Main features of agricultural marketing system in India. The present system of agricultural marketing in India?
Main features of agricultural marketing system in India- Agricultural marketing system is an efficient way by which the farmers can dispose their surplus produce at a fair and reasonable price. Improvement in the condition of farmers and their agriculture depends to a large extent on the elaborate arrangements of agricultural marketing. The term agricultural marketing include all those activities which are mostly related to the procurement, grading, storing, transporting and selling of the agricultural produce.
Thus, Prof. Faruque has rightly observed:
“Agricultural marketing comprises all operations involved in the movement of farm produce from the producer to the ultimate consumer. Thus, agricultural marketing includes the operations like collecting, grading, processing, preserving, transportation and financing.”
Present State of Agricultural Marketing in India
In India, four different systems of agricultural marketing are prevalent as mentioned below:
(i) Sale in Villages:
The first method open to the farmers in India is to sell away their surplus produce to the village moneylenders and traders at a very low price, The moneylender and traders may buy independently or work as an agent of a bigger merchant of the nearly mandi. In India more than 50 per cent of the agricultural produce are sold in these village markets in the absence of organised markets.
(ii) Sale in Markets:
The second method of disposing surplus of the Indian farmers is to sell their produce in the weekly village markets popularly known as ‘hat’ or in annual fairs.
(iii) Sale in Mandis:
The third form of agricultural marketing in India is to sell the surplus produce though mandis located in various small and large towns. There are nearly 1700 mandis which are spread all over the country. As these mandis are located in a distant place, thus the farmers will have to carry their produce to the mandi and sell those produce to the wholesalers with the help of brokers or ‘dalals’.
These wholesalers of mahajans again sell those farm produce to the mills and factories and to the retailers who in turn sell these goods to the consumers directly in the retail markets.
(iv) Co-Operative Marketing:
The fourth form of marketing is the co-operative marketing where marketing societies are formed by farmers to sell the output collectively to take the advantage of collective bargaining for obtaining a better price.
(v) Regulated Markets:
Organized marketing of agricultural commodities has been promoted throughout the country through a network of regulated markets, whose basic objective is to ensure reasonable prices to both farmers and consumers by creating a conducive market environment for fair play of supply and demand.
The number of regulated markets has grown from 286 in 1950 to 7,114 as on 31st March, 2014, besides which there are 22,759 rural periodical markets.
