WHEN DO BRAND PROGRAMS FOUNDER ON THE CON TRACTUAL MORALE OF FARMERS

The building of brands for agricultural commodities which make distinc tions in quality requires the development of efficient contractual mec hanisms and the coordination between the farmers and the following sta ges. The contractual moral standards of the farmers, however, are quit e contradictory Yet apart from successful programs, the program holder s report again and again about the failure of brands for agricultural commodities, maintaining that the farmers are not readily enough integ rating themselves into those contracts and that the way these farmers see themselves and their striving for independence prevent the buildin g of competitive brand programs. Opposed to that, the following thesis - based on a normative model, on organizational, social and structura l modifications of that model, as well as on simulated calculations - shows that the contractually organized supply of agricultural brands f ails either because the contracts do not provide a maximum efficiency or because too much is expected of the consumer's willingness to pay t he price for such brands. The results of the model furnish us with ind ications concerning further efficient structuring possibilities - poss ibilities helping to build productive contractual systems in agrarian marketing.