FACILITATORS

Because marketing functions require significant expertise, it is often both efficient and effective for an organization to use the assistance of independent marketing facilitators. These are organizations and consultants whose sole or primary responsibility is to handle marketing functions. In many larger companies, all or some of these functions are performed internally. However, this is not necessary or justifiable in most companies, which usually require only part-time or periodic assistance from marketing facilitators. Also, most companies cannot afford to support the salaries and operating expenses required to maintain marketing facilitators as a permanent part of their staff.

A facilitator helps in marketing of the following industries:

• Food processing industries.
• Banking industries.
• Cooperative societies.
• Micro Finance companies.

ROLES OF FACILITATORS IN MARKETING AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. Numerous interconnected activities are involved in doing this, such as planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing, transport, storage, agro-allied and food processing, distribution, advertising and sale.

Today’s agricultural marketing has to undergo a series of exchanges or transfers from one person to another before it reaches the consumer.

A facilitator facilitates the movement of these products from the farmer to the final consumer.

Selling on any agricultural produce depends on some couple of factors like the demand of the product at that time, availability of storage etc. The products may be sold directly in the market or it may be stored locally for the time being. Moreover, it may be sold as it is gathered from the field or it may be cleaned, graded and processed by the farmer or the merchant of the village. Sometime processing is done because consumers want it, or sometimes to conserve the quality of that product.