In the literature it is recognised that a dichotomy exists between agricultural and
business marketing because the marketing management approach is not prominent
in agricultural marketing theory. Bateman (1976) suggests that agricultural marketing
has traditionally incorporated everything that happens between the farm gate and
the consumer, therefore encompassing areas which ‘the purist’ may not consider
marketing. While analysis of government intervention and policy form the focus of
agricultural marketing theory, studies of the objectives and decisions confronting
individual businesses are central to business marketing theory.