Book excerpt: India is a country where majority of the population lives in villages. Appreciating the size and business potential of rural sector, major companies, including Hindustan Unilever and P&G have made special strategies for targeting rural markets. The thrust on rural markets is getting stronger day by day and it needs complete knowledge base of rural marketing. The book Rural and Agriculture marketing has been written looking into the needs of the students pursuing their management degrees. It is meant to create interest in business management students to get into the rural marketing mind set for bringing the desired organizational focus on the subject. Considering the importance of rural markets, most business schools have included Rural Marketing Management as a key knowledge area in their syllabus. Rural Marketing as a separate discipline in management teaching has emerged recently. The growing importance of the subject has been well realized by the marketers, policymakers and management interns. The present book has endeavoured to cover the entire gamut of rural marketing. There are few books on rural marketing which mostly deal with this subject and I hope this book will be a great help to student communities. The book is written in simple, easy to understand language. So wishing you all a very happy reading. - Partha S. Senapati (Author)