Give the the importance of agricultural marketing to developing countries.

-In many countries, and virtually every less developed country (LDC), agriculture is the biggest single sector or industry. Agriculture typically employs over fifty percent of the labour force in LDCs with industry and commerce dependent upon it as a source of raw materials and as a market for manufactured goods. Hence many argue that the development of agriculture and the marketing systems which impinge upon it are at the heart of the economic growth process in LDCs. Moreover in LDCs, the consumer frequently spends in excess of fifty percent of the household's income on basic foodstuffs - much of which is inadequate both in quality and nutritional content. By contrast Americans spend approximately twelve percent of their total disposable income on food. In Western Europe the figure ranges from about sixteen to nineteen percent of disposable income. Furthermore, whereas in developed countries the poor are relatively few in number, and therefore it is economically possible to establish special food distribution programmes to meet their needs, the scale of poverty in most LDCs is such that the commercial marketing system must be relied upon to perform the task of food distribution to poor and not-so-poor alike. This being so, it is imperative that the marketing system performs efficiently

-Economic development itself provides the impulse towards more sophisticated and more efficient marketing systems. As countries experience economic growth, their rate of urbanization tends to increase substantially. Whereas the rate of population growth in developing countries averages around three percent per annum, their cities and towns are increasing their populations at about four percent per annum. In essence, this means that the number of people, in urban areas, needing to be fed by rural people, will double within sixteen years. This has clear implications for agricultural production and marketing systems that direct that production and distribute the output to the points of its consumption. Subsistence farming is likely to diminish in importance as farmers respond to the increased opportunities that development and urbanization create; farms are likely to decrease in number whilst increasing in size; and agriculture will probably become less labour intensive and more capital intensive.

-Another development which has in recent times increased interest in marketing practices is the trend, in many developing countries, towards market liberalization as part of economic structural adjustment programmes (ESAPs). The view that direct and indirect government participation in production and distribution had brought about structural distortions in economies has become widely accepted. Measures intended to correct these distortions include a return to market prices for all products and resources, the encouragement of a competitive private sector and the commercialization, and sometimes privatization, of all or some of the functions of marketing parastatals. All of this requires a better understanding of marketing practices and processes within the country in general, and within the agricultural marketing parastatals in particular.

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marto answered the question on March 14, 2019 at 06:15