Behavioural Pattern of Participants in Agricultural Markets!
Agricultural marketing as a business activity involves the flow of goods and services from the point of initial production to the ultimate consumer. In other words, it is a functional process observed in trading agricultural commodities mainly between producers and traders and indirectly consumers also.
In the region under study regulated agricultural marketing is in practice in which the important participants are producer-sellers (farmers) and commission agents/traders. The other participants are brokers, weightmen, hammals, marketing committee officials and government agencies, but their role is fixed. The behavioural pattern of farmers and traders/commission agents has been examined.
Seller’s (Farmer) Behavioural Pattern:
The farmer or the producer-seller plays a key role in agricultural marketing. It is the farmer who sells the surplus production either in the village or directly to consumer or in a regulated market. Therefore, his perception and behaviour are important.
The study of the behavioural pattern of farmers in Central Hadaoti reveals that the farmer-seller is the weakest component in agricultural marketing because of illiteracy, lack of information on prices, financial strains and the dominance of traders. His behaviour is controlled by immediate requirement of money and traders’ lobby in the market.
But, after the establishment of regulated markets a gradual change is occurring and an awareness has developed among them. Their preference for regulated markets is due to several reasons, as given in Table 7.8.
It becomes clear from the above table (Table 7.8) that farmers have adopted the regulated marketing system for better prices of their goods as well as for immediate payment and better marketing facilities. The official control is a secondary aspect for them. Earlier, the farmer’s role in marketing his produce was passive but now his participation has increased.
The result of the field study is as follows:
It is clear from Table 7.9 that now more than 50 per cent farmers have active participation, while 24 per cent are occasionally active. Rest of the farmers still has no participation mainly because of illiteracy as well as his indebtedness to a particular trader.
In brief, farmers’ behavioural pattern supports the hypothesis that regulated marketing is beneficial to them. With the increase in awareness it will become more beneficial to them; only then will the objective of the establishment of regulated markets be fulfilled.