Agricultural marketing

Factors Affecting Marketing costs
1. Perish ability
2. Losses in storage and transportation

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3. Volume of the product handled
Volume of the More – less cost
Volume of the Less – more cost
4. Regularity in supply : Costless irregular in supply – cost is more 
5. Packaging : Costly (depends on the type of packing)
6. Extent of adoption of grading 
7. Necessity of demand creation (advertisement) 
8. Bulkiness
9. Need for retailing : (more retailing – more costly)
10. Necessity of storage
11. Extent of Risk 
12. Facilities extended by dealers to consumers. (Return facility, home delivery, 
credit facility, entertainment)
Ways of reducing marketing costs of farm products.  
1. Increased efficiency in a wide range of activities between produces and 
consumers such as increasing the volume of business, improved handling methods 
in pre-packing, storage and transportation, adopting new managerial techniques 
and changes in marketing practices such as value addition, retailing etc. 
2. Reducing profits in marketing at various stages. 
3. Reducing the risks adopting hedging. 
4. Improvements in marketing intelligence.
5. Increasing the competition in marketing of farm products.

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Lecture : 13 
Characteristics of agricultural product prices-agricultural price stabilization-need 
for agricultural price policy- commission for Agricultural cost and Prices (CACP)- 
administered prices- minimum support price, procurement price and issue price. 
 
Characteristics of Agricultural product prices
In agricultural based economies like India, prices of farm products undergo wide 
variations than in industrial goods. They have profound effect on the economy. The 
characteristics of agricultural product prices are presented below to design appropriate 
price policy. 
i. Production and supply of agricultural products cannot be adjusted quickly to 
changes in prices or demand. 
ii. Variability in cost of production from region to region. 
iii. Wide variation in quality of products and hence prices. 
iv. The prices of farm products in general exhibit co- movement at least within a 
group. 
v. The prices of farm products vary across space. 
vi. The prices of farm products in general remail low in the post-harvest period. 
vii. There are multiple prices in the same market at a point of time.