The article attempts to bring to focus the role of rural marketing in bridging the widening disparity between rural and urban economies in India. The suggested reconceptualization of rural marketing highlights the need for a dual perspective— ‘producers’ empowerment’ and ‘strategic marketing’, and broad basing its domain to cover variety of market relationships which are part of growing rural-urban linkages. This difficult and complex task can be achieved by helping rural producers to effectively compete in the marketplace based on competitive/comparative advantage through consolidation of agriculture and rural enterprises. More specifically, agriculture and rural enterprises need to be linked to rural and/or urban markets through ‘minimizing market resistance to rural products’ and ‘maximizing market orientation of rural enterprises’.
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