2

The paucity of basic information and data about existing LODC market systems

and the lack of trained professionals in the countries have been major

constraints to research and development activities.

 This chapter is directed towards a primary audience composed of U.S.

university faculty and students concerned with agricultural marketing pro-

blems in the less developed countries. Marketing specialists with inter-

national agencies and LDC institutions are another audience group. The

chapter begins with a brief conceptual point of view regarding the role of

marketing in the development process. This is followed by an assessment of

past research activities. A major part of the chapter is devoted to the

organization and conduct of future research.


 Conceptualizing Agricultural Marketing
 in a Development Context

 Economic development should be viewed as a long term process that occurs

over decades and generations. Through technological innovation and economic

organization output per person increases and the material well being of the

population is raised to higher levels. Increased specialization of produc-

tive effort, industrialization and urbanization are important elements in the

growth and development process. These forces contribute to a growing demand

for marketing services. In agriculture there is a transformation process as

relatively small scale, predominantly self-sufficient family farming units

become larger, more specialized and increasingly dependent on marketing

arrangements for the sale of their agriculture products and for purchased

inputs. Rural markets emerge as local trading centers hierarchically inter-

connected within a larger regional and national market network.

 In most developing countries there is a steady and sometimes relatively

rapid migration of people from the rural areas to urban centers with many