Supermarket market-channel participation and technology decisions of horticultural producers in Brazil

This paper examined the relationships between growers’ choice of market channel (emphasizing the supermarket market-chan-nel versus others), technology use, and grower characteristics such as human capital and farm size. Three key findings emerged. First, both tomato and lettuce growers selling to the supermarket market-channel had more human capital than those not participating. Second, while farm size was important in whether lettuce growers sell to supermar-kets, it was not important for tomato growers. Third, technology use was significantly more capital-intensive among lettuce growers selling to the supermarket channels, however, that was generally not the case for to-mato growers. These results are important to agribusiness researchers and policymakers interested in technology design and research and ex-tension to enable producers to adapt to the needs of changing agrifood markets, with new requirements of attributes of products and transac-tions, which in turn have implications for technology adoption and hu-man capital investment among growers. This is particularly pressing in places like Brazil where the market for horticultural products is chang-ing quickly, conditioned by the rapid rise of supermarkets.