Research background: As part of the process of structural transformation that countries go through in their development journey, the relative significance of agriculture as a sector typically shrinks over time. Nonetheless, the agricultural sector maintains its significance in terms of its trade potential and global employment prospects to this day. The extant literature largely neglects the impact of countries’ land resources on agricultural trade by emphasizing agricultural farm size and land productivity nexus. This justifies the exploration of the causal nexus between countries’ agricultural land resources and their agricultural exports. Purpose: The study herein aims at investigating the nexus between countries’ total agricultural land resources and agricultural exports for 174 selected countries over the period 1991–2019. Research methodology: Dumitrescu and Hurlin’s (2012) test for Granger non-causality for heterogeneous panels is harnessed. Results: Estimation results evidence the presence of bi-directional causality (feedback) between countries’ agricultural land resources and agricultural exports not only in the whole panel (1991–2019) but also in subpanels too (1991–2000, 2001–2010, and 2011–2019). Overall, the results stress the strategic importance of agricultural land as a significant determinant of agricultural exports. Novelty: Our study takes a unique approach and investigates if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between a country’s agricultural land resources and its agricultural exports by relying on the implications of the factor endowment theory of trade.

Agricultural trade not only facilitates the exchange of final products but also leads to the indirect transfer of arable land resources involved in their production processes across countries. These indirect flows are commonly referred to in the literature as virtual land flows or virtual land trade. An in-depth understanding of the factors influencing virtual land flows is crucial for both the management of these flows and the sustainable and efficient allocation of limited arable land resources on a global scale. The objective of this study is to identify the key determinants that influence virtual land flows in Türkiye’s trade of plant-based agricultural products. To achieve this, the virtual land trade balance for Türkiye was computed by estimating the import and export volumes of virtual land from 1986 to 2019, based on crop, year, and country-specific yield values. Subsequently, the relationship between Türkiye’s virtual land trade balance and macroeconomic and environmental variables—such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the real effective exchange rate, annual total precipitation, per capita arable land, and fertilizer usage—was investigated using the ARDL bounds testing approach. The findings of this study indicate that the most significant factors influencing Türkiye’s virtual land flows are per capita arable land endowment and fertilizer usage. This result highlights the strong relationship between virtual land flows and variables related to productivity and natural resource endowment, while also emphasizing the importance of integrating sustainability considerations and environmental impacts into contemporary agricultural policy frameworks. Elucidating the dynamics of virtual land trade is a pivotal step toward ensuring the long-term sustainability of international agricultural trade, as well as the equitable and efficient allocation of arable land resources. Furthermore, it represents a fundamental strategy for global agricultural production, offering critical insights for shaping future agricultural policy and practice at the global level.

In this study, logistics outsourcing practices in fresh vegetables and fruits sector are discussed with the customer firm perspective. The benefits of the companies from the logistics outsourcing process, the problems they face in the process management and the expectations and evaluations for the process are tried to be put forward with an exploratory approach. The required data were collected through surveys carried out with companies operating in the fresh vegetable and fruits sector. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method has also been used to determine the criteria that are effective in selecting the service provider company, which is considered to be directly effective on the success of the outsourcing process. The research findings show that the most important obstacles to maximizing the benefits of the companies from the process are the lack of a planned structure for logistics outsourcing and the traditional management understanding of the company managers. This situation makes the logistics outsourcing process of the companies in the sector not an effective competitive strategy but rather an alternative to deal with cyclical fluctuations. For all these reasons, the expectations of the companies for the process are not fully met and the benefits from the process are realized at more limited levels.

Turkey’s bio-diversity, geographical structure and climatic conditions, makes it possible to produce a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Although, the high production capacity, half of the vegetables and fruits are lost during the supply chain processes from farmer to the end consumer because of the long and complex structure of the supply chain. At the same time the current supply chain structure leads to huge gaps between producer and consumer prices. The aim of this study is to determine the structure of the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain in Turkey and develop alternative supply chain forms to prevent the “price differences” and “product losses” from farmer to the final consumer. The study included descriptive analyses with secondary data as well as literature review. In addition, this study emphasizes the asymmetric power relationship in the agricultural supply chain. The asymmetric power relationship is explained by the price differences between the farmer and the final consumer. The research findings suggest that the transition from the existing multi-intermediated supply chain to the non-intermediated model must be done in a gradual way and through strengthening of the farmers.