Digital Agri Marketing: Agriculture Market of Jharkhand Now Goes Digital.

The trade of agricultural produce in Jharkhand went digital after Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced a digital trading platform 'National Agriculture Market' for farmers of eight states including Jharkhand. Now farmers can enlist their produce to attract wholesale buyers and increase their income with this national platform.

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Concept and Importance

The study of agricultural marketing comprises all the operations, and the agencies conducting them, involved in the movement of farm-produced foods, raw materials and their derivatives, such as textiles, from the farms to the final consumers, and the effects of such operations on farmers, middlemen and consumers. Agricultural marketing is the study of all the activities, agencies and policies involved in the procurement of farm inputs by the farmers and the movement of agricultural products from the farms to the consumers. The agricultural marketing system is a link between the farm and the non-farm sectors. It involves all the aspects of market structure or system, both functional and institutional, based on technical and economics considerations, and includes pre and post-harvest operations, assembling, grading, storage, transportation and distribution. A dynamic and growing, agricultural sector requires fertilisers, pesticides, farm equipments, machinery, diesel, electricity and repair services which are produced and supplied by the industry and non-farm enterprises. The expansion in the size of farm output stimulates forward linkages by providing surpluses or food and natural fibres which require transportation, storage, milling or processing, packaging and retailing to the consumers.

Importance

Agricultural marketing plays an important role not only in stimulating production and consumption, but in accelerating the pace of economic development. The agriculture marketing system plays a dual role in economic development in countries whose resources are primarily agricultural. Increasing demands for money with which to purchase other goods leads to increasing sensitivity to relative prices on the part of the producers, and specialization in the cultivation of those crops on which the returns are the greatest, subject to socio-cultural, ecological and economic constraints. It is the marketing system that transmits the crucial price signals.

1	Agricultural Marketing is one of the manifold problems, which have direct bearing upon the prosperity of the cultivators, as India is an agricultural country and about 70% of its population depends on agriculture.
2	Most of the total cultivated area (about 76%) is to under food grains and pulses. Approximately 33% of the output of food grains, pulses and hearly all of the productions of cash crops like cotton, sugarcane, oilseeds etc. are marketed as they remain surplus after meeting the consumption needs of the farmers. Development of technology, quick means of communication and transportation has introduced specialization in agriculture.
3	Agriculture supplies raw materials to various industries and therefore, marketing of such commercial crops like cotton, sugarcane, oilseeds etc. assumes greater importance.
4	With the introduction of green revolution agricultural production in general and food grains in particularly has substantially increased. Agriculture once looked as a subsistance sector is slowly changing to a surplus and business proposition.
5	The interaction among producers, market functionaries, consumers and government that determine the cost of marketing and sharing of this cost among the various participants.
6	The producer, middleman and consumer look upon the marketing process from their own individual point of view. The producer is primarily concerned with selling his products.
7	Any increase in the efficiency of the marketing process, which results in lower costs of distribution at lower prices to consumers, really brings about an increase in the national income.
8	A reduction in the cost of marketing is a direct benefit to the society.
9	Marketing process brings a new varieties, qualities and beneficial goods to consumers and therefore, marketing acts as a line between production and consumption.
10	Scientific, systematic marketing stabilizes the price level.
11	An improved marketing system will stimulate the growth of number of agrobased industries mainly in the field of processing.
12	A marketing system can become a direct source of new technical knowledge and induce farmers to adopt upto date scientific methods of cultivation.

Marketing is therefore, playing an important role in the economic development and stability of a country.

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Agricultural Marketing

Digital Agri Marketing: Agriculture Market of Jharkhand Now Goes Digital.

Concept and Importance