Agricultural marketing teaching in the United Kingdom

Summary The paper presents the results of a survey of agricultural marketing teaching in British Universities and Colleges. After a preliminary discussion of the analytical problems arising from conflicting conceptions of the term ‘marketing’, and the variety of institutional arrangements which exist, an analysis is offered of the time devoted to the various components of the subject. This analysis confirms the existence of two fundamentally opposed views of marketing training, one with a distinctly practical orientation, the other supposedly more ‘academic’. The paper argues that marketing is both a policy subject, as it is now taught in Universities, and a business training, and that students in all institutions should be made aware of both aspects. The case is also made for greater emphasis on the decision-making processes through the use of cases, role-playing exercises, and industrial experience, which it is argued are perfectly reconcilable with the intellectual rigour of the traditional university education as long as they are well devised and intelligently applied.