Role of Market Intelligence in Agri-Business Management

Abstract

In a predominantly agricultural economy like India, agriculture plays a critical role in not only addressing the food and nutritional needs of the people but also in meeting out the demands of agro-based industries. Though the country is blessed with diversified agro-climatic conditions, it lags behind in terms of production and productivity aspects. This coupled with poor post harvest management and processing prospects offers a bleak scenario for marketing as well as trade. Better marketing with increased and assured remunerations is the need of the hour to foster and sustain the tempo of rural economic development. For bettering marketing prospects in agriculture, market intelligence (MI) needs to be bettered. Keeping this in focus, this paper deals with the common misconceptions of MI in agriculture, the common challenges and implications that prevail before MI and the role that government plays and should play for improving MI. The importance of MI is also discussed in the background of the impacts that it could generate in agri-business. The edge that only MI could offer to the farm community in the changing times of consumerism is also detailed. As for recommendation, the paper drives in the point that MI in agri-business should lead in establishing and bettering marketing and agro-processing linkages between farmers/farmers’ groups, markets and private processors which in turn would make agriculture a more viable proposition.