THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN AGRICULTURAL MARKETING

The author considers the question ‘What is a marketing improvement and how can it be recognised?’ and finds it a more difficult question to answer than it might first appear. Yet government is constantly urging ‘improvement’ on the industry. Rejecting the notion that government is somehow better placed than people in the market to decide what should be the pattern of the future, the author suggests that a proper role for government is to create the context within which the natural, self-adjusting mechanisms of the market economy can function properly, and explores the implications of such a role. He also argues a case for reconsidering the structure and role of the bodies which represent sectoral interests.