Marketing of agricultural products // weaknesses and strengths

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Every economy revolves around a process consisting of three phases or stages that are: The producer, the distributor or marketer and the final consumer.

When the producer is mentioned, (in the case of agriculture) he is the one who brings the land to plant the "X" seed and obtain a fruit or product.

The marketer or distributor, is the one who is responsible for buying the crop of the product and take it to the next level, ie the final distributor or the consumer.

The consumer, as the name indicates, will be the one who finally acquires the product, with a price well above the initial price; thus filling the last stage in the process.

Now, I want to talk about this second stage of the agricultural economic process, which is marketing; I start by saying that sometimes we can not notice where the phase of producing or marketing the product begins; since the two are closely linked.

We must understand that in all marketing, there are stages that are met and that are essential to achieve the objectives of such distribution or marketing:

• Collection center for the product.
• Preparation for consumption.
• Distribution of the product.

We can also observe that in a traditional agricultural marketing system, as it exists mostly in the south of the lake for the banana industry; the following elements enter:

The Producers, made up of owners of different banana plantations, which are located distant from each other.

Therefore they need a collection center, for the concentration of the fruit and the prompt commercialization with the wholesaler, then the product is classified depending on its characteristics and distributed among retail or minority retailers; until reaching the final consumer.

The weakness of this traditional agricultural marketing system lies in the fact that the marketing chain of the product becomes longer or longer; thus increasing the price of the product, and becoming the most affected the consumer.

To counteract this weakness and strengthen distribution, a more decentralized marketing system could be applied; which would be formed by agricultural producers who in turn make up organizations, which offer the harvest to supermarket chains, processing companies among others, being these those that supply the consumer.

This system of decentralized agricultural commercialization, would lower costs on the product, resulting in a lower price in it.

We have also been able to witness, as in the current moments in other agricultural items such as vegetables, producers are opting to sell directly to the consumer; There is thus a greater gain for both.

Author:
@surlaguense