Efficient marketing infrastructure such as wholesale, retail and assembly markets and storage facilities is essential for cost-effective marketing, to minimise post-harvest losses and to reduce health risks. The Marketing Group of FAO has for many years concentrated on market infrastructure improvement. Many publications are available:

A guide to upgrading rural agricultural retail markets

This guide provides practical guidelines for upgrading markets in rural areas and analyses the importance of markets for rural development, income generation, food security, developing rural-market linkages and gender issues.

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Rural-urban marketing linkages. An infrastructure identification and survey guide

This guide is a simplified aid to understanding the physical implications of marketing linkages, based on a regional planning approach. It provides a simple planning methodology and framework that focuses on the issue of linking farmers to market outlets for their produce, particularly identifying their marketing infrastructure needs. The users of the guide could include planners and engineers in ministries and departments of public works and transport; planning and marketing officers in ministries and departments of agriculture, local authority officers in planning, commerce and marketing departments and local authorities, communities, farmer groups and voluntary organizations who are concerned with understanding marketing constraints and with ensuring that rural producers have better access to markets for their products.

Rural-urban marketing linkages. FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 161, Price US$24.00 (to order see below)
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Planning and Designing Rural Markets

Upgrading rural markets is one way to improve access to marketing opportunities. This guide is designed to assist community planners, rural engineers and agricultural extension units to formulate and implement relevant market-development plans.

The types of issue covered in this guide include how to design markets that meet a community's social and economic needs; work with communities to identify their marketing problems and to choose a site for a new market; use appropriate and simple methods to survey and plan the site layout and to design market buildings; prepare a market-development proposal and make budget estimates; undertake simple social and economic feasibility studies; look for financing and construct the market; and manage, operate and maintain the market.

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Market infrastructure planning - a guide for decision makers

This manual highlights the need for improved planning and decision-making to ensure successful market investments. It identifies the key steps in deciding on whether and how to invest in market infrastructure, and highlights the steps to be taken to determine the size, location and operation of markets. The guide should be of interest to economists and planners in ministries of agriculture and urban development, as well as to city and local authorities.

Market Infrastructure Planning - a guide for decision-makers , FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 141, Price US$12.00 (to order see below)
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Wholesale Markets Planning and Design Manual

Wholesale marketing systems for fruit, vegetables and other fresh foodstuffs, such as livestock and fish, are often inadequate. They neither maximize benefits to producers, nor to consumers. Experience demonstrates that there are substantial benefits to be gained from giving positive encouragement to the development of more professional approaches to the provision of marketing infrastructure.

This manual has been compiled to provide a systematic methodology for market planning based on the sequence of steps normally adopted in the development process. The manual should be of practical value, both to senior professionals and to technicians, in undertaking marketing and engineering surveys, in the preparation of feasibility studies and master plans, and in formulating proposals for the provision of physical facilities.

Wholesale Markets: Planning and Design Manual , Agricultural Services Bulletin No. 90, Price US$17.00 (to order see below)
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Retail Markets Planning Guide

This guide is a companion to that on wholesale markets. . It will assist those engaged in the development of retail markets. Chapter 1 considers different types of rural and urban retail markets and how they operate. This is followed by an examination of the planning context for markets: how they function and how their role varies according to location. Chapter 3 outlines a practical methodology for rapid and cost-effective surveys and provides basic guidelines on how to make projections of market throughput and how to estimate the size of the market area and sales space and what facilities are required. Subsequent chapters are concerned with detailed design, including zoning of specialized activities, buildings and infrastructure, traffic circulation and typical market equipment. Chapter 7 reviews management factors including market regulations. The guide concludes with a chapter on the formulation of a simple market project, including the necessary financial and economic analysis.

Retail Markets Planning Guide , FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin No. 121, Price US$17.00 (to order see below)
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Managing Wholesale Markets

The characteristics of wholesale markets have changed considerably over the last century. They continue to change as retailing changes in response to urban growth, the increasing role of supermarkets and increased consumer spending capacity. These changes require responses in the way in which markets are organized and managed. This manual analyses the political, legal, economic and commercial aspects of the management and operation of wholesale markets. It has been prepared to help market managers and authorities concerned with food wholesaling issues to improve the management of existing or planned wholesale markets.

Wholesale market management - A manual , FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 140, Price US$12.00 (to order see below)
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