Agriculture Marketing System

1
Agriculture Marketing System

• Understanding agriculture marketing system
• Key players involved in agriculture marketing
  system
• Interest of these key players?
• How to reconcile the conflicting interests?
• Perform stakeholder analysis

2
Agriculture Marketing System

• Production sub-system
• - farmers
• Distribution sub-system
• - traders, wholesalers, retailers, transporters,
  processors (middlemen)
• Consumption sub-system
• - consumers
• Regulatory sub-system
• - Govt. organizations

3
What is stakeholder analysis?

• It is an approach for understanding a system by
  identifying the key actors or stakeholders in the
  system, and assessing their respective interests
  in, or influence on, that system.
• Stakeholder analysis is useful for assisting in
  decision-making situations where various
  stakeholders have competing interests and
  stakeholder needs must be appropriately balanced.

4
When to Use it

• Stakeholder analysis may be used at a variety of
  levels and purposes
• Institution or business - to examine the health
  of an organization and plan changes
• Project or program to design, steer and monitor
  a project
• Particular decision to predict the consequences
  of a decision, and plan to deal with them

5
Who are Stakeholders

• Stakeholders are those who have rights or
  interests in a system.
• Stakeholders are any group or individual who can
  affect, or is affected by the achievement of the
  organisations purpose.
• It includes interested parties as well as
  affected parties.

6
Stakeholders

• Stakeholders can be individuals, communities,
  social groups, or organisations.
• For example, stakeholders in agriculture
  marketing policy might include farmers, traders,
  agri-business firms, processors, support service
  providers, consumers, and Government agencies

7
Stakeholder Analysis Approach

• Develop purpose of analysis and initial
  understanding of the system
• Identify key stakeholders
• Investigate stakeholders interests,
  characteristics and circumstances
• Identify patterns and contexts of interaction
  between stakeholders
• Assess stakeholders power and potential roles
• Assess options and use the findings to make
  progress

8
Characteristics of Stakeholders

• Location - rural/urban dwellers
• Ownership - landowners/landless, managers, staff,
  trade unions
• Function - producers/consumers,
  traders/suppliers/competitors, regulators, policy
  makers, activists, opinion-formers
• Scale small-scale/large-scale,
  local/international communities
• Time - past, present, future generations

9
Four R in Stakeholder Analysis

• Role of each stakeholder in the system
• Rights, Responsibility, Revenue (Benefit) and
  Relationship

10
Assess Stakeholder Power and Potential

• Different degrees of power to control decisions
• Different degrees of potential to contribute,
  or importance, to achieving a particular
  objective in the system

11
Power

• Stakeholder power can be understood as the extent
  to which stakeholders are able to persuade or
  coerce others into making decisions, and
  following certain courses of action.
• Power may derive from the nature of a
  stakeholder's organization, or their position in
  relation to other stakeholders.

12
Potential

• Potential to affect, or to be affected by,
  policies and institutions resides in particular
  characteristics specific to context and location
  such as knowledge and rights.
• These stakeholders problems, needs and interests
  are likely to be the most important for many
  initiatives to improve policies and institutions
  processes.

13
Stakeholders and their Interests

• Farmers Highest possible returns from the sale
  of their produce
• - Maximum price, unlimited quality irrespective
  of quality
• Consumers Highest food value at the lowest
  possible price
• - Low price, limited quantity of high quality

14
Stakeholders and their Interests

• Middlemen Earn the greatest profit
• - low purchase price, high quality, high selling
  price, low cost of operation, reliable supply
• Government Consistent to macro-economic policies
• - Equitable distribution, food security, natural
  resource conservation, low pollution, employment,
  foreign exchange earning
• How to reconcile these conflicting interests?
  One of the primary task of agriculture marketing
  system.

15
Stakeholders and their Interests

• Each players think in its own interest having
  short run perspective
• But in the long run, no player can survive
  without others
• Evolve a long run relationship among the players
  allowing each group to take care of its interest
  Is it possible?
• Probably yes! Recent strategic partnership models
  between farmers, government, corporate houses can
  provide high hopes in Indian context.

16
Recent Initiatives

• Direct purchase from farmers by trading or
  processing companies (avoiding mandis)
• Market Information system
• Backward integration of firms
• Promoting Farmers Interest Groups
• Conducive policy environment by govt.
• Partnership between input, output and credit
  delivery systems
• Agriculture exports

17
Laws and Govt. Policies
Domestic and Global Economy
Science and Technology
Customs and Values

• The Food Marketing System
• Firms, organizations
• Product flows, distribution channels
• Management and Marketing Activities

Competition
Consumer Tastes and Preferences
Infrastructure (transport, communication,
education etc.)