Examining publicly-funded value chain projects: Five case studies involving the Ontario agrifood industry.

摘要

This thesis is an investigation of agrifood value chain projects, and the effect public funding programs and incentives have on their conceptualization, implementation, operation, and results. This exploratory study utilizes five case studies from across the agrifood sector to gain an understanding of the benefits, costs, difficulties, and motivations behind these complex and expensive collaborative projects. This was accomplished using semi-structured interviews, along with an examination of supporting project proposals, progress reports, and other documentation. The results indicate that collaborating with partners is quite difficult, prone to failure, tends to exceed cost projections, and is difficult to manage. The conclusion is that developing a collaborative value chain initiative with the express purpose of securing cheap or free public funding often results in a needlessly complicated and difficult project that might have been better served by securing private investment.