Former Vice-Chancellor, Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore
aPresidential address delivered at the Inaugural function of 30th National Conference on Agricultural Marketing on 20th October, 2016 held at Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu university, Varanasi
Friends and Colleagues! I am thankful to you all, for giving me an opportunity to share some observations on the current situation in agricultural marketing in India. As a student of agricultural economics, I have been exposed to what has been happening in this area of importance even though it received much less attention and much lesser resources for its development in the overall domain of agricultural development. To my knowledge, still large section of farmers in India is experiencing the same old ordeals which they have undergone at the time of beginning of planned development. Marketing development schemes have only marginally benefitted them. Several committees since the report of Royal Commission on Agriculture (1929) proposed policies and made recommendations for promoting agricultural marketing. Most of them remained in the reports and documents and their implementation remained partial or little. Besides committee reports, FYP documents and Economic Surveys carry several policy suggestions. A meta analysis will be worth for an academic to put together these recommendations to have a comprehensive view of all what have been said and done. A conference presidential address will be too inadequate to put total views on agricultural marketing in India given the country's agricultural diversity and complexity and the location specific features. Hence I venture to make select observations on some of activities initiated to modernize agricultural marketing in India.
