A study on marketing of potatoes in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat state

Abstract

The study was carried out with a view to analyse marketing cost, margin and price spread of potatoes and main constraints faced by the farmers in production and marketing of potatoes in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat State, a total of 126 farmers were selected for this study. Idar Agricultural Produce Market Committee was selected purposively because the market showed the highest arrivals of potatoes in the district and a representative sample of 30 market functionaries such as wholesalers and retailers dealing with potatoes were selected from the area covered by market. Both primary data and secondary data were collected for the study. The various statistical tools such as average, tabular analysis indices etc., were adopted for analytical procedure. The results indicated that, the total price spread was 33.75 percent of consumer's price when produce was sold through wholesalers and retailers. The consumer's paid higher prices (` 1078.94 per quintal) for potatoes, but 33.75 percent advantage of higher price had gone into the pocket of intermediaries, while rest of the 66.23 percent advantages went to the producers of Sabarkantha district. The major problems faced by the potatoes growers were price instability, high storage charges, high transportation cost, lack of storage credit facilities and inadequate storage facilities. The cold storage charges are very high so Government should introduce subsidies to reduce the cold storage charges to cold storage owners.