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New firm created to provide understanding of the role of food in health and nutrition.

CHS- the largest farm cooperative in the US- was planning its 2020 vision statement and the role the cooperative should play in the food system.

This note seeks to provide an overview of farmland investing; the investment thesis behind investing in agriculture, how and why investors would choose farmland, and the general risks and return characteristics of this asset class. In recent years, a growing number of individual and institutional investors have allocated a portion of their capital into agricultural farmland. Private investors, public companies, and sovereign wealth funds are now all currently purchasing and selling large amounts of farmland for profit.

Alejandro EIsztain, CEO of Cresud S.A., is faced with the difficult choice of whether to sell, develop or continue to hold the 151,000 hectares of remaining undeveloped farmland at the company's Los Pozos farm in Argentina. Developing the land will further expose Cresud to a variety of risks related to owning and operating farmland, but the potential financial rewards are potentially significant. As competition has increased and farmland values have skyrocketed in the last eight years, Cresud's overall corporate strategy has been to increasingly focus on development opportunities outside of the country - in areas such as Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. Alejandro's looming decision on Los Pozos is in many ways, reflective of choices facing his company, in general.

Rabobank decides to focus primarily on food and agriculture firms and farms on a global basis.

GTC is the first company in the animal world to receive FDA approval of a transgenic pharmaceutical. What are the implications for other firms in plants and animals and their opportunities to produce new medicines in an economical and safe fashion?

China's COFCO, the country's leading edible oil and food importer and exporter and its largest food manufacturer, had in its 50-plus years of operation undergone four stages of transformation and was about to embark on a fifth. The global agriculture system was undergoing major changes and the standard of living in China was increasing, changing the food consumption and dietary habits of the nation's 1.3 billion people. COFCO's management needed to decide how the company should transform to seize the opportunities in the industry and in China.

The Mormon Church focuses on self-reliance and being prepared for emergencies. Part of their program encourages each member of the Church to have a reserve food supply on hand at all times. Given U.S. and global food stock levels, is the Church program a good model for the country?

Supplements the (A) case.

Deals with approaches to alleviating poverty and how firms, governments, and NGOs are able to work together to accomplish these goals.

McDonald's seeks to learn from a successful response to Greenpeace's Amazon deforestation campaign in order to make its supply chain more socially and environmentally responsible.

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In 2005, CEO Bruce Rohde has almost completed the integration of ConAgra Foods' collection of 90 independent operating companies into a focused, value-added firm and was beginning to think about his successor. ConAgra had become the second largest food company and No. 1 food service supplier in the United States. Rohde believed that the company, with its solid portfolio of brands and history of leadership in important trends such as healthy foods, was ready to begin its next chapter as one of the great marketing companies, in league with Kraft Food or Coca-Cola. The job of the next CEO would be to unlock the enterprise value of the company in the face of continuing customer consolidation and increasingly diverse consumer requirements.

Nestle is the largest milk firm in the world. For over a century, it has developed a milk model procurement program that improved the well-being of the small-scale farmer and the ultimate consumer. Can it partner with other firms and institutions to make even greater use of this model and can it do so in a manner that is consistent with host country goals and equally useful to the long-term viability of Nestle?

Nestle as the largest milk company in the world, has a history of economic development, nutrition, health, and food safety in all the major countries of the world. Each milk model is tailor-made to the needs of each country's political, social, and economic priorities.

Brazil's secretary of trade and production for the Ministry of Agriculture, Pedro de Camargo Neto, has won a WTO sugar decision for Brazil against the EU sugar policies. Analyzes what this decision will mean to world food policies, especially those of the EU and the United States. The ruling strengthens the WTO as a decision maker with respect to fair trade policy. The issue is what actions will the various private and public decision makers now take to make this ruling work and not put too big a burden on any one segment of the economy.

Stoned fruit has quality variations, reducing consumption. Five independent growers formed a cooperative to provide quality control and a brand name--Ripe 'N Ready--that enabled retailers to differentiate their stores and producers to differentiate the products they supplied. Consumer acceptance has been high. The issue is how to expand the concept without adversely affecting the original users of the product. Also, what new kinds of competition are they creating?

CEO James Herring of Friona Industries, a leading U.S. cattle feedlot operator, has a history of leadership in the highly fragmented and often contentious U.S. beef industry. Friona has established relationships up and down the beef production chain to provide high-quality, consistently tender beef that consumer's value. In 2005, Friona is partnering with Cargill, the leading U.S. meatpacker, to produce private-label beef products for grocery retailers such as Harris Teeter and Safeway. Will the introduction of high-quality, reasonably priced beef lead to higher sales for the retailer and ultimately stronger margins for Friona?

The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a successor to the Uniform Product Code and will improve the efficiency and traceability of the global food system. Focuses on how best to implement this new system and respect the privacy of the ultimate consumer. Teaching Purpose: To analyze the impact of EPC on the global food system.

Brazil has just won a cotton case action against the U.S. cotton agriculture program at the World Trade Organization. What does this mean for future agricultural programs in the United States? For future trade policies of the United States, Brazil, and others in the global agribusiness system? The future role of the WTO? Negotiation through litigation? Developed versus developing country trade policies?