PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL OF COOPERATIVE AGRO SERVICE CENTRES

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The proportion of owned funds utilized in the purchase of tractors was In some of the implement the CASCs purchased with their own funds. The results revealed that the number of sample cooperative agro-service centres providing services to the farmers was 22 in The number of such sample cooperative agro-service centres has increased to 50, 81 and in , and respectively.

The sample farmers hired the tractor plus laser leveller from the sample cooperative agro-service centres was It was found that On the whole the farmer-beneficiaries were satisfied with both rate of custom hiring and quality of the services offered by the sample cooperative agro-service centres. This has promoted the CASCs to purchase the new modern machinery used in the cultivation crops.

It was also noted that with passage of time the number of beneficiaries who availed the custom-hiring services is picking up. This will have demonstration effect on the fellow farmers and prevalence of custom-hiring services bound to increase in the future. This has become possible with concerted efforts being made by the Punjab State Farmers Commission to popularize the use modern and costly machinery particularly on custom-hiring services in Punjab. This will go a long way to improve the economic condition of the farmers particularly of the marginal and small land-holders in the State. Read more Read less.

Product description Product Description The book examine the growth and performance of cooperative agro service scheme in Punjab. Kindle Edition File Size: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a product review. Get to Know Us. Not Enabled Word Wise: Nigeria became a net importer of many agricultural products of which it had formerly been a net exporter. For as long as the world price for petroleum remained high the economy thrived and could well afford the food import bill. However, as soon as the world price for oil fell, the food import bill became a serious burden.

Nigeria would only have avoided this scenario if it had been able to motivate people to continue in agriculture and this would only have been possible if the disparity between urban and rural incomes had been reduced.

Rurally based enterprises, including small-holdings, can greatly improve their earning potential by adopting a market orientation. They can be encouraged to add value to commodities by adding to their utility. Value added products normally carry a higher margin than raw commodities. Another development which has in recent times increased interest in marketing practies is the trend, in many developing countries, towards market liberalisation 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 commercialisation, and sometimes privatisation, 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 implementing ESAPs, in general, and within the agricultural marketing parastatals affected, in particular. So far this discussion has been set in the context of commercial marketing but social marketing should also be acknowledged. The marketing mix of social marketing strategies is evaluated using quite different criteria from those employed in assessing purely commercial marketing strategies.

Criteria such as the percentage of the target population reached with the technology, products, processes or services, quantities produced and distributed and uptake of the product, service or technology are more often employed. Benefits are measured in terms of development goals, such as improved nutritional status or increased rural incomes. The use of economic criteria is usually limited to the latter and to selecting the least-cost strategy to achieve a quantitative goal.

However, the criteria used to evaluate commercial marketing strategies should not automatically be eliminated, because these improve the efficiency of some aspects of social marketing strategy without preventing the attainment of social objectives. Marketing is not simply an extension of the production process but its only purpose as Adam Smith emphasised when, in his text The Wealth of Nations , he said that:. This is a definition which many organisations, and governments, would recognise as describing their own activities in commodity marketing.

Indeed in many developing countries it aptly describes, or in some cases, did in the past describe, the functions carried out by marketing parastatals with respect to staple foods. However, as Dixie himself points out, the definition omits two key elements of any definition of marketing production to effuse the marketing concept, i.

Gaedeke and Tootelian 3 offer an alternative definition which overcomes the problems caused by these two omissions:. This definition promotes a customer orientation and since the organisation's long-term objectives will include it's own continued existence it takes account of the need for sustainability. Moreover, this definition of the marketing concept does not preclude non-profit making organisations.

Marketing is just as relevant to development projects, aid agencies, extension service organisations, and the like, as it is to commercial enterprises. Thus the marketing concept is that an organisation achieves its goals through the provision of customer satisfaction. Put another way, marketing is the integrative force that matches production to customer needs and satisfaction.

Marketing is not an activity to which an organisation turns its attention at the end of the production phase of operations. Rather marketing needs to be directing production in accordance with clear signals from the marketplace as what is needed by customers. The marketing concept must be adopted throughout not only the entire organisation, but the entire marketing system.

A system is a complex of interrelated component parts or sub-systems which have a defined common goal. Thus, an agricultural and food marketing system comprises all of the functions, and agencies who perform those activities, that are necessary in order to profitably exploit opportunities in the marketplace.

Each of the components, or sub-systems, are independent of one another but a change in any one of them impacts on the others as well as upon the system as a whole. There is a danger that the marketing concept will be adopted by some parts of the system but not others. Thus, for example, a food manufacturer may be trying hard to implement the marketing concept and offer products that meet the precise needs of a target market.

If, however, the manufacturer has to rely upon a farming community that is still very much production oriented, for raw material supplies, then the overall marketing objectives may be frustrated. In the same way, if only some functions are performed according to the marketing concept then the system as a whole may not achieve a market orientation. For instance, the marketing department may set out to serve the market for a high quality fruits and vegetables, for which it can obtain premium prices, but if transportation is performed using the same open-topped bulk carrying wagons used to ship grain and other aggregates then it is unlikely that the enterprise will deliver the product in the right condition for the target market.

The lesson from all of this is quite simple. If the decision has been made to adopt the marketing concept, then consideration has to be given to the implications for each of the participants and the functions performed within the marketing system. Where one or more elements of the system are found to be other than market orientated, then either a change towards the marketing philosophy has to be introduced in those elements or a change in the configuration of the marketing system has to be implemented. Rosson 4 conceives of agricultural and food marketing systems as consisting of 4 main sub-systems; production, distribution, consumption and regulatory.

Illustrative examples of some of the conflicts which typically arise are given in table 1. The farmer's interest is focused on getting the best return from his produce, which usually equates to maximum price for unlimited quantities. Manufacturers want least cost, best quality produce from the farmer so that he can sell it at competitive, but profitable, prices. Traders and retailers want high quality and reliable supplies from the manufacturer or farmer, at the most competitive prices.

Consumers are interested in obtaining high quality products at low prices. Clearly, there are conflicting interests here. It is said that when a senior member of his court seriously displeased him, the King of Siam would make that individual a gift of a white elephant. The white elephant is both rare and, in Siam, was considered sacred. Siam tradition did not permit white elephants to be worked and so the hapless owner could make no economic gain from ownership of this sacred animal.

In fact, ownership of a white elephant usually led to financial ruin since the owner had to feed the sacred animal on a special diet and elephants tend to have rather a large appetite.

The intention was to substitute the local product for 21, tonnes of imported cereals chiefly maize and sorghum and create over jobs. Moreover, cassava could bring marginal lands into production as this crop can flourish on soils that are too poor for sorghum or maize. Government was pursuing an incongruous pricing policy.

Manufacturers were being supplied with government subsidised imported feed grains, in order to keep retail meat prices down grains, in order to keep retail meat prices down. The situation got worse when the government announced a 30 percent increase in farmer prices. Venezuelan feed manufacturers could obtain cassava pellets from Thailand at a lower cost than they could from local mills. From the outset it was evident that the investment in cassava processing would be marginal in economic terms. The feasibility study suggested that after the tenth year the rate of return would reach 11 percent and the internal rate of return would be only 7 percent.

However, Venezuela had become an oil-rich country and capital was not in short supply. This perhaps explains why it was decided that the most technologically advanced equipment, from leading manufacturers, would be bought for the processing plants and that fuel oil would be used for drying rather than sun drying as in the most of the world. Inadequate attention had been paid to the questions of raw material supply.

In a page report only 1 page touched on this issue. After all, Venezuelan farmers had a long history of growing cassava. The planners of the project took little account of the marketing concept nor the nature of the marketing system. The needs of both the raw material suppliers, the farmers, and the feed manufacturers ought to have been carefully studied before the project was designed.

There was no attempt to market the project to the farmers who continued to demand the same price for cassava destined for animal feed as they obtained for cassava processed for human consumption, even though the economics of the two sectors are quite different. No programme was instituted to promote the idea of planting additional areas of cassava. The economics of feed manufacturing were similarly ignored and so the cassava processors had difficulty in selling their pellets. Perhaps with a more appropriate level of technology the costs of producing cassava pellets could have been reduced to a point where they could compete with imported cassava pellets, sorghum and maize 5.

Elephants are not indigenous to Venezuela.

Faculty of Tropical AgriScience

In an ideal world there should be some form of strategic partnership between these key players. It is obvious that, in the long run, any one of the four groups would find it difficult to survive if the others do not. However, in real life, attitudes are not those of the ideal world or of the longer term. It is focused more on the shorter term and in preserving the interests of each group.

Only by allowing each group to take care of its interests, can a balanced longer term relationship evolve. This must be borne in mind when considering what the food industry expects from agriculture. Moreover, those expectations will vary according to the level of sophistication of the markets the food industry itself is attempting to serve.

A little earlier it was said that a marketing system has two distinct dimensions. One of those dimensions is the institutions, organisations and enterprises which participate in a market and the second is the functions that those participants perform. Kohls and Uhl 6 have classified the functions involved in agricultural and food marketing processes as under three sets of functions of a marketing system. Each of these functions add value to the product and they require inputs, so they incur costs. As long as the value added to the product is positive, most firms or entrepreneurs will find it profitable to compete to supply the service.

The marketing concept holds that the needs of the customer are of paramount importance. A producer can be said to have adopted a market orientation when production is purposely planned to meet specific demands or market opportunities. Thus a contract farmer who wishes to meet the needs of a food processor manufacturing sorghum-based malted drinks will only purchase improved sorghum seed.

The buyer's motive is the opportunity to maintain or even increase profits and not necessarily to provide, for example, the best quality. Improving quality inevitably increases the associated costs. In some cases the market is insensitive to improvements in quality, beyond some threshold level, does not earn a premium price. The most successful agribusiness is the one which yields the largest difference between prices obtained and costs incurred. Of the nine functions listed, this is probably the one which people find least difficulty in associating with marketing.

Indeed to many the terms marketing and selling are synonymous. Kotler 7 suggests that:. Their immediate aim is to sell what they can make rather than to make what they can sell. This is not marketing. Enterprises adopt the marketing philosophy as a result of becoming aware that their own long term objectives can only be realised by consistently providing customer satisfaction.

Whereas selling might create a consumer, marketing is about creating a customer. The difference is that marketing is about establishing and maintaining long term relationships with customers. Selling is part of marketing in the same way that promotion, advertising and merchandising are components, or sub-components of the marketing mix. These all directed towards persuasion and are collectively known as marketing communications; one of the four elements of the marketing mix. An inherent characteristic of agricultural production is that it is seasonal whilst demand is generally continous throughout the year.

Hence the need for storage to allow a smooth, and as far as possible, uninterrupted flow of product into the market. Because he is dealing with a biological product the grower does not enjoy the same flexibility as his manufacturing counterpart in being able to adjust the timing of supply to match demand. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that a manufacturer can turn production on and off to meet demand - they too have their constraints- but they have more alternatives than does the agricultural producer.

A manufacturer can, for example, work overtime, sub-contract work, and over a longer time horizon, the manufacturer can increase or decrease productive capacity to match the strength of demand. In agriculture, and especially in LDCs, supply often exceeds demand in the immediate post-harvest period. The glut reduces producer prices and wastage rates can be extremely high. For much of the reminder of the period before the next harvest, the product can be in short supply with traders and consumers having to pay premium prices to secure whatever scarce supplies are to be had.

The storage function is one of balancing supply and demand. Both growers and consumers gain from a marketing system that can make produce available when it is needed. A farmer, merchant, co-operative, marketing board or retailer who stores a product provides a service. That service costs money and there are risks in the form of wastage and slumps in market demand, prices, so the provider of storage is entitled to a reward in the form of profit.

The transport function is chiefly one of making the product available where it is needed, without adding unreasonably to the overall cost of the produce. Adequate performance of this function requires consideration of alternative routes and types of transportation, with a view to achieving timeliness, maintaining produce quality and minimising shipping costs. Effective transport management is critical to efficient marketing.

Whether operating a single vehicle or a fleet of vehicles, transportation has to be carefully managed, including cost monitoring - operations on different road types, fuel and lubrication consumption and scheduled and remedial maintenance and repair. Skillful management of all aspects of vehicle operations can also make a substantial contribution to efficient marketing especially with respect to optimum routing, scheduling and loading and off-loading; maximisation of shift hours available, maintaining the vehicle fleet at an optimum size, taking account of time constraints on delivery, and collection times and judicious management of vehicle replacement and depreciation.

Transport managers also have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of owning, hiring or leasing transport. Most agricultural produce is not in a form suitable for direct delivery to the consumer when it is first harvested. Rather it needs to be changed in some way before it can be used. Kohls and Uhl 6 observe that:. However, it is for this very reason that processing ought to be included as a marketing function. The form changing activity is one of that adds value to the product. Changing green coffee beans into roasted beans, cassava into gari or livestock feed, full fruit bunches into palm oil or sugarcane into gur increases the value of the product because the converted product has greater utility to the buyer.

How the form of produce is to be changed and the method to be used in bringing about such changes are marketing decisions. For example, some years ago when Ethiopia was looking to expand its tea business, a prototype manufacturing plant was established. The plant was capable of curing the tea and packing it in individual tea bags.

At that point, tests were undertaken in which the product was compared with others already on the market. The results were encouraging. However, in the course of the marketing research, it was also discovered that ninety percent of the black tea consumed is blended and not the pure variety placed in tea bags by the Ethiopians. By going past the point of changing green leaf into high quality black tea, the Ethiopians were entering a nice market which is not what they intended at all.

Timely marketing research would have directed Ethiopia to stop the form changing activity short of bagging since, at that time, Ethiopia did not have the acreage of tea, nor the resources, to develop a tea blending facility of its own. Of course, processing is not the only way of adding value to a product. Storing products until such times as they are needed adds utility and therefore adds value. Similarly, transporting commodities to purchasing points convenient to the consumer adds value.

In short, any action which increases the utility of the good or service to prospective buyers also adds value to that product or service. The facilitating functions include product standardisation, financing, risk bearing and market intelligence. Facilitating functions are those activities which enable the exchange process to take place.

Marketing, in simple terms, is the act of supplying products to someone in exchange for something perceived to be of equal or greater value, usually, but not always, a given sum of money. Facilitating functions are not a direct part of either the exchange of title or the physical movement of produce. This function simplifies buying and selling as well as reducing marketing costs by enabling buyers to specify precisely what they want and suppliers to communicate what they are able and willing to supply with respect to both quantity and quality of product.

In the absence of standard weights and measures trade either becomes more expensive to conduct or impossible altogether. In Nepal such was the diversity of weights and measures used with respect to grain within the country, that it was easier for some districts to conduct trade with neighbouring states in India than it was to do business with other districts within Nepal. Among the most notable advantages of uniform standards, are:. Quality differences in agricultural products arises for several reasons.

Technological innovation can also give rise to quality differences. In addition, a buyer's assessment of a product's quality is often an expression of personal preference. It matters not whether the criteria used in making such assessments are objective or subjective since they have the same effect in the marketplace. In almost any production system there are inevitable lags between investing in the necessary raw materials e. During these lag periods some individual or institution must finance the investment. The question of where the funding of the investment is to come from, at all points between production and consumption, is one that marketing must address.

Consider the problem of a food manufacturer who wishes to launch a range of chilled products in a developing country where few retail outlets have the necessary refrigeration equipment. This is a marketing problem. It might be solved by the food manufacturer buying refrigerators and leading these to retailers or arriving a hire-purchase arrangement with retailers.

A common marketing problem, in developing countries, is the low level of incomes leading to low levels of effective demand for many products. The challenge to marketing is to somehow channel what income is available into effective demand. In the case of agricultural equipment marketing this might involve offering hire-purchase schemes where the prospective buyer makes payment in regular installments. If payments are not forthcoming, the machine can be recovered since its ownership remains with the seller up until the final payment is made, at which point the farmer is considered to have purchased the machine.

Alternatively, the seller might set up leasing, rather than purchasing schemes where again the farmer is making regular payments but never takes title to the machine. Where a food item is being marketed, to a low income market, the seller can consider reducing the until price of the product by making the pack or lot size smaller. Marketing is also concerned with the financing of the enterprise itself. Here again some creative solutions can be developed.

Where internal financing is insufficient for the purposes in view, an enterprise in a developing country can look to several alternatives including:.

Faculties and Other Parts

Where these sources of finance are considered inappropriate, or are simply not available to a particular enterprise, a strategic alliance in the form of a joint venture could be the answer. The agreement between parties to a joint venture normally specifies their respective contributions of resources, share of management control, profit and risk 8.

This is a very expensive process since the manufacturing plant required to produce agricultural tractors, combine harvesters, seed drills, straw balers and the like costs million of dollars. When the equipment manufacturer Massey Ferguson MF came to develop a completely new line of tractors, in the early s, it sold its existing line of tractors to the state owned Polish tractor manufacturer Ursus in order to offset at least part of the cost of the new investment.

The arrangement was rather novel for the industry at that time. Ursus was in such poor financial condition that it could not finance the purchase of the Massey Ferguson manufacturing plant and patents, so MF supplied the plant to Ursus and were to buy-back a proportion of the tractors which Ursus manufactured. They would continue to market these under the MF brand name whilst the remainder would be sold under the Polish manufacturer's name.

Massey Ferguson planned to supply the older designs to markets in developing countries where these models continued to have a large market share whilst launching the new models in industrialised countries. The agreement between Massey Ferguson and Ursus was modelled on a similar, and very successful, arrangement between the Italian automobile manufacturer Fiat and Poland's state owned car manufacturer. However, MF's deal never matched the performance of the Polski-Fiat. The failure of the MF-Ursus buy-back package had several causes, but foremost among them was the inability of Ursus to source components of the MF tractors which Massey Ferguson did not either manufacturer itself nor own the patents to.

For example, the fuel injectors were manufactured by the British components supplier Lucas Industries. Poland simply did not have the foreign currency reserves, at that time, to import these and other parts. Consequently, Ursus' tractor plant, on the outskirts of Warsaw, with the potential to produce 77, units per annum was able to manufacture around units per year. Whilst the MF-Ursus buy-back arrangement was not a success it should not be concluded that buy-back agreements are doomed to failure. The Polski-Fiat deal was, after all, a great success. The MF-Ursus failure was due to very specific circumstances.

What should be concluded is that it is possible to devise innovative approaches to the financing of business enterprises. Whatever the source of finance under consideration marketing has a role to play in evaluating the appropriateness of that source as well as identifying it in the first place. A common requirement is that marketing proposals include a forecast of the payback period. Those responsible for developing these proposals are best placed to evaluate the compatibility between the market opportunity under consideration and the alternative modes of financing it.

Of specific interest is the prospect of the investment payback period matching the repayment schedule. Enterprises which finance long term investments through short term sources of finance are either badly misinformed or have adopted a high risk strategy. In both the production and marketing of produce the possibility of incurring losses is always present. Physical risks include the distruction or deterioration of the produce through fire, excessive heat or cold, pests, floods, earthquakes etc.

Market risks are those of adverse changes in the value of the produce between the processes of production and consumption. A change in consumer tastes can reduce the attractiveness of the produce and is, therefore, also a risk. All of these risks are borne by those organisations, companies and individuals. Risk bearing is often a little understood aspect of marketing. However the risks borne are rarely taken into account by those passing judgement and yet, almost inevitably, there will be occasions when the risk taker incurs losses. Stocks will spoil, markets will fall, cheaper imports will enter the country, consumer tastes will change, and so on.

These losses can only be observed if adequate surpluses were generated in previous periods. Risk bearing must be acknowledged as a cost since what is uncertain is not whether they will occur, but when they will occur. As for as is possible marketing decisions should be based on sound information.

The process of collecting, interpreting, and disseminating information relevant to marketing decisions is known as market intelligence. The role of market intelligence is to reduce the level of risk in decision making. Through market intelligence the seller finds out what the customer needs and wants. The alternative is to find out through sales, or the lack of them. Marketing research helps establish what products are right for the market, which channels of distribution are most appropriate, how best to promote products and what prices are acceptable to the market.

As with other marketing functions, intelligence gathering can be carried out by the seller or another party such as a government agency, the ministry of agriculture and food, or some other specialist organisation. What is important is that it is carried out. The link between agriculture and food continually evolves. In primitive societies, the farmer and consumer were either the same family or close neighbours who bartered their products and services as we see in figure 1. Commodity traders, processors, manufacturers who convert produce into food items and retailers, among others, are interposed between the producer and consumer.

A more recently introduced link into the chain is the scientist. Scientists as breeders, plant biologists, nutritionists and chemists have made an immeasurable contribution to the development of agricultural production and food manufacture over the past 50 years. It would appear that we have passed through the age of machines in agriculture, and the age of chemicals, on to the age of biotechnology in agriculture.

Biotechnology has great potential for the developing countries since it is likely to be less capital intensive and more research and know-how intensive. Thus its benefits can flow faster into the poorer countries who do not have the capital. Therefore its impact could be faster, more widespread and more significant. As the link between food and agriculture continues to evolve, we see the emergence of an agribusiness i. Multinational companies like Cargill, Brooke Bond Liebig, and Del Monte are examples of vertically integrated organisations with links all the way through from agricultural production to retailing.

As disposable incomes increase, the food industry will increase the quality and diversity of the products it produces. Food manufacturers will have particular expectations of agriculture as a supplier of their raw materials, including:. To build a profitable business, food manufacturers seek to establish a preference for their products by differentiating those products in some way which is meaningful to consumers. Then, in order to enable consumers to recognise the differentiated product, manufacturers brand that product.

Manufacturers can then work on building consumer loyalty to these brands. Brand loyalty is normally only established by delivering high quality consistently. As disposable incomes rise, the market tends to develop more sophisticated needs and the quality of the raw material becomes even more critical. Where agriculture is seeking to serve a food industry, that itself is seeking to meet these more sophisticated needs and wants, it can expect to face increasing emphasis on quality.

Equally well, agriculture can expect to share in the better return for innovative improvements in quality. Next to quality will come cost. With an increased capability to search the world for raw materials, the food industry is able to find the lowest cost source for any given level of quality.

This is a significant change in the competitive environment of agriculture which the farming community has to realise, because they have, hitherto, been largely concooned in their respective domestic markets. Agricultural products were traditionally seasonal in their production and supply. Modern technology and husbandry practices mean that food manufacturers need not have their production schedules dictated by the seasons.

Indeed, the capital intensive food industry cannot afford to incur the high costs of under utilising its capacity. This means that farmers will have to complete in terms of reducing seasonality or fitting into a pattern of social competitiveness. A manufacturer who has invested heavily in building up his brand will be very keen to get reliable supplies in terms of quality, timing and cost. Producers of agricultural produce will be increasingly judged on their reliability in all of these respects.

Ease of processing will become an increasingly important expectation of the food industry. Like all industries, reductions in the costs of capital equipment, wages and inventories are important objectives. Crops that are specially bred or designed to facilitate processing e. In short, the competitive advantage will rest with those able to add most value and can differentiate what they are offering from that of other suppliers. In competitive brand marketing, the food industry has to innovate continuously to create new products that are different from and superior to existing ones of their own or competitors.

The scope of innovation has traditionally been at the processing stage. Whilst this will continue to be an important area for innovation, manufacturers will increasingly tend to look for innovative changes in the agricultural produce itself. This may be in terms of novel tastes, improved texture, more attractive shapes, etc. We have already said that in the more sophisticated food markets, healthy eating can become a priority among consumers. Therefore, farmers will have to consider the health connotations of what they choose to grow.

There are two aspects of health to be taken into account. First, consumers may be interested in the food itself i. It would be a mistake to think that health issues are confined to the more sophisticated food markets or to the wealthier segments of the community. Nutrition is important in all segments of the market.

Even where the poor receive adequate amounts of food to fend off starvation, they are often malnourished. Thus farmers have to be concerned about the nutritional value of the produce they grow. Second, the consumer may be more, or equally, concerned about the food production methods i.

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This may mean a change to the farmer's husbandry practices with implications for the costs of production. The consumer and the food industry will expect the farmer to produce without potentially dangerous chemicals, but at no extra cost to them. This will be another challenge for agriculture. The principal component of any marketing system are the institutions and enterprises of which it is comprised. Three of the principal forms of enterprise to be found in developing countries are discussed in this section. Private enterprise has much to commend it, including a much higher level of financial independence from government than public enterprises.

Moreover, private enterprise is able to adapt, rapidly, to changing circumstances and opportunities and is usually able to provide what consumers want at a lower cost than public enterprises. Abbott 9 highlights several particular strengths of private enterprise, including:. According to Abbott, successful indigenous private enterprises, in agriculture, have several distinguishing characteristics.

Those cited by Abbott apply particularly to enterprises that are owner-operated. Abbott claims to have identified several areas of marketing where private companies tend to perform better than other forms of marketing enterprise. Put another way, marketing boards tend to be born out of government policy rather than by consensus among commercial parties. Marketing boards do not normally provide marketing services to large estates or plantations. Another characteristic of marketing boards is their focus on durable products.

In many countries fewer than 5 crops are controlled. Some governments have opted for boards that control more than one crop. In some cases, the marketing board performs all of the marketing functions itself but in others it cooperates with private enterprise by, for example, hiring storage facilities or appointing local buying agents.

The reduction in the capacity of intermediaries to manipulate margins at the expense of producers and consumers. Hence the role of the marketing boards is frequently articulated as being one of organising producers into monopolistic agencies with real countervailing power; to reduce inefficiencies due to unwarranted competition, and duplication of effort between intermediaries. In theory at least, the marketing board contributes to orderly marketing by acting as an agent for improving marketing practices, as a market regulator and as a provider of facilitating services.

The role of marketing boards in bringing about more efficient marketing is most often framed by policy makers in terms of modifying the market structure. That is, trying to make what is perceived to be an imperfect market structure more advantageous to producers. Of course, in doing so, account ought to be taken of the effect on both consumers and other players within the marketing system. This is not always done and the question is begged whether a market structure which is organised to the principal benefit of one particular set of players is anything other than imperfect to the others.

However, the argument in favour of giving producers real countervailing powers is strongest in situations in which the marketing system is characterised by a myriad of largely powerless producers and a relatively small number of powerfull intermediaries. In these circumstances, the price-makers are the middlemen and both producers and consumers are price-takers. One particular way that a marketing board may act to modify an existing market structure is to rationalise the system in an attempt to reduce inefficiencies seen to be caused by unwarranted competition and duplication of effort between intermediaries.

For example, there may be duplication of transport, storage and processing facilities to the extent that capacity utilisation cannot rise to economic levels without extremely high charges to compensate. Marketing boards may try to rationalise the system through, for example, a system of licenses.

Buying operations of marketing boards: Marketing boards would normally buy at fixed prices. Each season or year, the government sets the price for scheduled crops. In the case of tree crops, this price is announced before harvest and before planting or sowing in the case of annual crops.

It is subsequently kept at the same level for a period of time: These procedures give some security to producers. Buying takes place at official buying points where there are either appropriate storage facilities for the produce, or transportation so that it can be moved before any significant deterioration in quality occurs. Clearly farmers are concerned that buying points should be conveniently located. However, maintaining an extensive network of buying points adds substantially to a marketing board's operating costs and so the interests of the two parties often conflict.

One compromise is for the marketing board to operate mobile buying teams to supplement permanent buying points. The use of buying agents promises some degree of competition, which in view of the fixed prices, expresses itself in the secondary conditions, in particular better service.

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In order to make best use of the transportation available, marketing boards can appoint buying agents. An alternative, tried by Tanzania, was to rationalise the crop buying activities of the various boards. In view of the problems the Tanzanians were experiencing in the late 's, a decision was made to assign each of the marketing boards a district in which it would have responsibility for buying all scheduled crops.

The crop authority generally corresponded to the main cash crop of the district. Thus the Tanzania's National Milling Corporation NMC found itself buying a variety of crops in the areas it was assigned and depending, in turn, on other parastatals, the cotton authority, the tobacco authority, etc.

This arrangement facilitated the allocation of lorry and rail space and avoided the waste involved in lorries of various crop authorities converging on a particular buying centre at the same time. On the other hand, it caused great accounting confusion. Parastatals often did not have separate accounts for the different crops they were buying.

In the these arrangements were discontinued Selling operations of marketing boards: Some marketing boards, like grain boards, are concerned entirely with domestic consumer markets.

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