AEM716: Agricultural Marketing and Cooperatives

There is hardly a single, universally accepted definition of agricultural marketing. The concept has been defined in a variety of ways. It is often defined as the series of services involved in moving an agricultural commodity from the point of production to the point of consumption. This definition takes into account the activities of many organizations, and governments involved in commodity marketing in the developing world. However, this approach to agricultural marketing omits two key elements of any definition of marketing production to effuse the marketing concept: a customer orientation and inbuilt sustainability. In the light of this development, an alternative definition of agricultural marketing has emerged, which overcomes the problems posed by these two omissions. It has now been defined as a management orientation focusing all the activities of the organization on satisfying customer needs and wants thereby helping achieve the organization’s long-term objectives.