RA 00048.pdf - OAR@ICRISAT

tates at least a partial duplication of the research
effort in order for the policy maker to have the
right information. 12
As in any research, paring down the problem to
manageable proportions is essential. Research of
the 1970s concentrated on specific marketing
regions, resulting in considerable information
about specific regions, to the exclusion of an
understanding of the countrywide marketing system—the
links and how they fit together.
Regional diversity is an important dimension of
the problem of food distribution. Regional differences
in trader organization and behavior, market
channels, and peasant output and commercialization
patterns are significant. In the initial phase of
research for the 1980s, basic information must be
gathered from all regions of the country so that
the areas selected for the intensive part of the
research can be chosen to represent the range of
marketing/production situations that exist. Specifically,
information is needed on the entire hierarchy
from the producer through the urban traders
and back out to the consumer, both urban and
rural.
For the most intensive part of this type of
research, data must be gathered at several
different levels: the market, individual traders, and
peasants. Market data should include frequent
and regular information about prices and quantities.
Information about market structure is particularly
important: trader organizations, price setting
techniques, market control and differentiation
practices. For individual traders, in addition to the
prices and quantities of sales and purchases, data
on operating procedures, methods of reducing
costs, evaluating and reacting to risks and making
decisions are essential for understanding why the
market takes on its overall characteristics. At the
most microeconomic level, data on the individual
producer/consumer's behavior with respect to
sales, purchases, and consumption complete the
12. This is not to be misconstrued as meaning that
research for its own sake is useless. It is an
efficiency issue. In a region where funds and
personnel are limited, the best use of such resources
is to do research that addresses most
directly and completely the concerted priorities of
the population. Also, a considerable amount of
narrower-in-scope research on aspects of the grain
marketing system in the region has already been
conducted.
picture. This can be gathered through a combination
of formal questionnaires and informal discussions.
We also suggest that in the process of doing
basic production research, certain marketing information
should be collected as part of the interviewer's
and researcher's regular inquiries. Because
so much production research is conducted
on a yearly basis, the production researcher has
the possibility of collecting an enormous amount
of data easily, for example, output quantities,
relative amounts of purchases and sales throughout
the agricultural cycle, trading alternatives, road
conditions and transportation availability, input
sources, credit availability, grain storage facilities
and conditions, and market access. These few
pieces of information would not be a burden for
the production researcher and would be extremely
useful for the marketing researcher, especially
in the early stages of his research.
Conclusions
The purpose of this paper has been to put the
findings of research on grain marketing in the
WASAT into a perspective that allows recommendations
for the direction of future research. Five
major conclusions have been drawn.
1. The diversity of marketing channels, infrastructure,
geographic and climatic characteristics
of each country militates against a
countrywide approach. In the past, studies
of one or two regions inside a country have
erroneously drawn national conclusions,
which have led to policies that are ill-adapted
to the perceived problems. Future studies
should take a systems approach, identifying
the major forces in the marketing system
and investigating each, both on their own
and for their part in the entire food system.
Several levels of investigation are implied:
geographical differences in produced and
marketed quantities and intertemporal patterns
of purchases and sales; roads and
transportation networks; storage facilities;
economic groups and trader organizations;
and government participation in production
and marketing activities. The geographical
areas have systems of their own that are
linked to the systems in neighboring regions
and to the national systems. Once the
overall picture is understood, more intensive
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