Agricultural marketing

Abstract

Zimbabwe has had a wide range of experience with different types of marketing systems, ranging from state-controlled to free market systems. Given that Zimbabwe is an agro-based economy, the development of an efficient marketing system is key to sustainable agricultural growth and economic development. Like any other developing country, Zimbabwe followed the development process regarding agricultural commodity marketing systems, starting with state control then moving to a free market system from the 1930s to late 1990s. State interventions during the 1990s were to regulate and facilitate the development of markets as well as protect against unfair commodity pricing systems. The land and agrarian reforms beginning in 1999 and the food crisis during the same period ushered back state control and interventions in the marketing of agricultural commodities. Some of the structural and institutional developments in the sector from 1999 appear to have been planned but other fundamental changes were made on an ad-hoc basis. This chapter discusses the marketing of agricultural commodities from the pre-independence era to the situation in 2005. The chapter then critically examines the current status of marketing of major agriculture commodities.