MARKETING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES


 Harold Riley and Michael Weber*


 Introduction

 Over the past two decades there has been a significant and growing

involvement of U.S. agricultural economists in foreign assistance programs

directed towards the less developed countries. Through programs financed

by the U.S. Agency for International Development, foundations, foreign

governments and multi-lateral international agencies, agricultural marketing

economists have had opportunities to conduct research and to provide advisory

inputs into the development of programs to improve marketing systems. Con-

currently there has been an expanding flow of students from the less developed

countries (LDCs) through the graduate programs of U.S. universities (1). In

order to be effective in their roles as teachers, researchers and advisors

economists have found it necessary to adapt their conceptual and analytical

tools for use in different institutional, political and social environments.

In some instances marketing problems confronted in the LDCs appear to be

similar to those experienced in the U.S. some 50 to 75 years ago when agri-

cultural and industrial changes began to transform the economy in a relatively

rapid and irreversible manner. However, the economic, political and social

conditions in the LDCs pose problems of market organization that require

solutions carefully tailored to the needs of particular country situations.


 *We want to acknowledge valuable comments and suggestions on earlier
drafts of this paper which were made by Emerson Babb at Purdue University,
and Jim Shaffer and Mark Newman of Michigan State University.