agrimarketing

HOW AGRIMARKETING DEVELOPED

In the formative years of  this nation, most Americans worked as farmers, producing food and fiber mainly for domestic consumption. They did more than just produce food and fiber. They also processed farm products into a form that could be consumed: grain into flour, fibers into cloth, hides into leather. They cured meat and processed milk so it could be stored for future consumption. As time passed, production agriculturalists found that their particular geographic location, soil, and climate allowed them to produce some commodities better and more efficiently than others.

The food marketing sector of agriculture developed primarily in response to the industrial and agricultural revolutions, which allowed, and in some cases caused, increasing numbers of people to shift to nonfarm occupation. Fewer people produced their own food, so they depended on farmers to provide food for them. Also, nonfarmers began to demand that food be brought to them in a different form than farmers normally sold their products. As a results, marketing firms began to develop to provide the services that consumers were demanding, and that farmers were reluctant to provide. Today, marketing is the largest phase of agriculture in terms of the number of employees as well as the sales value of food and fiber.