Preface The course entitled Livestock Economics, Marketing and Business Management incorporating fundamentals of accountancy is offered to first year B.V.Sc. & A.H. students during the second semester of the concerned academic year. The course curriculum is as per the Veterinary Council of India regulations. It is a well known fact that each of the components of the course namely, economics, marketing, business management and accountancy forms an independent and separate study by itself. Hence the teacher offering the course has to draw information from varied and diversified sources to cater to the task of teaching the subject covering the fundamental and applied aspects of all the four components of the course. Further students also have to refer separate text books for each of the component, if they have to update the knowledge pertaining to the course. The libraries in the agricultural universities and veterinary universities are also not very much equipped with more number of books in these subjects. Hence, in order to make the task of teaching and learning comparatively easier, an attempt has been made to bring out a compilation of various topics connected to livestock economics, marketing, business management and accountancy in the form of a handbook. In doing so, the authors do not claim any originality in the subject matter. The information is drawn from various text books, the list of which is presented at the end. However the authors believe that the handbook will serve the needs of the teachers and students who are involved in this course work. The narration is done in a very simple way without complicating the information presented with many graphs and mathematical expressions.

Economics The term “Economics” is derived from the Greek words ‘OIKOS’ and ‘NOMAS’ or ‘NEMEIN’. ‘Oikos’ means house hold and ‘Nomas’ or ‘Nemein’ means management. So in its original sense economics means house hold management; i.e. satisfying as many wants of the house hold or family as possible by allocating the limited resources at the disposal of the family wisely among different wants. In the modern and practical sense Economics means management of day to day problems arising from unlimited wants and limited resources by wisely allocating limited resources to satisfy maximum wants. In other words economics is the study of how man manages his limited resources as it satisfies as many wants as possible.

Goods and services are created through process of production. After production they have to be transferred or moved from the original producers to the final consumers. This involves the creation of market and the undertaking of number of activities such as buying, assembling, transportation warehousing, risk bearing, financing, selling etc. This constitutes the subject matter of marketing. Hence there is the need for the study of market. What is market? Market is derived from the Latin word “Marcatus” meaning trade, merchandise, ware, traffic or place of business. In the ordinary language, market is a place where buyers and sellers meet personally and make their purchases or sales. But in the language of economics, market need not be a place but it may be an area or region meant for potential exchange between a group of buyers and sellers interested in negotiating the terms of purchase and sale of goods and services and such negotiations may be done face to face at a certain place or may be done through other means of communication such as mail, phone, cable, television or through business middle men. What ever may be the means of communication there will be free exchange or perfect communication between buyers and sellers so that a fairly uniform price prevails for a particular commodity over the whole area at any given time.

Popularly the term management is used to refer to the group of managerial personnel of an enterprise. But the use of the term management in this sense is not correct, because the managerial personnel of an enterprise are usually designated as ‘managers’, ‘executives’ or administrators. Strictly speaking the term management refers to functional concept of management. Management refers to the sum total of all those functions or activities, which relate to the laying down of policies, plans and purposes, securing men, money, machinery needed for the achievement of the organisational objectives, putting all of them into operation and supervising and checking their performances in order to ensure the productive use of human and material resources for the maximum benefit or profit of the organisation, its employees and society in general. Management is the sum total of five principal functions namely planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling. The functional areas of management include: a) Financial management, b) Personnel management, c) material management, d) Production management, e) marketing management and f) Office management.

Book Keeping What is book keeping? Book keeping is defined as; The art of recording business transactions (pecuniary transactions) in a regulator and systematic manner. Book keeping is the science and art of correctly recording in books of accounts all those business transactions that result in the transfer of money or money’s worth. Book keeping is an art of recording day to day business transactions in a set of books in a most systematic manner. It is the process of analysing, classifying and recording transaction in accordance with preconceived plan.

LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED A Text Book of Commerce – By B.S.Raman (1988) (United Publishers, Mangalore) Business Management – By B.S.Raman (1993) (United Publishers, Mangalore) Basic Principles of Economics and Marketing – By M. Thirunavukkarasu & R. Prabhakaran, Dept. of A.H.Economics, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai. Currency & Banking – By A.V.Ranganadhachary & R.R.Paul (1990) (Kalyani Publishers, New Delhi) Elements of Economics - B.S.Raman (1989) (United Publishers, Mangalore) Essentials of Marketing Management – By S.A.Sherlekar, P.N.Reddy and H.R.Appannaiah (1990) (Himalaya Publishing House, Bombay, Delhi, Nagpur) Indian Economics – By B.S.Raman (1995) (United Publishers, Mangalore) Livestock Economics & Marketing – By A.Mohamed Safiullah, S.Selvam & N.Prema, Dept. of Animal Husbandry Economics, Veterinary College & Research Institute, Namakkal. Marketing – A Managerial Introduction – By J.C. Gandhi (1983) Tata McGraw Hill Co. Ltd., New Delhi) Marketing and Salesmanship – By B.S. Raman (1990) (United Publishers, Mangalore) Principles and Practices of Book Keeping – By V.A. Patil & J.S. Korlahalli (1995) (S. Chand & Co. New Delhi) Principles of Business Organisation and Management – By P.N. Reddy & S.S. Gulshan (1995) (Eurasia Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi)