Archaic marketing methods

The rise of a new national and international economy has created the necessity for new marketing practices, but these have not as yet been developed to include rural communities, where all marketing procedures revolve around the central issue of local bargaining power. The persistent use of practices effective when each village was a self-sustaining unit, now works to the disadvantage of the villager when he sells or purchases goods. Lack of adequate storage or processing facilities means that the entire crop of all villages is marketed at approximately the same time. This floods the markets, and results in low returns to the individual farmers. Because of high transportation costs and a relatively uncompetitive market, merchandise from outside the village is available only at relatively high prices. The villager has no bargaining power or economic leverage with which to participate creatively in the only economic system he has; he sees himself as kept on a marginal subsistence level, a victim of forces that he has no power to attack.