WHAT CAN BE DONE THROUGH MARKETING ORDER 

 PROGRAMS 



Here are the principal types of activities which are 

 authorized under marketing orders. Any one or a combina- 

 tion may be used to fit the program to an industry's par- 

 ticular situation. 



A. Regulation of Quality . Regulating the quality that can be 

 shipped helps keep inferior grades of the commodity 

 from depressing the market for the whole crop. It also 

 helps build consumer confidence. It is accomplished 

 by establishing the grades, sizes or maturity of the 

 commodity which can be shipped in the regulated trade 

 channels. These requirements may be changed from 

 season to season, or within seasons, as supplies and 

 demand change. 



B. Regulation of Quantity . There are two general methods 

 of regulating quantity of the commodity marketed- -by 

 rate of flow, and by total quantity. Flow regulations are 

 concerned primarily with keeping an orderly flow of 

 the commodity moving to market during the normal 

 marketing season. This is done by handler allotments, 

 which restrict the amount of commodity which handlers 

 may ship during a given period. These allotments usually 

 are based on the amounts currently available to the 

 handlers, or on the amounts shipped by each handler in 

 a previous period, or a combination of the two. 



Rate-of-flow regulations may or may not reduce the 

 total amount of the crop marketed, but they help tailor 

 current supply to demand and avoid periodic gluts and 

 scarcities. 



The practicality of regulating the total quantity of a 

 crop shipped during an entire season depends to a 

 large extent on whether the commodity can be stored 

 for all or part of a season and the methods by which 

 it is normally marketed. Another important considera- 

 tion is the extent of organization within the industry 

 for working together on marketing problems. Under this 

 type of regulation, the industry estimates supply and 

 demand for the year, and holds any excess supply out 



