Status:  

On going 

Summary:  

This project expands the project for location of agribusiness serving farmers in the Delta to the entire state. Additionally, layers will be developed for the crops grown by county to begin to study the relationships of the types of businesses associated with specific crops and the location of production. 

Objectives: 

This project seeks to expand on the “test bed” study of Coahoma, Bolivar, Sunflower, Leflore, Washington, and Humphries that have street level data by type of businesses in proximity to major highways, railroads, and/or port facilities. 

Develop spatial inventory layers for agribusinesses supporting agriculture and first handlers of crops and other agricultural products. 

Develop spatial inventory layers for agricultural services including agricultural credit, and governmental agencies closely related to agriculture. 

Develop layers for historical data bases for agricultural crops and livestock production and prices.      

Select one or more layers and estimate the demands for services based on historical crop and livestock data including budgets in the Department of Agricultural Economics, and secondary data on facilities to perform spatial analysis comparing needs with current locations of facilities.   

Rationale: 

Data on the spatial distribution of firms along with data on employment, sales, and proximity of firms to major transportation arteries is needed to study the structure of the agribusiness industry. 

Results: 

At the present, work is ongoing building the data base to include street level location of each business, along with employment and sales data. A database of Mississippi businesses with 130,000 + entries for the year 2000 was purchased from Oxford Information Technology. These data are being augmented by business data in the “Mississippi Agricultural Manufacturers and Export Directory 2001 Edition” by the Market Development Division of the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce, the “Mississippi Seafood Directory” published by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and other lists provided by scientists. Additionally, when traveling to street verify businesses the list is added to or subtracted from for businesses found but not on the list or firms that have gone out of business. The Oxford list will be double checked for businesses that may be included but classified by a different SIC code than drawn in the sample. 

Impact: 

Location, employment, and sales data will provide base data on the structure and economic impacts of selected segments of the market. Relationships of crops to the businesses servicing the sector should provide valuable information. Also, industry locations with respect of transportation arteries will provide valuable data for transportation and economic development planners.

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