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Abstract
Surveys were sent to specialty crop producers in California, predominantly
grower-packer-shippers, during the first half of 2006 to better understand the
motives for traceability adoption. The questions in our survey allowed respondents
to consider the benefits of tracing. A representative tracing system for
melons was developed and costs for the system were collected from industry
sources. Values were assigned to the benefits of traceability based on the cost of
the representative system, responses collected in our survey, and using Borda’s
rule. Results suggest that litigation concerns and firm reputation are the key
drivers for maintaining traceability.