the energy industry and the food and agribusiness sector. His research focuses on the relationship between... View Details

Mavath R. Chandran

Keywords: Agribusiness

August 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Supplement

Arla Foods: Data-Driven Decarbonization (A)

By: Michael Parzen, Michael W. Toffel, Amram Migdal and Susan Pinckney

Arla implemented a data-based price incentive system to measure, track, and influence climate friendly changes to reduce CO2 emissions across the world’s fourth largest dairy cooperative. View Details

Keywords: Dairy Industry; Business Earnings; Earnings Management; Environmental Accounting; Agribusiness; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Making; Decisions; Voting; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Pollution; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Financial Strategy; Price; Profit; Revenue; Food; Geopolitical Units; Global Strategy; Ownership Type; Cooperative Ownership; Performance Efficiency; Performance Evaluation; Problems and Challenges; Natural Environment; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Cooperation; Corporate Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; United Kingdom; European Union; Germany; Denmark; Sweden; Luxembourg; Belgium

December 2009 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Woolf Farming and Processing

By: David E. Bell, Laura Winig and Mary Louise Shelman

Woolf Farming Company, a privately owned family farming business in California's Central Valley, found its business threatened by a lack of water, brought on by a combination of drought, poor quality well water and unavailability of surface water due to federally... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Resource Allocation; Quality; Business and Government Relations; Decision Choices and Conditions; Infrastructure; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; California

01 Dec 2003
News

Rural Renewal

Torrey Reade (MBA 1981) says hello to each of the ten vendors at the Salem, New Jersey, farmer’s market. From Al Dolinski, she buys sunflowers. After inquiring “How’s it going?” she can’t resist the heirloom tomatoes from the Hancocks. The corn from Buzby Farm was just... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young; Crop Production; Agriculture

December 2008 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Arcadia Biosciences: Seeds of Change

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich, Forest L. Reinhardt and Mary Louise Shelman

Arcadia Biosciences is an entrepreneurial California agricultural biotech company seeking to earn carbon credits by modifying commodity crops for use in China and India. Eric Rey, Arcadia's CEO, faced a strategic inflection point in early September 2008. The company... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Science-Based Business; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; China; India; California

November 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

DaChan Food (Asia) in China

By: Ray A. Goldberg and David Lane

DaChan Food in China is providing leadership in the quality, health, and environmental needs of the Chinese consumer as poultry consumption increases there. Continuing to provide that leadership as global and national competition increase becomes more and more... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Food; Leadership Development; Demand and Consumers; Brands and Branding; Competitive Strategy; Vertical Integration; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; China

April 2024
Teaching Plan

Helmy Abouleish: Making a Desert Bloom

By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Maxim Pike Harrell

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 324-029. View Details

07 Sep 2021
News

September 2021 Alumni Books

leapfrog and adapt to climate change, ensuring that Africa can feed itself and even the world. The book is for aspiring and emerging agribusiness entrepreneurs across Africa as well as agribusiness students... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

12 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 12

Venezuelan subsidiary's financial statements into euros. Purchase this supplement:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/111119-PDF-ENG International Agribusiness in China: Charoen Pokphand Group William C. Kirby, Michael Shih-ta Chen,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2017
Case

Mondelēz International

By: David Bell, Kerry Herman and Amram Migdal

Mondelēz International is a packaged foods company competing primarily in “snacks” around the globe. The case describes how and why the Kraft Inc. CEO, and later Mondelēz CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, created Mondelēz and how she positioned it as a growth company at a time... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Food; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; Asia; China; Latin America; Middle East

November 2000 (Revised January 2001)
Case

Commercial Capital SA (A)

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Laure Mougeot Stroock

Keywords: Agribusiness; Privatization; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; Greece; Romania