Course Code: AEC 303
Course Title: Agricultural Marketing and Cooperatives
Credit Hours: 2 (2+0)
Full Marks: 50
Theory: 50
Practical: 0
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Understand the meaning, concept, and importance of agricultural marketing and cooperatives.
- Analyze consumer behavior, demand and supply of agricultural products, and market equilibrium.
- Apply analytical techniques in agricultural marketing research and efficiency measurement.
- Evaluate the role of cooperatives and government in agricultural marketing and development.
I. Course Syllabus
- Concept and definition – market and marketing; importance of agricultural product prices and marketing of inputs and outputs.
- Utility, consumer behavior, consumer and market equilibrium, revealed preference, and consumer surplus.
- Demand for and supply of agricultural products and their derivations.
- Price, income, and cross elasticity of demand and supply; relationships and applications.
- Product life cycle and development, marketing strategy, market and product promotions.
- Market structures, price determination, and equilibrium in pure competition, monopoly, and oligopoly; price discrimination.
- Marketing functions, channels, costs, margins, and price spreads.
- Spatial and temporal price variation.
- Marketing research, marketing efficiency and its measurement, economic models for price analysis.
- Government intervention and public institutions in agricultural marketing.
- Cooperatives – concept, history, role, organization, structure, cooperative law and bylaws; cooperative farming, cooperative marketing, strengths, and opportunities.
II. Course Breakdown (Lecture Plan)
| S.N. | Topics | No. of Lectures |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agricultural marketing: concept of market and marketing; nature of agricultural commodities; classification of markets; importance of product prices and agricultural marketing for socioeconomic progress | 2 |
| 2 | Theory of consumer behavior: concept of utility and its measuring approaches; demand function and factors affecting consumer behavior; market equilibrium; consumer and producer surplus | 2 |
| 3 | Elasticity: various elasticities of demand and supply, and their relationships | 2 |
| 4 | Theory of firm: theory and characteristics of firms; supply function and its derivation; product life cycle and development; marketing strategy, market and product promotions | 3 |
| 5 | Market structure and equilibrium: marketable surplus; market structure; price determination and price discrimination | 4 |
| 6 | Marketing functions and channels: physical, exchange, and facilitating functions; marketing channels; marketing costs, margins, and price spreads | 3 |
| 7 | Price variation: seasonal, cyclical, and spatial price variation; spatial distribution of commodities and regional equilibrium models | 3 |
| 8 | Marketing research: agricultural marketing research; marketing efficiency and its measurement | 3 |
| 9 | Government intervention and public institutions: role in product pricing and agricultural marketing; public institutions for production, marketing, and promotion | 2 |
| 10 | Cooperatives: concept, definitions, history, role, organization, structure, cooperative law and bylaws, cooperative farming, cooperative marketing | 5 |
| Total | 30 |
References
- Rhodes, V. J. (1983). The Agricultural Marketing Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Singapore.
- Koutsoyiannis, A. K. (1994). Microeconomics. Prentice Hall, India.
- Barker, J. (1989). Agricultural Marketing (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press, UK.
- Tomek, W. (1984). Agricultural Product Prices. Cornell University Press, USA.
