The Mexican tortilla crisis of 2007: the impacts of grain-price increases on food-production chains
This article examines the case of the Mexican ‘tortilla crisis’ of 2007. Drawing on reviews of literature and the media, key-informant interviews, and secondary databases, the authors explore the response of the Mexican maize–tortilla chain to a price shock. Price increases should theoretically be passed on to the consumer as a progressively less significant percentage of the overall price of value-added food products. However, in Mexico, price increases were magnified along the maize–tortilla production chain. This was due largely to asymmetries among segments of the chain, which conditioned the responses of industrial-scale corporations and small-scale family businesses. This case study suggests that, in order to understand the impacts of price-shocks on poor consumers, more detailed, country-level analyses of market chains and price-transmission structures are needed.
Understanding peri-urban maize production through an examination of household livelihoods in the Toluca Metropolitan Area, Mexico
Abstract The rates of urban growth globally continue to rise, especially in small and intermediary cities and peri-urban areas of the developing world. Communities in these settings share characteristics with rural areas, in terms of continued connections with agriculture, yet with an increasing reliance of non-agricultural employment which poses challenges for policy and planning shaped by dichotomous configurations of space. This study focuses on maize producers in the Toluca Metropolitan Area, west of Mexico City, which is a traditional maize production region that also has exhibited high rates of industrial and residential growth over the last thirty years. We utilize household surveys from three peri-urban communities to create livelihood cluster groups that tease out the value and role of maize production amongst urban growth. The results show that maize plays various roles for households, including an insurance strategy against volatile job markets and for preference in making homemade tortillas. Rural and urban livelihoods in this region are mutually dependent on each other and not necessarily reflecting a linear rural–urban transition, which could lead to the persistence of maize production in the future. The continuing importance of maize in the Toluca Metropolitan Area provides policy opportunities to recognize and support the crop for household and regional food security despite continued urban growth.
Application of the Kano Model for a Better Understanding of Customer Requirements in Higher Education—A Pilot Study
Various pieces of information and knowledge turn into “know-how” simply by their application in the market. This applies to all spheres of activities. It is therefore important to know and understand the requirements of customers already in the stage of making a product, and to confront these with the possibilities of a producer. In this article we are exploring the possibilities of a better understanding of the requirements of customers and stakeholders in the process of the creation of products in educational services. In particular, we examined seven general requirements: practice orientation, ethical orientation, research orientation, quality resources, innovation orientation, skills orientation, and quality staff. We use the Kano model on a pilot sample of respondents at an institution of higher education. Our results showed that “practice orientation” and “quality resources” are the most stable requirements, while “quality staff” is the least stable. The most linear requirement (the same effect on satisfaction and dissatisfaction) is “innovation orientation”. “Research orientation” belongs to attractive requirements and we also found that in the case of “ethical orientation” there are weak relations between positive and negative responses in our survey. The “skills orientation” proved to be too general, and our research shows that it could be indifferent. It is therefore advisable to specify the investigated skills when investigating requirements on educational services. The main contribution based on the proposed research procedures is an effective linking of customers and producers already from the beginning of constructing a value chain. Investing in sophisticated management approaches when modelling products and processes can thus become a significant source of the competitive advantage of an educational institution. At the same time, it is a contribution to better placing of its graduates in the labor market.