Agricultural Commodity - Publications - Faculty & Research

19 May 2009
First Look

First Look: May 19, 2009

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... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Hormel Foods

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

In 2019, CEO Jim Snee is weighing how to shape the image of Hormel Foods, one of the largest U.S. meat and food companies, at a time when the industry faces unprecedented scrutiny. Based in the small town of Austin, Minnesota, the nearly 130-year-old firm is best known... View Details

Keywords: Brand Portfolio Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Risk Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States; China

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The Forgotten Real Estate Boom - Bubbles, Panics & Crashes – Historical Collections – Harvard Business School

during World War I, in expectation of continued high prices, many farms were overwhelmed by the postwar collapse of the agricultural commodities market. Yet foreclosures of residential properties also... View Details

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Restoring a Global Economy, 1950–1980

richest and most developed countries maintained very high levels of protection for agricultural products, far higher than before 1913.3 The advent of floating exchange rates permitted a huge explosion in international finance markets from... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

How did the United States become the world’s center of business growth following its founding in 1776? Surely a number of nations had powerful natural resources, stable financial and legal institutions, and dynamic entrepreneurs over that same span. Why was American... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

Web

The New Role for Government & NGOs - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

& Melinda Gates Foundation, have begun to see the power of working with businesses to create shared value. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, has formed partnerships with leading global corporations to foster agricultural... View Details

27 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Working to Change the Food System

dedicate my time and energies toward. This year you’ll be co-president of the Food, Agriculture, and Water Club. What motivated you to pursue this role? What goals do you have as co-president? I think to the broader HBS population, careers today in food and View Details

Teaching Interest

Overview

Globalization and Emerging Markets (Elective Course) The world order has changed significantly in the last two decades. The influence of western-style varieties of capitalism has been challenged by new forms of capitalism that rely less on private enterprise and on the... View Details

18 Jun 2024
Cold Call Podcast

How Natural Winemaker Frank Cornelissen Innovated While Staying True to His Brand

Keywords: Re: Tiona W. Zuzul; Food & Beverage; Agriculture & Agribusiness

February 2022
Case

US Foods: Driving Post-Pandemic Success?

By: David E. Bell, Olivia Hull and Amy Klopfenstein

In November 2021, US Foods CEO Pietro Satriano must decide his company’s trajectory following the COVID-19 pandemic. US Foods suffered due to business closures and social distancing during the height of the pandemic. While the situation improved following the return of... View Details

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01 Dec 2012
News

Sunny's MBA

(August 19, 2012). With some 400,000 hectares worldwide, Olam is unusual for a commodities trading firm because, rather than avoid the risks of farming, it is extensively involved in its own agricultural... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture; Agriculture; Agriculture; Agriculture

12 Nov 2021
News

Alumni Business Leaders on Confronting the Climate Change Challenge

opportunities in water, the only commodity that every human needs at least every three days, are extremely large. But even if you don’t choose water, make no mistake—the climate question is not an Aldrich academic nicety. It’s a fight for... View Details

27 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

The Coffee Economy That Bloomed Out of Nowhere

after the Spanish conquest. For most of the 1800s, hardly anyone lived there. But by the turn of the twentieth century, the Soconusco had become a major coffee producer and exporter. It remains so today. Casey M. Lurtz is intrigued by this unlikely View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Agriculture & Agribusiness

01 Mar 2018
News

Democratizing Data to Favor Farmers

cattle ranching. To learn the value of his crop, a farmer could turn on the radio for regular market updates from commodity exchanges. But prices of the seeds and chemical fertilizer used to grow those crops were not listed anywhere; a... View Details

Keywords: Sasha Issenberg

01 Sep 2008
News

Farming for Fuel

2003, the group fans out to test the idea with some 2,500 farmers in the area; after this outreach, MME has 729 members willing to make the minimum investment of $20,000 and 10,000 bushels of corn annually. For the farmers, MME offers a potential hedge against the... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Agriculture; Agriculture; Agriculture; Agriculture

18 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Who Controls Water?

agricultural pressures, and the effects those impacts have on business, society, and global food production. "Like all good cases it's a good story, and like all good cases it also tells you something more general about important... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Agriculture & Agribusiness

Web

Buy Now, Pay Later: Pre-Industrial Credit in Practice

possessed a commodity that a creditor wanted. 9 6 Quoted in Stewart Hall Holbrook, Machines of Plenty; Pioneering in American Agriculture (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 36. 7 Joseph Albert Ernst, Money and... View Details

19 Jun 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: The Evolution of Agribusiness

being low-margin commodity producers to higher-margin providers of "solutions." The future for this massive industry will be both exciting and complex. To feed the world, production must double by 2050, while dealing with... View Details

Keywords: Re: David E. Bell & Ray A. Goldberg; Agriculture & Agribusiness

28 Mar 2016
News

Drawing Connections Between Business and Art

as a commodity and an investment. Japanese culture has always valued art and incorporated it into nearly everything, Shibayama notes. Something as minor as the gift wrapping on a box is usually carefully considered and meticulously... View Details

Keywords: Constantine von Hoffman

22 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Student Spotlight: Jesse Lou (MBA 2022) – Working to Change the Food System

energies toward. This year you’ll be co-president of the Food, Agriculture, and Water Club. What motivated you to pursue this role? What goals do you have as co-president? I think to the broader HBS population, careers today in food and View Details

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