RA 00048.pdf - OAR@ICRISAT

esearch can concentrate on the most important
aspects and specific key regions.
2. Collaboration between production and marketing
researchers is essential. Each can
contribute valuable information to the
other's work. The marketing researcher can
provide information about input markets and
food marketing problems that may be constraints
to adoption of new techniques or
seed varieties. The production researcher
can offer the marketing researcher needed
information about general characteristics of
an area and about specific habits of farmers
already studied. While this collaboration
already exists on a very informal basis in the
field, a more formal effort is needed.
3. Government policies have too often aggravated
the very problems they sought to
alleviate. In part this can be attributed to
ill-designed policy, founded in a lack of
understanding of the dynamics of the marketing
system and the variety of arrangements
that exist. It may also be the result of
conflicting policy goals. For each country the
goals must be reexamined and a realistic
(both economically and politically) program
designed.
4. The economic literature has been criticized
for its relatively narrow perspective, specifically
for concentrating on proving or disproving
competitiveness, and its reliance on
price data. The nature of marketing activities
requires an understanding of both the economic
(industrial organization) and anthropologic
relationships that are part of the marketing
system, thus demanding the use of
techniques from both disciplines. Omission
of one or the other leads to an incomplete
explanation of the dynamics of the market
and the links between participants.
5. Lastly, while some useful generalizations
can be made about the grain marketing
systems of the countries of the WASAT, we
suggest that enough effort has been devoted
to these generalities during the last 5
years. On a regional level, the problems are
well defined and the solution formulae well
discussed. While offering a framework, general
solutions do not deal with the specific,
political, climatic, socioeconomic and infrastructure
characteristics of each country. It is
in these specifics that the key to well
adapted policies lies.
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