Expansion of distant marketing of vegetables in Bangladesh - A case study on Losmanpur village in Sherpur district

The distant marketing of vegetables has been developed in many places of the country because of the price differences among the regions. This research aims to explore the expansion process of the distant marketing developed at a village in Bangladesh. The historical data collected through a field survey at Losmanpur village in Sherpur district is used for this study. The expansion of distant marketing is divided into 3 stages: the launching of distant marketing stage during 1983 and 1985, the adaptive distant marketing stage during 1986 and 1993 and the extensive distant marketing stage since 1994 thereafter. The market at the initial stage was limited to only one season in one market of Dhaka city that has been expanded for whole the year to many other markets of other cities, too. This research has identified the factors influencing for the expansion of the distant marketing. The vegetable business requires less capital because the traders collect vegetables mostly on credit from the farms. The success factor of the credit-sale is the trust between the farmers and traders. The development of rice millings in Sherpur district has an indirect effect on the expansion of vegetable marketing because the vegetable has been carried as the extra load of rice trucks. The price information was available from the traders or truck drivers coming back to the locality. The expansion of telephone since the early 1990's and the mobile phone since the late 1990's has facilitated for receiving the update market price. The relation among the traders was friendly at the early stage of marketing and subsequently become collusive and competitive for increasing the number of traders. The farmers of the study village have expanded vegetable farming from 66 ha to 194 ha during 1996 and 2004 because of the gradual increase of demand.