Challenges in the Era of Globalization - iaabd

Challenges in the Era of Globalization
Edited by Emmanuel Obuah
subject or initiative enhances the likelihood of that particular initiative becoming popular on local leaders’
agenda. The estimated coefficient for the knowledge variable is positive and statistically significant. The
estimated change in probability coefficient (0.529) suggests that those local economic development
leaders who are knowledgeable about agriculture value-added initiatives are 53 percent more likely to be
involved in bringing value-added businesses to their local areas than their counterparts.
Table 4. Estimated Results
Variable B S.E. t-value Sig. ∆ Prob.
Constant -2.040* 0.820 -2.487 0.013 -0.870
Age 0.571* 0.279 2.044 0.052 0.069
Gender -0.022 0.655 -0.034 0.973 -0.022
Education 0.996 0.593 1.681 0.093 0.708
Knowledge 0.425* 0.138 3.084 0.002 0.529
Location -0.131 0.329 -0.399 0.690 -0.123
Local jobs 0.390 0.327 1.193 0.233 0.477
Profit Margin 0.831* 0.258 3.223 0.001 0.296
Predicted 76.600
-Log likelihood 310.605
Chi-square 98.806
Nagelkerke R-Square 0.377
Sample size 154
*, denotes significance at 5 percent or higher level
Of all local leaders’ concerns, those who put greater importance on increasing farmers’ profit margin
were more likely to be involved with bringing value-added enterprises to their communities. Respondents
to whom increasing farmers’ profit margin was important were 30 percent more likely to bring valueadded
enterprises to their communities. Surprisingly, the variables measuring concerns about local jobs
was not statistically significant at the five percent level or higher, implying that, these concerns are not
important in determining local economic development leaders’ involvement in bringing value-added
enterprises to their regions. Similarly, the estimated coefficients for the demographic variables (age and
gender) and location are insignificant.
Conclusion
The objective of this paper was to examine attributes of local economic development leaders’
involvement with agriculture value-added initiatives in Alabama. The analysis was based on data
collected using a web-based questionnaire that was sent to 367 local leaders of whom 154 responded. The
average respondent surveyed was male, 50 years old, has a college degree and represents a metropolitan
county. In terms of the key concerns, bringing more jobs to the local areas was identified as the key
followed by the desire to promote rural development. Notably, the majority of local leader were concern
about the up bring of the area as a whole instead of individual farmers benefiting from the push for value
adding initiatives. Cross tabulation results revealed that female local economic leaders with a college
education who were 50 years or older had participated more in bringing value-added enterprises to their
regions than their counterparts.
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