Channel Change Agents in Developing Countries Available to Purchase

The marketing of food products in the rapidly growing urban centres of developing countries is one of the major distribution challenges facing government planners, marketing analysts, and nutritionists. The small, undercapitalised and weakly managed firms; the clogged retail and wholesale terminals, the high food spoilage rates, and the pervasive distrust of the middleman are all too painfully evident. For the broad masses of the urban poor these problems are particularly critical. The pattern of existing studies of food distribution in such countries has been to focus upon the price‐cost margins of existing middlemen or upon the efficiency of the distributive chain. While such studies are of great importance, the vital issue of whether existing forces are operating to produce desired change is seldom directly addressed. If appropriate public policy is to be developed, it is necessary to know if the pace and direction of existing change is sufficient to meet the requirements of the expanding population. Is meaningful relief underway or, indeed, is the system deteriorating? Studies of food marketing in developing countries are incomplete unless these questions are answired.