Agricultural marketing status and strategies in West Bengal

West Bengal, one of the eastern states of India has plenty of natural resources as well as diverse agro-eco-regions for increasing food production of the country. Besides, producing food grains, the region has great potential to produce several high value commodities for augmenting farm income. For example, horticulture, livestock and fisheries sectors have all potential to pull the growth of agriculture sector of this region. One of the key impediments of fostering the agricultural growth in this region is the small and marginal production unit of the majority of the farmers. The small scale of production unit produces these high value commodities with high production effciency but severely constraints with poor marketing effciency. In the era of marketled growth the volume of trading must be increased to ensure greater share in the consumers’ rupee to primary producers. For this establishment of market linkages and functioning of effcient marketing system is utmost important. Currently, the system is operating under a vicious cycle like – large no of small producer - producing low marketable surplus – resulting low bargaining power and – low profi t. Market prices are the key drivers to change the farm economy, however the high price volatility of agricultural commodities adversely affect the up-scaling of the agrotechnologies and production. This paper has specific focus on understanding current status of production and marketing of selected crops such as paddy and wheat. The paper also suggested some key strategic action may be taken by the state for creating enabling environment for effcient agricultural marketing and realising better prices to the farmers.