In countries like India, strengthening of agriculture is critical for facing the challenges of rural poverty, food insecurity, unemployment and sustainability of natural resources. But, there is a need to redefine agriculture as the science and practice of activities relating to production, processing, marketing, distribution, utilization and trade of food, feed and fibre, which implies that agricultural development strategy must address not only farmers but also those in marketing, trade, processing and agribusiness. In this context, efficient marketing and rural credit systems assume added importance. Agricultural marketing system is the critical link between farm production sector on the one hand and non-farm sector, industry and urban economy on the other. Apart from performing physical and facilitating functions of transferring the goods from producers to consumers, the marketing system also performs the function of discovering the prices at different stages of marketing and transmitting the price signals in the marketing chain.