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The Commission of Agriculture in Texas wants to improve the nutritional quality of the school lunch program to help fight obesity in students. It needs the cooperation of the soft drink industry to change their products and the manner in which they provide financial support to the school system.

Florida Citrus Department has to deal with increasing competition from Brazil. What position should the industry take on its existing tariff? Who benefits? Who loses?

The first food safety commission is established for the European Union. How does it handle food safety, scientific evaluations, and people's attitudes toward scientific changes in food growing and processing--for example, genetically modified organisms?

Three farmers from three different countries are looking at the global soybean system and how to position themselves in the future.

Cargill is one of the world's leading marketers, processors, and distributors of agricultural, food, industrial, and financial products. In 1998, the company decided to develop a strategic intent to restructure and refocus the company. It did so in response to the consolidation of the industry, globalization, and the impact of the genetic revolution. It had to change its focus from the producer to the consumer and market solutions.

Fonterra was a cooperatively owned dairy company--New Zealand's largest company and the world's largest exporter of dairy products. To maintain its leadership, Fonterra had to respond to increased competition, new consumer tastes, consolidation of its customers, and increasing subsidies on milk by developing countries. This futuristic case identifies trends that the cooperative has to take into account for its future success. It can be examined as a model for other cooperatives in other commodity systems.

Monsanto is the biotechnology leader in agriculture. How does it use its leadership in Round Up to fund long-term research and development in biotechnology that is acceptable to the priority system of consumers in different parts of the world? Includes color exhibits.

The United States and Mexico face the challenges of managing shared water resources. The supply is limited and demand is growing on both sides of the border as a result of increased irrigated acreage and population growth.

Biodiversity is being lost due to the delegation of the ability to store and maintain various types of plants to governments and foundations with no or little financial base. How does one develop the resources to maintain plant diversity for the future benefit of society?

In 2002, ConAgra Foods CEO Bruce Rohde was deliberating the next steps in the process of transforming the company from an agribusiness giant to a value-added food processor. ConAgra had become the second largest food company and number one food service supplier in the United States following decades of growth through acquisitions, primarily in grain milling and meat processing businesses. During the 1990s, ConAgra made significant inroads into processed foods, with 86% of FY2002 operating profits coming from its value-added businesses. Despite its expanding portfolio of branded products, ConAgra's image as a commodity-oriented agribusiness company persisted. Given the rapidly changing food industry and the divestiture of ConAgra's fresh meat business, Rohde must establish a new identity and direction for the company.

Codex Alimentarius is a set of international food standards devised by the Codex Commission, a body within the United Nations jointly sponsored by the FAO and WHO. The purpose of the standards is to harmonize global trade in food products and agricultural commodities, protect the health of consumers, and promote fair trade practices in foods. A subset of the commission's work involved establishing international food labeling standards. The most disputed issue in food labeling dealt with the topic of genetically modified ingredients and how to treat them.

In 2002, Environmental Power Corp. (EPC), a small company developing renewable energy projects, was attempting to commercialize its "digester," a facility that extracted methane from manure, reduced manure's environmental impact, and generated electricity. The company addressed two promising convergent markets: the farm waste management market and the renewable energy market. One of the main challenges was to put together a financial scheme that satisfied the conflicting interests of four groups of stakeholders: the farmers who lacked cash, the investors who distrusted the electricity trading business after the Enron scandal, the utilities who resisted long-term commitments to buy electricity, and the government who was reconsidering its agricultural and energy policies. The primary challenge is to provide a process that reduces animal waste pollution and at the same time provides a positive renewable energy source.

Peter Brabeck wants to focus Nestle as a wellness company in the global food system and do so in a way that provides both growth in sales and margins in both developed and developing countries.

Agriculture is not what it used to be. Neither is coverage of the industry by news organizations. A century ago, about 40% of the U.S. population lived on the farm, and one in three U.S. jobs was tied to agriculture. It made sense for daily newspapers to cover farming and to write for farmers. But now, less than 2% of the U.S. population lives on the farm, and a similarly small percentage of U.S. employment stems from agriculture. News organizations face a quandary: Covering agriculture for farmers no longer makes sense, and reporters must cover the industry differently. The question is how? In addition, the genetic revolution has created an agriceutical system, and the functions performed and the people performing have all changed. Unfortunately, news editors are not knowledgeable enough to understand the significance of this change and inform their readers about it. This case addresses how to change this perception.

Discusses the challenges facing a global food service supplier and the company's ability to partner with major customers, such as McDonald's.

Governor Patton decides how to use settlement funds to develop a long-term plan for Kentucky's tobacco producers and rural communities.

In 1993, Calgene is on the verge of introducing the world's first genetically engineered plant product--a tomato will taste better and stay fresh longer. At the same time, it is using biotechnology to produce improved plant products for the cottonseed and the industrial and edible oil markets. As it develops and brings these products to market, however, it faces a series of marketing and public relations hurdles, including regulatory requirements consumer education activist resistance to production, and distribution logistics. How Calgene reacts to these challenges may determine whether it succeeds or fails in its quest to revolutionize the business of agriculture. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

As the food industry becomes more sophisticated, and as genomics and other factors provide for quality control from the producers to the consumers in the food chain, the beef industry has been one of the last commodity systems to organize the vertical systems to satisfy consumers' needs for high-quality, consistently tender beef. The desire to also provide traceability has led Friona Industries to develop partnerships in the vertical chain to achieve these results with case-ready meat for supermarkets and consistent supplies for institutions such as McDonalds.

The World Trade Organization and NAFTA are reviewing the sweetener system and governmental sugar programs and their impact on world trade. What position should Jose Pinto take, and how will this affect his company, Mexico, and the global sugar players?

If you think the Internet has changed the shape of business, just imagine what genetic engineering is going to do. In this groundbreaking article, Juan Enriquez and Ray Goldberg explain how advances in genetics will not only have dramatic implications for people and society, they will reshape vast sectors of the world economy. The boundaries between many once-distinct businesses, from agribusiness and chemicals to pharmaceuticals and health care to energy and computing, will blur, and out of that convergence will emerge what promises to be the largest industry in the world: life science. And as scientific advances continue to accelerate, more and more businesses will be drawn, by choice or by necessity, into the life-science industry. Companies have realized that unlocking life's code opens up virtually unlimited commercial possibilities, but operating within this new industry presents a raft of wrenchingly difficult challenges as well. Companies must rethink their business, financial, and M&A strategies. They must make vast R&D investments with distant and uncertain payoffs. They must enter into complex partnerships and affiliations, sometimes with direct competitors. And perhaps most difficult, they must contend with a public that is uncomfortable with even the thought of genetic engineering. The optimal structure of the life-science industry--and of the companies that compose it--is as yet unknown. But the actions that executives take now will go a long way toward determining the ultimate role their companies play in the world's largest and most important industry.