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Author: Martin Hilmi Title: Marketing research for micro and small scale Beekeepers Pages: 67 E-book: Adobe Acrobat file (1.3 Mo by email) Price : 14 €   Exchange rate Order

This book has been conceived and written for micro and small scale businesses that operate in the bee products sector. It is mainly for commercial micro and small enterprises. It is also intended for encouraging micro beekeepers that may just be starting to become commercial. The book is written on the foundations of microfinance that has proven to be one of the most effective methods of development for the informal sector of many economies. Cleary focusing on money matters is vitally important; extending loans to poor farmers, at appropriate conditions and with the proper organisation can and has done miracles, but it is only part of the development quest. The other two important areas required for the quest of development are management and marketing.

Bee farms of whatever size need to be effective and efficient and hence need to be managed carefully. Bee farmers are faced regularly with the need to make decisions. Some decisions that are taken can be very important for the livelihood of the farm business and its survival over time. The book is intended to help bee farmers in their decision making. The book proposes that one method toward better bee farm management is the use of information in decision making. Clearly bee farmers need a good deal of information, such as on financing, production, processing, laws etc. In this sense information becomes a vital element. What is covered here is information gathering in general and in particular with the marketing activity.

Taking into consideration the necessities and peculiar characteristics of micro and small bee farms, marketing research here has been suited for such needs, if not some what radically changed from conventional marketing research texts and practices. The marketing research here considers issues pertinent to developing economies, the high degree of socio-cultural differences found within developing economies and the particular nature and characteristics of micro and small bee farmers in developmental settings. But the methods shown herein can also be used by bee farmers in transitional and developed economies.

The marketing research proposed here has derived from an extensive research into the literature of micro and small farm businesses. Research was also conducted in the field, Southern Italy, with a number of micro and small enterprises where actual bee farmers were involved in the research, via in depth interviews and observations over a period of time. The results of all this work are contained within this book.

This book can be of use to bee farmers themselves, government ministries, trainers of extension officers, extension officers, universities, student-volunteers working for governments, international governmental organisations, international non governmental organisations and other organisations which all work in the bee products sector. In this text special relevance has been taken into consideration to the fact that many bee farmers, in developing economies, unfortunately are illiterate and hence marketing research methods have been adopted accordingly. Also what has been considered is that women bee farmers typically have more difficulty in obtaining information, then there male counterparts, due to socio - cultural barriers in many countries. The methodologies herein have also considered this problematic aspect.

If in need of help and / or would like to send comments to the author, please e-mail freely to martinhilmi@hotmail.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS	Page
Introduction	6
Chapter 1: (Bee) Farm Management 1.1 The (Bee) farm 1.2 (Bee) Farm Enterprises 1.3 The farming cycle Page 1.4 (Bee) Farmer’s Goals 1.5 (Bee) Farmer’s decisions3 1.6 (Bee) Farm Management	9
Chapter 2: What is a market? 2.1: The market 2.2: Supply and Demand 2.3: Price	17
Chapter 3: What is marketing? 3.1 What is marketing?	24
Chapter 4: What is marketing research?	30
Chapter 5: Why small farmers do not carry out marketing research	36
Chapter 6: Why carry out marketing research?	38
Chapter 7: Marketing research in practice	41
Chapter 8: Continuous marketing research?	53
Chapter 9: The cost of marketing research	54
Annex A “The Entrepreneur”	56
Annex B “Farmer Association”	57
Annex C “Question Preparation”	62
Bibliography	65

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