Agribusiness is the business of agricultural production. The term was coined in 1957 by Goldberg and Davis. It includes agrichemicals, breeding, crop production (farming and contract farming), distribution, farm machinery, processing, and seed supply, as well as marketing and retail sales. All agents of the food and fiber value chain and those institutions that influence it are part of the agribusiness system. Agricultural marketing is inferred to cover the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. It is also the planning, organizing, directing and handling of agricultural produce in such a way as to satisfy the farmer, producer and the consumer. Numerous interconnected activities are involved in doing this, such as planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing and packaging, transport, storage, agro- and food processing, distribution, advertising and sale. Effectively, the term encompasses the entire range of supply chain operations. However, it’s key function is to help direct these services, by providing competent and able market information, thereby linking the other operations into an integrated service with targeted outcomes. In this context, efficient marketing and rural credit systems assume added importance. Agricultural marketing system is the critical link between farm production sector on the one hand and non-farm sector, industry and urban economy on the other. Apart from performing physical and facilitating functions of transferring the goods from producers to consumers, the marketing system also performs the function of discovering the prices at different stages of marketing and transmitting the price signals in the marketing chain.
