Harvests' lifespan and North-South market share rivalry

We consider a North-South duopolistic competition in the market of a perishable good. North's harvest can be sold over two periods whereas South's harvest can be sold in the first period only, because of the lack of storage technology. We examine the impact of the availability of a storage technology in South that would allow it to sell its harvest over two periods. We identify situations in which both North and South see their profits decrease and situations in which both North and South enjoy larger profits when the lifespan of South's harvest increases. Our findings can be useful to assess the support for policy interventions that aim at transferring better technologies to South. There are cases where North and South's industries will both push for (or both resist) the transfer of a technology to South that will lengthen the lifespan of its product.