Agricultural Marketing

Agricultural marketing is a method that includes gathering, storage, preparation, shipping, and delivery of different farming materials across the country. In agriculture marketing, the selling of an agriculture product depends on various components like the demand for the product at that time, availability of storage, etc.

Before Independence, farmers while selling their products to traders experienced massive incorrect weighing and manipulation of accounts. The farmers did not have required information about the prices and were forced to sell at low prices with no proper storage facility.

Sometimes, the product could be sold at a weekly village market in the farmer’s village or in a neighbouring village. If these shops are not available, then the product is sold at irregular markets in a nearby village or town, or in the mandi. So, the government took various measures to control the activities of the traders.

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The four Government Measures to Improve Agriculture Marketing

  • The initial step was to regulate the market and plan a clean, transparent and simple marketing strategy. This regulation helped both the farmers and the consumer. But it still needs to realize the full potential of rural markets.
  • The second measure was the procurement process like transportation facilities, warehouse, cold storage, godowns, and the processing unit. However, the current infrastructure is inadequate to adhere to the growing demand and therefore needs to be improved.
  • The third aspect is to decide on the fair price for the product. In the past, it has been a set back due to the unequal coverage of farmer members and the absence of a suitable link between marketing, processing cooperatives, and inefficient financial management. Example of a successful cooperative is the Gujarat milk cooperative which transformed the social and economic landscape of Gujarat.
  • The last one is policies such as.
    1. Guarantee of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for agricultural products
    2. Storage of surplus stocks of wheat and rice by Food Corporation of India (FCI)
    3. Distribution of food staples and sugar through PDS

All these measures were penned down to guard the income of the farmers and procuring agriculture products in the subsidized rate to the underprivileged. However, in spite of government interference in agriculture marketing, private traders still dominate the agricultural markets.

Agricultural Marketing

 

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Solved Questions.

Q1) What are the alternative channels available for agricultural marketing? Give some examples (NCERT)
Answer:
(1) Farmers market (mandi /bazars)
  • It started to give small farmers direct access to the consumers and eliminating the middlemen.
  • Few examples are:1. Apni Mandi in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan2. Hadaspar Mandi in Pune3. Rythu Bazars in Andhra Pradesh4. Uzhavar Sandies (farmers market) in Tamil Nadu.
Collaboration with national and multinational companies
  • Many national and international fast foods chains are rapidly getting into a contract with farmers.
  • They encourage the farmers to produce high-quality fruits and vegetables by providing them not only seeds and other materials but also guarantee procurement of the product at pre-decided prices.
  • This type of arrangements reduces price risk for farmers and increase farm product in the market.
Q2) What is meant by agriculture marketing?
Answer:

Agricultural marketing is a process that involves the assembling, storage, processing, transportation, packaging, grading and distribution of different agricultural commodities across the country.

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Q3) Give some examples of farmer markets
Answer:

Some examples of farmer markets are:

1. Apni Mandi in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan

2. Hadaspar Mandi in Pune

3. Rythu Bazars in Andhra Pradesh

4. Uzhavar Sandies (farmers market) in Tamil Nadu.

Q4) What are the three policy measures adopted by the government of India to improve the system of agricultural marketing?
Answer:

The following three policy measures were adopted by Government of India for improving agricultural marketing system:

1. Minimum Support Price (MSP)

2. Maintenance of Buffer Stock.

3. Public Distribution System (PDS)

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