Problems and Prospects in Agricultural Marketing

Abstract

India is basically an agrarian society where sole dependence has been on agriculture since time immemorial. In the olden days, the agricultural produce was fundamentally barter by nature where farmers exchanged goods for goods and also against services. Gradually the scenario changed with the changing times and agriculture produce began being sold with an element of commercial value. Trading of agriculture produce began for exchange of money. And from trading to marketing of agricultural produce began although mostly it is a way of traditional selling. The marketing as a term is broader than traditional trading. And agricultural marketing as a concept is still evolving in the Indian agrarian society. In India, there are network of cooperatives at the local, regional, state and national levels that assist in agricultural marketing. The commodities that are mostly handled are food grains, jute, cotton, sugar, milk and areca nuts. Currently large enterprises, such as cooperative Indian sugar factories, spinning mills, and solvent-extraction plants mostly handle their own marketing operations independently. Medium- and small-sized enterprises, such as rice mills, oil mills, cotton ginning and pressing units, and jute baling units, mostly are affiliated with cooperative marketing societies.

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