Ph. D.

In Virginia, the conventional method of farm production of processing tomatoes has lost its competitiveness to other farm enterprises due mainly to intensive labor requirements and low economic profit. Also, the tomato processing industry in Virginia and other Mid-Atlantic states has lost its market share to other competing regions in the national market due primarily to high raw product cost and relatively inefficient processing operations. Recently, a capital-intensive production method for processing tomatoes, i.e., high-yield varieties adapted to direct seeding and machine harvesting, has been developed in the Mid-Atlantic region, and many tomato growers in Virginia have indicated intentions to adopt the new production alternative. Under such circumstances, the major concern of this study was directed to determine whether or not the adoption of the new tomato production system would make Virginia's processing tomato industry more competitive, not only with other crops at the farm production level, but also with other major tomato producing regions in the national market. Since the basic objective of this study is twofold, two major analytical sections are developed. In the feasibility analysis section, farm production costs of three alternatives - (1) transplant method of conventional varieties with hand harvesting, (2) direct seeding method of new tomato varieties with hand harvesting, and (3) direct seeding method of new tomato varieties with machine harvesting, are compared. In the interregional analysis section, an interregional competition model especially designed for the U. S. processing tomato industry is formulated. In this model, five major processed tomato products, fourteen production states and ten consumption regions were included. The important findings of the analyses were: (1) the average production cost of the mechanical production method was cheaper than conventional production method; (2) the average net return of the new tomato varieties was higher than the net returns from most other farm crops; (3) the quality of machine harvested tomatoes was superior to hand harvested tomatoes for tomato processing operations; (4) the adoption of the mechanical production method would make Virginia's tomato processors directly competitive with California processors in the major Eastern markets; (5) the potential for Midwestern tomato processors to become Virginia's major competitor in the Eastern markets would be strong in the future. / Ph. D.