Often maligned and vilified by other players in the public and private sectors, the vital roles that middlemen play in agricultural product marketing and distribution chains have been overlooked and somehow come to be seen as mostly opportunistic and parasitic to both primary producers and final consumers. They have been described as the biggest obstacle to increasing farmers’ income and the reason for high prices of agricultural and other commodities. This article explores the important functions that middlemen perform in agricultural markets in most parts of Africa.

The overall objective of agricultural products and services marketing is the establishment of valuable exchanges between consumers and producers (farmers). The agricultural market consists of farmers (primary producers) who produce crop and livestock products on the one hand, and consumers who are willing and able to purchase these agricultural products. Middlemen, also referred to as intermediaries, play a vital part in ensuring that the distribution channel between the producer and the consumer is complete. The more intermediaries there are in the supply chain, the higher the distribution channel.

Who is a Middleman?
A middleman is someone who plays the role of an intermediary in a distribution or transaction chain, by facilitating interaction between the involved parties. Middlemen specialize in performing crucial activities involved in the purchase and sale of goods/services in their flow from producers to the final consumers. They typically do not produce anything and may or may not add direct value to products but they possess extensive knowledge of the market and charge a commission or a fee for their services.


Types of Middlemen
Middlemen can be classified into two general categories - merchants and agents. Merchants, such as wholesalers and retailers, buy and re-sell their goods. They take ownership of inventory and bear the expense of storing and distributing the product. They make money by selling the goods at a higher price than its cost to them. The difference is called the “markup”.
Agents, such as brokers, specialize in negotiations involved in transactions. They do not take ownership of what they are selling. Instead, they make money by charging a commission or a fee for facilitating a transaction.


Functions of Middlemen
There have been historical changes in the roles that middlemen perform in the market place. An important argument is that middlemen always fulfill important marketing functions in the marketing system, and that the roles they take on, depend on market vacuums and complement those of other market actors. This means that middlemen arise to fill whatever market gaps exist.
In the modern agricultural markets, middlemen perform the following roles:

1. In most countries, most of the agricultural production take place in rural communities, often cut off from the urban markets, by poor infrastructure. The farmers have limited access to markets for their products while the consumers have limited access to their preferred products. It is the middlemen who bridge this gap by going into these rural areas and aggregating the products from the farmers, and transporting to the markets for ease of access to consumers.

2. Middlemen are sources of valuable information to the farmers about consumer behaviour, the changes in consumer tastes and fashion, market opportunities, upcoming rival businesses, etc.

3. Middlemen relieve farmers of bothersome tasks like marketing, distribution, thus enabling farmers to concentrate on the primary function of production by handling the ancillary functions of warehousing, distribution, advertising, insurance, etc. They promote the goods to the consumers on behalf of the producers and in some cases, they literally help to create markets.

4. Middlemen, like banks and other financial institutions, sometimes render financial services like loans and advance payments to Farmers. This is extremely important in most sub-Saharan countries when most agricultural production is carried out by smallholder farmers who have limited access to funds. The middlemen sometimes give farmers money at the beginning of the production cycle (for crops or livestock), to help the farmers meet their farming and personal needs, in expectations of payback in form of money or the agric products, by the end of the production cycle.

5. They make available the goods/services according to the consumers’ needs, fashion, tastes, etc. They bring the agricultural commodities from the raw form in which the farmers produce them, out to consumers at the right place, at the right time, right state and in the right quantity.

6. Buyers and sellers are often unwilling to assume the market risk for fear of a possible loss. It is the middlemen in the product market chain who assume the risks of theft, logistics problems, perishability and other potential hazards.

Conclusion
Middlemen perform extremely important roles in agricultural product marketing and distribution in most parts of Africa. However, due to the inefficiencies in our market systems, they have come to be seen as nothing but greedy, predatory price-hikers.
Middlemen provide manufacturers with valuable market feedback and let them concentrate on production by providing the ancillary services of warehousing, distribution, advertising, insurance, finance, etc. They make goods and services easily available to consumers in the desired quantity. They are risk takers who bear the huge burden of agricultural logistics, including risk of theft, perishability, obsolescence, changes in market demand/supply potentially leading to changes in price, etc. It can be said that middlemen exist to make the lives of both producers and consumers, easier.

Middlemen deserve greater appreciation, for their efforts