Operational Efficiency of the Palestinian Agricultural Markets for the Period 2001- 2005

Abstract

Operational efficiency is one way of measuring market efficiency. It is measured in terms of marketing costs and marketing margins. The marketing system is said to be eff ficient if market margins can be reduced by a level of cost that is less or equal to the level of expenses involved in providing an additional marketing service. The main objective of this study is to test the efficiency indicator of the marketing process by research on marketing margins and costs for the fruits and vegetables in Palestine for the 20012005 period. Results showed that farmers are receiving low returns for their products compared to the other parties of the market. High costs are paid by farmers for both the transportation and packaging and these high costs could be reduced if farmers organize these two functions in better ways either by being involved more in cooperatives or in new collectives marketing methods. The losses are major item of the marketing costs for all the market chain and this item could be reduced by improving the facilities and techniques of post harvest to improve the efficiency marketing. Various recommendations are proposed at the end of this research.