FAO's Marketing Extension Guide No. 2 is designed to assist extension workers and others in regular contact with farming communities to advise farmers on how best to use market information. The Guide emphasizes the necessity to understand why farmers need information, how they can use it and benefit from its use, and what the available sources of market information are. Why prices change, both in the short term and long term, how to interpret prices provided by a market information service, and how to calculate costs between farmer and market are also covered. In addition the Guide provides a number of practical ways in which extension workers and others can work to support farmers' marketing efforts.

The Guide is free of charge. For a copy please contact the Agricultural Marketing Group

The Guide can also be downloaded in PDF format.

Contents (0.7mb)
Introduction (3.7mb)
Chapter 1 Using Market Information (3.6mb)
Chapter 2 Obtaining Market Information (3.4mb)
Chapter 3 Why prices change (0.5mb)
Chapter 4 Interpreting prices  (3.6mb)
Chapter 5 Calculating marketing costs (0.56mb)
Chapter 6 Using market information to get better prices (0.47mb)
Chapter 7 Using market information for production planning (0.64mb)
Activities for extension workers - A Checklist (0.77mb)