A Study on Effectiveness of Agricultural Marketing Information System

Information is critical to the social and economic activities that comprise the development process. Development economy has witnessed agricultural (green, white, yellow, blue and now rainbow), industrial and information technology revolutions. Good communication system and information system reinforce commitments to sustainable productivity. The Government of India has given more thrust on agriculture, food and information technology sectors towards achievement of economic reforms for achieving high growth rate in production. Information system is a process that transforms data into information. When this information is further refined it acts as a basis for decision-making leading to the development of decision support system. Thus, strategic questions posed by researchers and policy makers in agriculture sector can best be answered by thorough and reliable exploration of related data. This is very essential in agricultural marketing system. Market information is an important facilitating function in the agriculture marketing system. It facilitates marketing decisions, regulates the competitive market process and simplifies marketing mechanisms. Market information is a means of increasing the efficiency of marketing system and promoting improved price formation. It is crucial to the farmers to make informed decisions about what to grow, when to harvest, to which market produce should be sent and whether or not to store it. Improved information should enable traders to move produce profitably from a surplus to a deficit market and to make decisions about the viability of carrying out storage where technically possible. Market information is defined as “A service usually operated by the public sector, which involves the collection on a regular basis of information on prices and, in some cases quantities of widely traded agricultural products from rural assembly markets, wholesale and retail markets, as appropriate and dissemination of this information on a timely