23.Food markets

Food marketing brings together the producer and the consumer. It is the chain of activities that brings food from “farm gate to plate.” The marketing of even a single food product can be a complicated process involving many producers and companies. For example, fifty-six companies are involved in making one can of chicken noodle soup. These businesses include not only chicken and vegetable processors but also the companies that transport the ingredients and those who print labels and manufacture cans. The food marketing system is the largest direct and indirect nongovernment employer in the United States.

There are three historical phases of food marketing: the fragmentation phase (before 1870–1880), the unification phase (1880–1950), and the segmentation phase (1950 and later). In the fragmentation phase, the United States was divided into numerous geographic fragments because transporting food was expensive, leaving most production, distribution, and selling locally based. In the unification phase, distribution was made possible by railroads, coordination of sales forces was made possible by the telegraph and telephone, and product consistency was made possible by advances in manufacturing. This new distribution system was led by meat processors such as Armour and Swift in midwestern cities and by companies such as Heinz, Quaker Oats, Campbell Soup, and Coca-Cola, which sold their brands nationally. Advertising in print media and direct marketing through demonstrations at stores and public venues were among the prime marketing tools. The initial Crisco campaign, in 1911, was an example. In the segmentation phase (1950 and later) radio, television and internet advertising made it possible for a wider range of competing products to focus on different benefits and images and thus appeal to different demographic and psychographic markets. Distribution via the new national road system strengthened national brands

24. Markets for agricultural raw materials

A raw material or feedstock is basic material used in the production of goods, finished products or intermediate materials that are themselves feedstock for finished products. As feedstock, the term connotes it is a bottleneck asset critical to the production of other products. For example, crude oil is a feedstock raw material providing finished products in the fuel, plastic, industrial chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

The term "raw material" is used to denote material is in an unprocessed or minimally processed state; e.g., raw latex, coal, iron ore, logs, crude oil, air or seawater. The use of raw material by non-human species includes twigs and found objects as used by birds to make nests.

Agricultural economics applies many aspects of finance, production, management, statistics, policy making and marketing to farming. Agricultural economics is primarily focused on environment, resources management, risk analysis, raw material supply chains, produce marketing chains, cost analysis, rural income, market structure, market intelligence, viability and capital resources.

Farming and marketing of produce has become a basis for evolving many field models like the cobweb model or cobweb theory, hedonic regression model, hedonic pricing model, new technology diffusion models, multi-factor productivity measurement, and the random coefficient regression Models. The cobweb model or cobweb theory explains how a time lag between supply and demand decisions causes periodic price fluctuations in livestock and farm produce markets.

Agricultural economics is essential for resource creation, resource allocation, planning for risk and uncertainty, establishment of farm supply and consumption chains, fixing of prices of commodities, market structures, development of agricultural trade and arriving at the viability of farm practices. These studies helps framing farming polices and recommending strategic directions, founded on social, environmental, and economic sustainability.

25.Ores and metals markets

Metals are very useful. Ores are naturally occurring rocks that contain metal or metal compounds in sufficient amounts to make it worthwhile extracting them. The method used to extract a given metal from its ore depends upon the reactivity of the metal and so how stable the ore is.

Ores (metals) are traded internationally and comprise a sizeable portion of international trade in raw materials both in value and volume. This is because the worldwide distribution of ores is unequal and dislocated from locations of peak demand and from smelting infrastructure.

Most base metals (copper, lead, zinc, nickel) are traded internationally on the London Metal Exchange, with smaller stockpiles and metals exchanges monitored by the COMEX and NYMEX exchanges in the United States and the Shanghai Futures Exchange in China.

Iron ore is traded between customer and producer, though various benchmark prices are set quarterly between the major mining conglomerates and the major consumers, and this sets the stage for smaller participants.

Other, lesser, commodities do not have international clearing houses and benchmark prices, with most prices negotiated between suppliers and customers one-on-one. This generally makes determining the price of ores of this nature opaque and difficult. Such metals include lithium, niobium-tantalum, bismuth, antimony and rare earths. Most of these commodities are also dominated by one or two major suppliers with >60% of the world's reserves. The London Metal Exchange aims to add uranium to its list of metals on warrant.

The World Bank reports that China was the top importer of ores and metals in 2005 followed by the USA and Japan.

26. The fuel market

Fuels are any materials that store potential energy in forms that can be practicably released and used for work or as heat energy. The concept originally applied solely to those materials storing energy in the form of chemical energy that could be released throughcombustion,^[1] but the concept has since been also applied to other sources of heat energy such as nuclear energy (via nuclear fission ornuclear fusion).

Energy markets are commodity markets that deal specifically with the trade and supply of energy. Energy market may refer to an electricity market, but can also refer to other sources of energy. Typically energy development is the result of a government creating an energy policy that encourages the development of an energy industry in a competitivemanner.

Until the 1970s when energy markets underwent dramatic changes, they were characterised by monopoly-based organisational structures.^[1] Most of the world's petroleum reserves were controlled by the Seven Sisters. Circumstances changed considerably in 1973 as the influence of OPEC grew and the repercussions of the 1973 oil crisis affected global energy markets.

Energy markets have been liberalized in some countries; they are regulated by national and international authorities (including liberalized markets) to protect consumer rights and avoid oligopolies. Regulators includes the Australian Energy Market Commission in Australia, the Energy Market Authority in Singapore, the Energy Community in Europe, replacing the South-East Europe Regional Energy Market and the Nordic energy market for Nordic countries. Members of the European Union are required to liberalize their energy markets.

Regulators seek to discourage volatility of prices, reform markets if needed, and search for evidence of anti-competitive behavior such as the formation of a monopoly.

Due to the increase in oil price since 2003 and the increase of speculation, energy markets are being reviewed and by 2008, several conferences were organized to address the energy market sentiments of petroleum importing nations.^[2] In Russia, the markets are being reformed by the introduction of harmonized and all-Russian consumer prices.^[3]

In recent years, there has been a movement towards renewable and sustainable energy in the United States. This has been caused by many factors, including the threat of global warming, cost, government funding, tax incentives, and potential profits in the energy market of the United States. According to the most recent projections by the EIA out to the year 2040, the renewable energy industry will be growing from providing 13% of the power in the year 2011 to 16% in 2040. This is equivalent to 32% of the overall growth during this time period. This large increase has the potential to be very lucrative for companies wishing to tap into the renewable energy market in the United States.

The Cost competitiveness of fuel sources is a measure of whether or not particular fuel sources are cost competitive in the energy market, and is a primary factor in determining if a fuel source will be utilized. If a fuel source can be produced and sold lower than the price crude oil is being traded at, including taxes, then it is considered to be a cost competitivefuel source.