Abstract
Though gross sale, marketable surplus and marketed surplus were used interchangeably in some previous studies, in semi-subsistence rice economy like Bangladesh, this cannot be justified. Thus, the present research is undertaken to define these ideas with its components' basis and to estimate them separately. The study was based on medium and large farms that included 100 farm households in a village of Mymensingh district of Bangladesh in the year 1995. Gross sale, marketed surplus and marketable surplus of the paddy in the study area were 49.68, 48.71, and 61.07 % of the net production receipts respectively. It shows that each of those concepts has a different value, and they cannot be used equally in semi-subsistence rice economy. Different components of marketable surplus and gross sale of paddy in the study area are also examined. The components of marketable surplus (net change in stock and net kind payment) prevent the paddy from entering the market, this reduces the marketed quantity or gross sale. Distress sale is very little in the present study due to not including the small farms as sample. Thus, the difference between gross sale and marketed surplus is very little. On the basis of the findings the following recommendations are put forward for policy implications: (i) Before designing procurement policy of food grain, policy makers should be aware of the difference between gross sale, marketable surplus and marketed surplus, (ii) Improving marketing facilities in order to increase marketed quantity of paddy by reducing net payment in kind and net change in stock, (iii) Initiating change of food habit among rural people and family planning measures which can increase the marketed quantity of paddy by reducing the consumption of rice.
