Spatial organisation of agricultural value added chains - the case of vegetable production

Today vegetable-growing farms are tied into very subtly differentiated supply chains which in turn are incompetition with each other. It is therefore very important for the lasting existence of farms that the supply chains are organized in a way that they are able to compete in a growing competition. Therefore vertical coordination and cooperation are more strongly considered as factors explaining competitiveness.
The significance of the spatial organization of production as a substantial factor for the competitiveness increasingly is also discussed, however. Besides classic factors, like climate, soil conditions, distance to the markets, also questions of the knowledge transfer, the emergences and spreadings of innovations as well as trusting cooperation's are getting great attention as factors of competitiveness too. In the study the meaning of the supply chain organization as well as the spatial arrangement of the production as substantial reasons of competitiveness shall be examined. Special attention is directed to the search of variables which represent starting-points for rational control and politics.