The Marketing Structure and Practices in the World of Agriculture

Agricultural marketing is the activities that are involved in the flow of goods and services from the producer to the final consumers. In another word, agricultural marketing is all the activities that are required to move farm produce from the farmers (Producers) to the final consumers.

Marketing also includes the selling of farm inputs to farmers to purchasing of farm inputs e.g, seeds, fertilizers, and disposal of agricultural produce to the final consumers or users.

Importance of Agricultural Marketing

• Marketing helps to make products available throughout the year.
• It creates employment for many people.
• It ensures good research into the product that the consumer loves.
• Marketing helps in the determination of price.
• It helps to locate where there are excesses of produce and brings them to where they are shortages.
• Agricultural Marketing generates revenue for the government through exportation.
• Also, It helps to know the taste of a particular location.

Channels of Agricultural Marketing

Channels of agricultural marketing refer to all the connections and ways through which the farm products pass to get to the final consumers. These marketing channels include:

• The local market: A market is a place where sellers and buyers have contact. Sellers bring their farm produce to the market and sell to the buyers.
• Cooperative Societies: They buy the market in large quantities to make it available to their members and other consumers at a reduced price.
• Middlemen: The middlemen are like wholesalers and retailers that form a link that buys goods from the producer and sells to the consumers.
• Commissioned agents: These agents buy goods from peasant farmers and sell them to exporters.
• Exporters: Exporters buy produce from commissioned agents and they export the produce to individuals outside the country.

Roles of Stages of Agricultural Marketing

The stages that are involved in the marketing of farm produce include:

• Farm-level Processing: This is the local farm produce immediately after the harvest and is ready for sale.
• Grading or Sorting: This involves the grading of the farm produce and grouping them into various weights and sizes for easy handling.
• Packaging:- This is producing produce into various packs in readiness for sales directly. The packaging materials may be sacks, drums, etc.
• Storage or Warehousing:- This is the storage of goods before selling or exporting them.
• Transportation:- This involves moving farm produce from the producer to the final consumers.
• Advertisement:- This is the making of the product known to people through radio, newspaper, television, etc.
• Merchandizing:- This is the export of farm produce through ports to other countries.

How Agricultural Marketing can be Encouraged

Marketing may be encouraged through the following:

• Provision of good roads
• Provision of Capital
• Provision of good marketing research
• Provision of standard unit of measurements
• Good government policies should be established
• There should be a provision for adequate market infrastructure.

Representatives of Agricultural Marketing

Agents of marketing are those people and other bodies that the farm produce passes either directly or indirectly. These types of agents include;

• Marketing/Commodity Boards
• Producers/ Farmers
• Cooperative Societies
• Wholesalers or distributors
• Individual or middlemen
• Retailers 

Marketing Boards

These are the public corporations that are set up by the government to handle the sales of agricultural produce.

Benefits of Marketing Boards

1. It helps the farmers to transport the crop
2. Marketing boards advise the farmers and encourage the farmers to heed modern farming techniques.
3. This board provides capital to the farmers to enlarge their farms.
4. The boards stabilize the price of the farm produce 

Disadvantages of Marketing Boards 

1. The capital is extremely expensive.
2. Government intrudes on the affairs of the boards.

Cooperative Societies

According to its name 'cooperative', is the process where the member of the society cooperates and pool their resources together with the motive of making profits.

Attributes of Cooperative Societies

1. All society members have equal rights since each member has one vote.
2. Membership is voluntary.
3. The dividend is shared to the level of the financial contribution of the individual.
4. Each member has equal rights in the participation of society management.

Advantages of Cooperative Societies

1. They grant the members loan.
2. They provide storage  facilities for members 
3. They are very close to the producer.
4. They sell at a reduced price for their member.
5. They provide transportation services for members.

Disadvantages of Cooperative Societies

1. It doesn't allow individual enterprise.
2. A cooperative society can easily embezzle money from the head.
3. It is prone to poor management due to unqualified too executives that are handling the cooperative society.

Individual /Private Middlemen

Some individual does go directly to the producer or the farm to buy at cheap prices.

Benefits of Private Middlemen

1. They may give the producer a loan
2. They assemble and repack certain goods.
3. They link the producer to consumers.
4. They assist in the even distribution of produce.
5. They transport farm produce from the farm to the market.
6. They provide good storage facilities.

Disadvantage of Middlemen

1. They made dark produce scarce artificially.
2. They inflate the price of goods.

Producers or Farmers

These are the people that produce the goods and are also involved in agricultural marketing.

Advantages 

1. The products are sold to the consumer fresh 
2. Consumers get the price at a significantly reduced rate.
3. The farmers get the full benefits of their handwork instantly.

Disadvantage of Producers

1. He lacks transport facilities
2. Farmers may face a greatly increased loss of goods.
3. It diverts the attention of farmers.

Wholesalers 

Wholesalers buy produce from the farmers in large quantities and sell it in small amounts to retailers.

Advantages of Wholesalers

1. They buy in bulk and will be cheap.
2. They provide good storage facilities to buy the bulk goods
3. Also, they have good transportation facilities

Disadvantage of Wholesalers

1. They inflate the prices of the produce.
2. They create artificial scarcity of goods
3. Wholesalers exploit the retailers and sometimes producers.

Retailers

Retailers are those that purchase from the Wholesalers and sell to the final consumers.

Advantages of Retailers

1. They give goods in credit to consumers
2. They provide jobs for many people
3. Also, they make the product readily available to consumers.

Disadvantage of Retailers

1. Retailers make the goods to be scarce artificially
2. They may inflate the price of the commodities

Problems of Agricultural Marketing

• Inadequate transportation system
• Small-scale Production
• Problems of middlemen
• Perishability of produce
• Small-scale Production
• Poor financing
• Poor quality of produce
• Inadequate research
• Inadequate information
• Inadequate storage facilities