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Impact of Marketing Channels on the Share of Famers in Horticltural Markets of Assam

Author(s):

Babita Kalita , Gauhati University

Keywords:

Agricultural Marketing, Marketing Channels, Infrastructure, Marketing Information, Supply Chain

Abstract

Agricultural and allied activities play an important role in socio- economic development of Assam as this sector is a major contributor of the state. Assam is basically an agricultural state and out of total rural population 80% depend on agriculture. So agricultural marketing is a vital tool for developing agriculture sector of Assam. Agricultural marketing can be defined as physical and institutional set up to perform all activities involved inflow of goods and services from point of initial producer to ultimate consumer. But the marketing of farmer’s product is a complex phenomenon. Involvement of large number of trade channels in the procurement of agricultural product, attitude of farmers and getting the immediate return are the main factors governing the whole marketing operation. There are various types of problems pertaining to organizational, functional, and infrastructural aspects. The organizational aspects are mostly concerned with the state intervention in agricultural marketing by implementing market regulations as an instrument to offer better price to farmers. The functional aspects are concerned with bottlenecks during grading, pricing, payments and other marketing operations. The physical infrastructure in Assam is weak in case of coverage of village, accessibility and marketing information. The rural go- down facilities are not so much available. Due to lack of proper market information facilities, the supply chain is multilayered. Taking advantages of farmer’s illiteracy and poor marketing condition, a set of middlemen at different stages have emerged as a channel for selling the agricultural product. Due to variation of price across the rural market the farmers get only 1/3 of retail or consumers price. Rest is absorbed by intermediaries and there is spatial price dispersion. So in this paper my study is the problems of agricultural marketing and how the marketing channels impacts the share of farmers and give some suggestions to remove the problems.

Other Details

Paper ID: IJSRDV5I51274
Published in: Volume : 5, Issue : 5
Publication Date: 01/08/2017
Page(s): 1866-1874

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