A Pilot Study on the Impacts of European Union Integration on Bulgarian Commercial Producers Buying Behavior for Capital Equipment by Lance

The fall of Communism abruptly ended collectivized farming and Agro-Industrial Complexes in Bulgaria, paving the way for modernization, privatization, consolidation and new markets through European Union (EU) integration. With integration came the rise of the Bulgarian commercial producer, resulting in new market opportunities for suppliers of capital inputs. Understanding how Bulgarian commercial producers buy capital equipment is extremely valuable to suppliers who hope to develop new selling and retention strategies in an emerging agricultural marketplace. This information is also beneficial to researchers who are concerned about various factors that influence and drive economic decisions on Bulgarian farms. This thesis presents an exploratory pilot study utilizing a mixed methods approach integrating survey and interview data using a convergent parallel design of agricultural commercial producers in Bulgaria. Quantitative data was collected from responses to the 2013 Large Commercial Producer (LCP) survey by Purdue University's Center for Food and Agricultural Business followed immediately by interviews with seven commercial farmers. The results show that when buying capital inputs, Bulgarian commercial producers have a strong loyalty to their current brands of capital equipment but not an overall loyalty to the brand itself. Market power favors the commercial producer making it a buyer's market rather than a seller's market. Producers indicated preferences characteristic of the Performance buyer segment wanting quality, reliability, durability, and good service when buying commercial equipment but they are also price sensitive. This pilot study has been a first step in better understanding the decision-making processes and motivation regarding how Bulgarian commercial producers buy capital equipment. ! iii! "Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure. And not grass alone; but soils, seeds, and seasons-hedges, ditches, and fences, draining, droughts, and irrigation-plowing, hoeing, and harrowing-reaping, mowing, and threshing-saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops, and what will prevent or cure them-implements, utensils, and machines, their relative merits and how to improve them-hogs, horses, and cattle-sheep, goats, and poultry-trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and flowers-the thousand things of which these are specimens-each a world of study within itself." One year after Abraham Lincoln gave this speech at the Wisconsin fair, he would be elected president, and two years after that he signed the bill establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture.