Agriculture Marketing, Problems in Agriculture Marketing and Measures for the improvement of Agriculture Marketing.

Agriculture Marketing:
Marketing can be defined as the commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer. Marketing is not just the final transaction of receiving a check. The acts of buying supplies, renting equipment, paying labor, and advertising, processing and selling are all part of a marketing plan. Some say marketing is everything a business does. Agricultural marketing is where the producer, the processor, the distributor and the consumer meet. Agricultural Marketing as a process which starts with a decision to produce a saleable farm commodity and it involves all aspects of market structure of system, both functional and institutional, based on technical and economic considerations and includes pre and post- harvest operations, assembling, grading, storage, transportation and distribution. Agriculture is the major sector of the economy. It not only meets the food needs of the entire population but also supplements the foreign exchange resources through export of farm produce. It engages about 44% of labor force, provides livelihood to 70% of the population and contributes 23% share to GDP. Agricultural marketing includes the operations of collecting the produce, grading storing, transporting, and selling to the ultimate consumer. ''Since agriculture is fundamentally different from manufacture, therefore the marketing of agricultural surplus is beset with a number of complex problems. For example the agricultural goods are generally perishable and cannot be stored for a longer period of time. There are great variations in the quality of produce from year to year etc. The farmer is therefore, generally handicapped. He has to sell his produce at an unfavorable place at an unfavorable time and on unfavorable terms. In Pakistan there are four system of marketing the surplus agricultural produce. (i) Sale in villages. The farmers sell more than 50% of the surplus produce to the traders and shopkeepers in their own villages normally below the market price.

(ii) (iii)

Sale in markets. The second method of selling the surplus produce is in the scattered markets near the villages. Cooperative marketing. The fourth from of marketing is the cooperative marketing. In Pakistan, this system has failed and the farmers sell the goods to individuals traders or commission agents.

Problems in Agriculture Marketing

Pakistan is basically an agrarian society in the olden days the agricultural produce was fundamentally barter by nature where farmers exchanged goods for goods and also against services. 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. 4Ps, the acronym for price, product, place and promotion is the core principle of marketing. In the case of agricultural marketing in Pakistan it is not exactly the marketing in the literal sense and we can call it as distribution handling and to go further we may call it as distributive handling of agricultural produce as there are number of intermediaries who are involved in marketing the agricultural produce. The main problems or defects in marketing system in Pakistan are as under: Low quality of produce. The production of agricultural goods is generally of low quality due to absence of grading, indifferent use of seeds, pests and deceases, deliberate adulteration etc. The agricultural produce like cotton, rice, do not enjoy good reputation in the foreign market. As such the cash returns to the producers are low. Costly transport facilities. The transport system which consists of roads, network, railways, air transport, ports and shipping services is not only inadequate but also very costly for the transportation of the bulky agricultural goods from one place to another. Marketing cots take a too high share of the final price. Lack of market knowledge. The frames mostly being illiterate do not have detailed market knowledge as to when how and where the goods are to be sold. They therefore do not get a fair return of their produce.

 Chain of middlemen. There is a long chain of middlemen or intermediaries who are engaged in handling of the farm produce from the grower on to the consumer. Each of these intermediaries take their own margin and thereby diminish the return of the cultivator. Multiplicity of charges. There are a number of unjustified charges which the farmer has to pay in the market. These charges like commissions, collie, masjid fund flood fund etc are a burden on the seller. The other charges like octori duties toll taxes are also paid by the farmer while transporting goods to the market. Lack of storage and warehousing facilities. There is no or inadequate storage facilities at the farm level or in the houses of the farmers to store the surplus produce. They therefore have to sell the produce immediately after the harvest which brings reduced prices. The warehousing facilities in the markets are also insufficient and expensive.