THROUGHOUT history, farmers and marketers of farm products have competed on price and quality. In the past, quality referred to intrinsic product attributes that consumers desired, toward which breeders could strive, and that farmers could control, such as color of apples, specific gravity of potatoes, or protein content of wheat. A superior farmer was one who could manage the entire operation from seeding to harvesting so as to produce the best combination of such quality attributes in the most efficient manner. If the breeder, farmer, and marketer did a good job, the consumer was generally satisfied. While such intrinsic qualities of farm products are still a necessary condition of competing successfully, they are becoming less and less sufficient. Many new players have come to influence what the modern consumer regards as quality.
展开▼
