 Definition  Market information is a facilitating marketing function and market intelligence is essential to a smooth, efficiently operating marketing system.  Accurate and timely market information facilitates marketing decisions, regulates the competitive market process, and lubricates the marketing machinery.

 Market news, information and research are the lifeblood of markets.  Market information agencies take the pulse of the market (are sales active or sluggish?), measure the temperature of markets(are prices rising or falling?), monitor the markets pressure(are supplies adequate, short or in glut?).

 1. Good decision making  Changing production plan  Making long term investment  Deciding the when, where, and how of their marketing strategies.  Food marketing firms, farmer, cooperatives farm organizations and legislators also depend on market information for good decision making

 2. Competitive market processes  The role of market information is also important in the competitive market processes that regulate product flows and prices in the food industry.  Although the perfectly competitive requirement of perfect information is unattainable, in the competitive process more information is better than less.

 3. Widespread availability  Without widespread availability of market information, buyers and sellers would need to devote considerably more time and money to market search activities than they currently do.  The value of information is evident in markets where firms will pay a high price to specialized agencies for profitable information.

 1. Complete and comprehensive  Agricultural plant producing more than 200 different farm products.  Food marketing system handling more than different supermarket items.  Food market conditions also change frequently, further adding to the difficulty of providing complete market information.

 Complete market information include  Prices supply movement  Price trends stocks  Production demand condition at each level of the market  Providing such a mass of information we shall evaluate market.  2. Accuracy and trustworthiness  By its nature, market information can never be 100% accurate.  But an honest market appraisal is necessary to earn the trust of information users.

 3. Relevant and in usable form.  Information must be collected, packaged and disseminated with the users interests in mind.  Much market information goes unused because it is not in usable, easily accessible form.  4. Confidentiality  Market prices and supply reports of individual firms are aggregated to provide a general picture of the market without revealing information about any one firm.

 Market information care is taken to insure that everyone receives the information simultaneously, so that no one trader can benefit from information that others do not have.  5. Timely  Much market information is highly perishable.  Futures market traders require minute to minute information, daily reports suffice for other traders and monthly or annual reports are sufficient in other cases.

 Finally, it is desirable to have a balance of market information at all levels of the food industry.  Each marketing agency should have equal access to all the information relevant to the bargaining and marketing processes.

 There are several problems regarding the collection, compilation and dissemination of food market information that should be taken into account by users of the information.  1.Price specification  The statement that Cattle are selling for $ 60 per hundred weight is not very difficult until other, more specific information is provided, for example; Where? When? What grade? What weight? How?

 These specification are necessary to make a price quotation meaningful for decision makers.  Price has meaning only with reference to a particular time, form and geographic market.  The wide range of qualities and uses of agricultural products adds to the food market information problem.  The usefulness of price quotations depends on uniform acceptance and application of grades and standards.

 For example: fresh fruit price quotations can not be mixed with processed fruit prices.  Feeder livestock conditions need to be reported separately from slaughter livestock conditions.  2. Net versus Gross Price  Publicly quoted figures are frequently not the actual price.  Premium and discount schedules vary from place to place and from buyer to buyer.

 Some farm prices include allowances for marketing costs such as packaging, and other marketing activities.  Because industry practices vary, making comparable price comparisons is very difficult.  Studies that report significantly higher(or lower) prices in one market as compared with another sometimes neglect the fact that buyer and seller responsibilities differ.

 Frequently, when all marketing and other costs are considered, net prices among competing markets are more similar than they at first appear to be.  The price comparability problem also arises at the retail level of food markets.  Food prices at a cash and carry, low service grocery store should not be compared, superficially, to prices at a full-service supermarket.

 3.Information costs  The cost of gathering and disseminating market information to the public requires that some difficult choices be made.  The value of more complete and more accurate information must be weighed against its costs.  Market information is not available for all commodities and is somewhat incomplete for all products.

 Thus, there are continuing requests for more information  The same amount of information is not available for all levels of the food industry.  In general, much more is known about supplies, demand and marketing at the farm level than at the retail level.

 4. Changing market organization  Trends in farming and marketing have also complicated the food market information task.  Because of decentralized, direct sales, products now buyers the central terminal markets.  Changing transportation patterns also alter the market information picture.  Railroad freight movement- supply flow of most farm product.

 Overtime, the proportion of products moving by truck, barge and even air has increased and market information programs have had to adjust to these trends.  Contractual and ownership integration in farm and food markets present still another problem.  Farmers who sign contracts specifying prices and other terms of trade in advance of product delivery need market information different from that needed by farmers who sell on the cash markets at harvest time.

 5.Voluntary cooperation  The private market news and information programs depend on the voluntary cooperation of buyers and sellers to report prices, supplies and other market conditions.  Because there is no mandatory requirement that they provide this information, many farmers and food marketing firms do not participate in the programs.

 Statistical techniques can compensate somewhat for the missing information and resulting statistical bias.  Many observers feel that the voluntary nature of market information programs continues to be one of their principal limitations.  Voluntary reporting presents many problems.  For instance, buyers and sellers may quote only those prices and conditions favorable to themselves.