MARKETING, AGRICULTURE AND ECONOMICS: PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

Abstract

This article is concerned with the subject of agricultural marketing and how it has developed down a different, and longer, path than modem business marketing. It is argued that the applied economics character of agricultural marketing can be elucidated by viewing the controllable variables of the marketing mix in the context of economic theory; and that the traditional subject matter of agricultural marketing can be placed in a modern business marketing framework,It is suggested that the increasing propensity to view agricultural marketing as applications of modern marketing principles to agricultural and food businesses is a consequence of the evolution in patterns of demand for food products; and that a degree of convergence between marketing and agricultural marketing is partly associated with marketing ‘maturing’ as a subject, embracing issues and approaches long familiar to agricultural marketing.