Nut Theft Threatens California's Economy

This assignment requires students to analyze the growing problem of nut theft in California, specifically targeting almonds. Students are tasked with applying Porter's Five Forces model and PEST analysis to understand the industry structure, competitive landscape, and external factors influencing this issue. The goal is to assess the economic impact of nut theft on California and identify potential solutions.

Running head: BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Business Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Theft Issues in the Nut Industry:.....................................................................................................2
Industry Analysis:............................................................................................................................4
Macro-environmental Conditions:...............................................................................................4
Micro Analysis:...........................................................................................................................8
Firms capable of stopping nut theft:..............................................................................................10
Resources and Capabilities Required:...........................................................................................11
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction:
The nut industry of California has been consistently remaining as one of the most
prominent and profitable industries of the country with a continuous and extensive boom in the
industry over the last few decades. In a time span of a few decades the production levels, the
prices in the domestic as well as in the global markets, the bearing acreage and also the value of
the production of almonds, walnuts, pistachios and other crops of this primary product industry
have grown significantly. The acreage of bearing almond especially rose from 418,000 acres to
as high as 900,000 acres from 1995 to the current times. Walnut acreage has also undergone a
significant increase between the same time span, from 177,000 acres to a enormous magnitude of
315,000 acres in the recent times. The huge upward dynamics in the nut industry collectively,
attributed to the continually growing global demand for nuts and economies of scale in the
industry itself, is currently one of the primary contributors to the economic growth and GDP
growth of the country. The nut industry of California also poses as one of the primary
employment generators in the country with immense backward as well as forward linkages
(Howitt et al 2014).
Theft Issues in the Nut Industry:
In spite of being one of the most highlighted and continually expanding and revenue
generating industries in California, the nut industry of the country is severely plagued with a
constant and bothering issue of large-scale thefts. These are occurring in high frequencies and

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are jeopardizing the growth of not only the industry and its members but also the country as a
whole.
As has been speculated and reported in many instances the theft circle of the nut industry
in the country includes various sophisticated international crime rings. The billion dollar
industry, having a high demand and producing nearly 9.3 billion dollars worth of products
annually, have been targeted by the crime mongers for the high profitability (Modernfarmer.com,
2017). The thefts, which are taking place in this industry, are of highly organized sorts. The
thieves often hack into the company profile and in the profile of the trucking companies used for
transporting the nuts, steal the identities of those companies and with false documents they drive
off truckloads of nuts in broad day light. Each truckload valuing from 150,000 dollars to 500,000
dollars, these robberies are strengthening the hold of the theft organizations and are hurting the
supply side as of the industry heavily.
The most bothering issue regarding the theft in the nut industry of California is that the
magnitude of theft, in spite of continuous preventive efforts on part of the government and
vigilance authorities and also on parts of the companies involved, is continually increasing. The
magnitude of nut theft in the industry in the last year amounted to 4.6 million dollars, from the
31 reported cases, the amount being higher than the theft amount in the industry in the previous
three years. The nature of the commodity is also becoming as issue as there is no way of
arresting anyone carrying a truckload of nuts till it is proved that the nuts are stolen. Thus, it can
be seen that the thefts in the nut industry of the country has been and is still continuing to be one
of the major threats in the industry. This affects the supply side severely and also having
implications on the demand side as well as the economic growth of the industry as well as the
country itself (Theguardian.com 2017).

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Industry Analysis:
To understand the occurrence of any phenomenon, positive or negative, in any industry
of a country, it is of absolute necessity to have an overview about the macro as well as the micro
conditions of the economy and the genre or domain under which the industry is functioning.
Macro-environmental Conditions:
The macro-environmental conditions and the factors in this aspect are an important
determinant of the way in which a commercial organization can operate and these factors have
significant positive as well as negative implications on the productivity, prospects and short term
as well as long term profitability of the commercial organization. To analyze these factors in the
context of the nut industry of California, a PESTEL Analysis can be undertaken which is as
follows:
PESTEL Analysis Description
Political factors The political framework of the country has never been simple as
it includes a multi-player and multi-dimensional purview. The
Governing Body of the country mainly constitute of what is
informally known to be the Big Five, consisting of the
Governor, Minority Leader, Assembly speaker, Senate Minority
Leader and the Senate President. With the system of plural
voting, the Californian political environment has many
contending political parties with individual vested interests.

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With the immense political rivalry among the contending
parties, lobbying, cartels and nexus forming are frequent illegal
practices in this system, which also have significant effects on
the overall industrial environment of the country, thereby posing
as one of the important factors in the nut industry of the country
as well (Gupta 2013).
Legal Factors The legal framework of the country has remained robust and
there are well defined laws in the aspect of doing business in
California. These includes the security of the employees,
Affordable Care Acts which give time to the enterprises to meet
their tax requirements and also laws regarding cost adjusted
minimum pays and classification of workers. However, the legal
framework of the country allows easy access to guns and other
fire weapons too, thereby making the security a big issue of
question. This can pose as one of the factors helping in the
large-scale theft in the nut industry of the country, which again
is having its impacts on the companies and their employees as
there are strict employee laws present in the economy.
Economic Factors The economy of California is a combination of extremes. On
one hand the country is recognized as the sixth largest economy
in the world, in terms of the GDP and GDP growth rate
dynamics. Over the years, the economic growth pattern has been
impressive in the country. However, the country scores

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relatively much lower when it comes to the overall development
and welfare of the residents of the country. California
surprisingly is one of the nations having the highest poverty
rates in the world. This in its turn indicates towards the presence
of an extreme inequality in the overall framework of the
country, which has its implications on every aspects of the
economy. The extreme disparity in distribution of economic
growth may also be expected to have its implications (mostly
adverse) on the industrial sector of the country too and there
may be linkages between this income disparity and the theft
issues in the nut industry and other related industries in the
country in the recent times (Ho 2014).
Social- Cultural Factors The socio-cultural environment of a country sometimes directly
and sometimes subtly influences the business operations that are
carried out in a country. In case of California, the cultural
environment of the country, though being primarily related to
the socio-cultural trends of the USA, is mainly a confluence and
cultural amalgamation of many countries like Spain, Mexico,
Asia and others. This can be seen in the languages, food habits
and lifestyle patterns in the country. California has a prolonged
history of immigrations and still opens door to immigrants from
all over the world. This, over the years has had lots of
implications on the overall economy as well as the industrial

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sector of the country (Alkon, Cortez and Sze 2013).
Technological Factors In the last few decades, the country has undergone significant
technological up gradation, which had its effect in the overall
lifestyle of the residents of the country as well as in the
industrial sector of California. The technological advances on
one hand have contributed immensely in augmenting and
increasing the overall productivity of the industrial sector.
However, with newer technologies, theft, fraud and cheating
have also become easier, which in its turn is having negative
implications in many industries including the nut industry of the
country (Conlon 2016).
Environmental Factors The environmental condition of the country is more or less
favourable for human inhabitation and industrial development.
Water is one of the issues of concern, the resource being limited.
However, the overall environment of the country facilitates
agriculture and primary production as a whole and also
encourages people to participate in the same due to low cost of
production and high productivities. The environment of
California can be considered as one of the primary factors
behind the growth of its primary product industry (Rahman,
Saharuddin and Rasdi 2014).

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Micro Analysis:
The following section tries to analyze the overall condition of the pistachio industry of
California, which is one of the primary victims of the large-scale nut thefts, using the Porter’s
Five Forces Model:
Figure 1: Porter’s Five Forces Model
(Source: E. Dobbs 2014)
a) Bargaining Power of Consumers:
The consumers of Californian pistachio do enjoy some bargaining power as Iran poses as
a competitor. Though the quality of the latter is lower than what produced in California, the

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prices are also low which attracts customers. The theft, by increasing the price of the nuts further
may affect this situation even more adversely (Lee, Kim and Park 2012).
b) Bargaining Power of Suppliers:
Compared to the customers the bargaining power of the suppliers in this market is less as
there are not many options available domestically. However, the huge demand of the Californian
pistachio in all over the world somewhat increases their power to bargain, as 40% of the total
production is exported outside the country, which is considerably jeopardized by the recent and
continuous and bothering problem of massive scale thefts of pistachios in the country (Wu,
Tseng and Chiu 2012).
c) Threat of potential entrants:
The pistachio market of the country has been consistently one of the growing markets
with huge prospects. However, the market is relatively unstable than the other forms of nuts as
the demand dynamics in this market is relatively fluctuating. Nevertheless, with the new notion
of impulse eating and organic food branding the market is seeing prospects and therefore there
are threats of new entrants in the market, provided the problem of theft is solved (Han,
Porterfield and Li 2012).
d) Rivalry among existing firms:
There are few big players in this market and each of them enjoy considerable market
share in the domestic and international market. There is no considerable evidence of rivalry
among the firms in the domestic market of California. However, the overall Californian pistachio
industry faces stiff competition from that of the Iranian cheaper counterpart, the competition

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becoming even steeper with the thefts. The market in Hong Kong, for example has been recently
taken over by Iran (Dulčić, Gnjidić and Alfirević 2012).
e) Threat of substitutes:
Pistachio, as a specific form of nut, though have many loyal customers, however, if
priced that high can lose market. The presence of Iranian producers is one of the factors. Apart
from that the increase in price and already fluctuating demand can lead to more consumptions of
other forms of nuts as most of pistachio consumption takes place as a result of impulse eating
and it is not a necessity good (Dälken 2014).
Firms capable of stopping nut theft:
The sheer magnitude and extent of theft in nuts industry in California shows that to tackle
the problem, sufficient amount of precautions, security measures and man power will be required
by the industry as a whole, which can only be provided by the big names in this industry which
includes the following:
 Paramount Farming (Acreage: 80,000)
 Farmland Management Services (Acreage: 36,422)
 South Valley (Acreage: 16,752)
 Premiere Entities (Acreage: 32,334)
 Agriland Farming (Acreage: 15,504)

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Resources and Capabilities Required:
To prevent the large-scale theft in the concerned industry first and foremost the firms
have to increase their security framework and need to employ relevant and capable personnel for
this purpose. The lands need to be protected properly, installing security cameras, electric
fencing and others and special precautions need to be taken in the aspect of delivery and
transport as most of the thefts take place in this aspect. Proper identification of transporters,
hiring loyal people and empowering the guards with weapons can also to some extent help in
mitigating the problem (Cordova and Vargas).
Recommendations:
In the context of the extensive and continually increasing theft in the nut industry of
California, it is of utmost importance on part of the firms as well as the government of the
country to take proper actions regarding improving the security of the industry. For this the firms
need to invest more in technological as well as manual safety framework in their lands and also
in the transport facilities which they use. Continuous monitoring through cameras, enabling the
guards with weapons and equipments such that they can confront the thieves and hiring loyal
employees are of crucial importance on part of the firms in this industry.

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References
Alkon, A.H., Cortez, M. and Sze, J., 2013. What is in a name? Language, framing and
environmental justice activism in California's Central Valley. Local Environment, 18(10),
pp.1167-1183.
Conlon, B., 2016. The Dynamics of Domestic and International Cargo Theft. SMU Sci. & Tech.
L. Rev., 19, p.397.
Cordova, C.J. and Vargas, S., Corbas Marketing, Inc. and A California Corporation,
2016. Copper wire theft protection method and apparatus for wall-mounted pull boxes. U.S.
Patent 9,252,580.
Dälken, F., 2014. Are porter’s five competitive forces still applicable? a critical examination
concerning the relevance for today’s business (Bachelor's thesis, University of Twente).
Dulčić, Ž., Gnjidić, V. and Alfirević, N., 2012. From five competitive forces to five collaborative
forces: revised view on industry structure-firm interrelationship. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 58, pp.1077-1084.
E. Dobbs, M., 2014. Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: a set of industry
analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), pp.32-45.
Gupta, A., 2013. Environmental and pest analysis: An approach to external business
environment. Merit Research Journal of Art, Social Science and Humanities, 1(2), pp.13-17.
Han, C., Porterfield, T. and Li, X., 2012. Impact of industry competition on contract
manufacturing: An empirical study of US manufacturers. International Journal of Production
Economics, 138(1), pp.159-169.