TO ASSIST THE MARKETING OF RURAL PRODUCT

INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS PRODUCT MARKETING ?
Product marketing is the process of aligning product positioning with customer needs so that
customers will actually buy and use those products. It essentially comes down to bringing the
product to market and making it sellable. We do that by understanding our buyers’ challenges
and positioning our product as a solution to their problem.
• WHAT IS RURAL PRODUCT ?
• Rural market products are growing at a quick pace in developing countries. With the increase in
wages and income, there is an increase in the middle class. As a result, the consumption rate in rural
areas is increasing day by day. It has been estimated that 12% of the world’s population resides in the
rural areas of India. Therefore the rural market has become a powerful economic booster. Seeing this
change, many corporations are trying to utilize this opportunity to gain a strong footing in India’s
rural market.

• COFFEE IN THE FIELD

• Coffee production in India is dominated in the hill tracts of South India state.
• In the Indian context, coffee growing started with an Indian Muslim saint, Baba
Budan who, while returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, smuggled seven coffee
beans (by hiding them in his beard) from Yemen to Mysore in India. He planted them
on the Chandra Drona Giri (1,829 metres (6,001 ft))('Giri' means "hill")
in Chikkamangaluru district.
• “most of my energy in terms of thinking and doing is over there. I come to the city to relax”
• That’s Kamalamma , the fifth-generation coffee planter and partner at this family’s estate ,
hurudi located in the coffee-growing region of Sakleshpura . Kamalamma is 65 , and is a
part a small group of coffee plantation in their locality.

• “ a lot of people like the city, but I think especially in sakleshpura , a lot of
farmer’s kids in their 20’s are getting serious about growing the coffee . I’m
enjoying that trend because we are sitting on some really great
coffee .Recently we got our coffee evaluated by a Q grader and that made us
realise our own potential of what we had”

• For the last few years, specialty coffee has been going through an evolution of sorts and
has created a new wave of globally inspired farmers, better valued beans, and a keen
interest in sections of the urban population to experience coffee in a whole new sense.
• CHALLENGES
•  

• So what’s different today? Most are going to tell the weather

• “The weather is fluctuating. And is no longer predictable at all. Even if we look at our
old rainfall logs, we go into it and see from June-August we get three months of
rainfall and you know that’s going to happen. But just this week we’ve got some
heavy rains that make it feel like we’re in the monsoon season again.”
• Many of these coffee growing regions are facing prolonged droughts and then record rains. This is the second
year in a row that heavy rains and landslides have severely impacted yield. Ironically this drought-flood-
drought-flood trend has a lot to do with how coffee is being grown presently in India

• Coffee was first smuggled into India by Baba Budan and planted in the Baba Budangiri (giri meaning hills).
Colonial rule ensured that coffee was planted widely across suitable regions across the Western Ghats—
Karnataka (Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru and Hassan), Kerala (Malabar region) and Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris
District, Yercaud and Kodaikanal)—leaving India to be the sixth-largest coffee producer in the world.
• Although coffee has been commercially grown for over 200 years here in India, the way we’ve been planting
coffee since has been changing. Indian coffee is shade grown but in an article by Nandita Jayaraj and Maike
Nesper, an agroforestry expert, explains that over a period of time there has been a loss in biodiversity at
these plantations. Shade trees are being replaced by silver oaks that don’t benefit the species of the area. 
•  “Giant honeybees – important for pollination of the coffee flowers – need broad canopy
native trees to build their hives, so fewer of them means lesser pollination.”
• Over a period of time, these neglected eco-systems are causing an effect on the weather and in
turn, economic productivity. Lower prices means planters are looking for ways to diversify
their income.
• One way is through tourism. Homestays at coffee plantations have grown to be increasingly
popular for urban folk looking for some R&R on weekends.
• The demand has caused the clearing of plantations and forest cover to build resorts and
hotels. This claiming of land just feeds back into the vicious cycle of disappearing
biodiversity, bad weather, crop loss, declining economic productivity. 
• 
• Not just homestays but “mining activities, timber mafia, hydroelectric projects, and 
Yettinahole project, have damaged the ghats to a great extent,”says Dinesh Holla, convenor of
the environmentalist group Sahyadri Sanchaya. 
• 
• Studies have shown that the coffee growing western ghats is a significant bio-region in India
as it is a source of moisture for rainfall in parts of the county that are struggling for water for
agriculture and industry. 
• While the weather and economic fluctuations are worrying, in a parallel universe, planters
are being motivated to discover the value of their beans through a new wave of coffee
connoisseurs and roasters searching for the best beans to brew.
• APPROACHES

• “The New Generation planters are mostly young people whose families have been in the trade
for generations but have now started talking over. They want to implement new trends,
practices from across the globe with a focus on improving the overall quality of coffee
produced in their farms. It’s not that the old methods don’t work, it’s because the market is
demanding new things and the way the coffee is produced and processed affects the final
product in the cup.”

• This new demand for quality coffee has influenced planters to look towards alternative methods to producing his beans.

• “We are still quite traditional in our approach to agriculture. Three years ago we made a
decision about where our plantation was headed. The first thing we did was stopping the use
of chemicals. And after that came techniques that we felt needed to be put into a scientific
approach like through soil and leaf testing. That changed the way we looked at things,” 
• Combining that local knowledge and experience with modern day science looks to be the way forward for sustenance of
coffee growing in India.

• “Science has shown that we can extract more flavour notes from coffee than we can from wine. Roasting and
brewing is a science first then an art and it’s subjective only to an extent. Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters started this
third wave of coffee in India. They are changing the game where people are learning how to appreciate a cup of
coffee. We need to value each micro-lot of every varietal for what it is.”

• How is coffee grown?

• Coffee cherries are picked only when they have reached the right shade of red

• Neither green, nor overripe black cherries should be harvested. Both would greatly and negatively affect the taste of the
coffee.
 • “Our coffees are harvested carefully by hand”

• The care taken during harvesting has an essential influence on the possible coffee flavor. A distinctive feature
of our Ethiopian and Colombian coffees is that the cherries are picked by hand.
•  
• Through years of experience, the coffee farmers and harvesters have a trained eye and harvest only
equally ripe cherries.
•  
•  this involves twisting them off the bush so that the pulp remains intact until further processing. As with
good wine, it is a selection of the best cherries (or grapes). These are picked daily, because
• coffee cherries do not ripen at the same time, even within one area, but are spread out over a period of two
to three months.
• Hand-picking takes a long time and is quite exhausting, because the coffee trees are spread out on slopes or
in the shady forest. But this time-consuming process is the basis for specialty coffees.
•  

• “fruit bearing starts from 3rd year onwards after planting .However ,good yields can be expected from the
5th year . The coffee trees continue to yield up to 50 to 60 years”
• Fly picking of fruits

• SMALL SCALE PICKING OF RIPE BERRIES OF COFFEE IS CARRIED OUT DURING THE MONTH OF OCTOBER TO FEBRUARY.

•  
• Main picking of fruits
• Well-formed and ripened coffee berries are harvested during December . Most of the bulk yields is obtained from this
picking method.
•  
• Stripping of fruits
• This method is to pick of all the berries left irrespective of ripening.
•  
• Cleaning of fruits
• This collection of fruits that have been dropped during harvesting.
“Post harvesting includes the activities of drying ,grading ,packing ,storage and
transportation”
• Drying

• Drying of beans should be done by either sun drying or mechanical hot air drying , and preferably on shade netting.

• Grading

• The dry green hulled coffee beans should be graded according to size and shape by help of rotating sieve.

• Packing

• Coffee beans must be packed into the coffee basket very firmly.

• Storage

• The storage room must be dry and well-ventilated in order to prevent from moisture.

• Transportation

• Coffee beans should be transported with original bags by transport trucks to the coffee roasting facilities.

• ROASTING THE COFFEE BEANS

• This is where the coffee comes into itself. The roasting aspect is equal parts art and science. Each coffee roaster will have his/her own preferred
method – usually honed over decades of experience roasting beans.
• Roasting is where the flavors of the coffee can be brought out. From acidity to citric flavor, to adding various natural notes such as chocolate or
vanilla. The overall roast process can be extremely challenging, but very rewarding.

• Most farmers use a tool called an “Agtron roast analyzer”. It can accurately test the classification of the roast from a scientific perspective. The
point system it uses goes from 0.0 points (the darkest) to 100 points (the lightest). The overall goal of the roast is to fully bring out the flavors of
the bean.
 • PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
• Issues
 Recent estimates shows that there is an average decline of 20 per cent over the earlier post-blossom crop.

 Coffee cultivation requires plenty of cheap and skilled labour for various operations including sowing, transplanting,
and pruning, plucking, drying, grading and packing of coffee.

 Over the last few decades the loss of forest cover has resulted in environmental degradation and costs of inputs
such as fertiliser, labour wages, pesticides and fuel has drastically increased.

 There are also stagnation in bulk coffee prices which has pushed the small growers who constitute 98% of coffee
production to other avenues like, coffee resorts, inter-cropping with pepper,

 The effects on farmer income and livelihood are unclear and could include increased input and labor costs, frequent
plantation renovations, and environmental impacts.

 Children are often employed to pick coffee beans or pick weeds.

 As global warming continues, coffee is one of the foods facing potential extinction because of climate change.
 • CONCLUSION
• The project as a whole describes the scope and viability of the product marketing
and mainly of the rural marketing of product .The topic I choose for this is
coffee .The land where I live is called coffee land of karnataka which inspired me to
take up this topic. This report includes a little chat I had with one of the coffee
plantation owner where she has expressed everything needed to grow the plant
from field to the table.
• The talk includes growing the crop ,necessary condition for the growth, climatic
condition, problems they face, and the complete process involved in the making of
coffee.
• I also helped myself doing a research on how the problems they face can be solved
and came up with some solutions which might help them for the better production.
• I hereby conclude the project by helping them the little I could and gained a lot of
knowledge about the coffee which happens to be my favourite from childhood.
• I would really like to thank this beautiful smiling lady to patiently answer all me
questions and cooperate with me.