MARKETING BEHAVIOUR OF GROUNDNUT FARMERS IN ANANTAPURAMU DISTRICT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

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Date
2018
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Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University
Abstract
Groundnut is a major oilseed crop that has achieved tremendous popularity in the country. It is one of the most important food and cash crop of the country. While being a valuable source of all the nutrients, it is one of the low priced commodity. India is the world’s leading producer of groundnut with 25.00 per cent share in the production. The all India production of groundnut was estimated at 6,733 thousand tons with an average of 991 kg ha-1. In Andhra Pradesh, groundnut crop alone covered an area of 82.39 per cent of the total area under oilseeds. Anantapuramu is one of the predominant groundnut cultivated district in the state with an extent of 6,24,000 hectares with the production of 1,64,000 tons. An efficient marketing system is precondition for ensuring remunerative prices to the producers for their products and to deliver maximum satisfaction to the consumers for the price they pay. Efficient marketing system helps the farmer to increase the production and productivity on one hand and getting remunerative price, generating additional income and employment on the other. The groundnut farmers are at a disadvantage particularly in the marketing of groundnut as they lose their bargaining strength and got exploited. Monthly data on minimum prices of groundnut in Anantapuramu xiv regulated market yard show a highly erratic behaviour. Such kind of fluctuations in the prices of groundnut reflects on the poor withholding capacity of the marginal and small farmers while marketing their final produce. Hence, there is every need to thoroughly understand the groundnut marketing by the farmers in Anantapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh state. Keeping in view the above factors, an attempt was made to study the “Marketing behaviour of groundnut farmers in Anantapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh”. Ex-post-facto research design was used in the present investigation. Anantapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh was purposively selected as groundnut was being extensively cultivated in the district. Out of 63 mandals of Anantapuramu district, three mandals were purposively selected based on the highest area under groundnut cultivation. Four villages from each mandal were selected based on highest area under groundnut cultivation, thus making a total of twelve villages for the study. From each of the twelve selected villages, 10 respondents were selected by following simple random sampling procedure, thus making a total of 120 respondents. The data were collected by personal interview method through a well structured interview schedule and analyzed by employing suitable statistical tools. The analysis of profile characteristics of the groundnut farmers indicated that majority of the farmers were middle aged with middle to high school level education, less than 2.5 acres of area under groundnut cultivation with medium farming experience, annual income, extension contact, trainings received, agricultural inputs acquisition pattern and social participation, Majority of the farmers had medium level of marketing behaviour. This trend was observed because majority of the groundnut farmers had medium levels of planning orientation, production orientation, marketing orientation, marketing information sources utilization, decision making ability, risk taking ability and innovativeness which resulted in medium level of marketing behaviour. The independent variables viz., education, annual income, material possession, extension contact, trainings received and social participation were found to be positively significant with the marketing behaviour of the groundnut farmers whereas age, area under groundnut cultivation, experience in groundnut cultivation and agricultural inputs acquisition pattern were xv found negatively significant with the marketing behaviour of the groundnut farmers. All the selected 10 independent variables put together explained about 76.00 per cent variation in the marketing behaviour of groundnut farmers. The partial regression co-efficient values implied that annual income, material possession and extension contact were the most important variables that contributed to most of the variation in the marketing behaviour of groundnut farmers. The major problems faced by the groundnut farmers were lack of timely market information lack of remunerative prices, improper weighment, fluctuation in market prices, involvement of middle men, high cost of labour during harvesting, lack of cooperative marketing systems, high commission charges, long distances to the markets, delayed cash payment, scarcity of labour for transportation and marketing, absence/insufficient storage facilities and high cost of transportation. The major suggestions given by the farmers were provision of information about current marketing situations , establishing cooperative and rapid expansion of regulated marketing systems , provision of minimum support price for groundnut, efforts to minimize the commission charges by the concerned authorities , adequate and appropriate transport facilities, provision of sufficient storage facilities, establishment of procurement centers in the villages and recruitment of mandal level marketing officials by the government. A suitable strategy has been developed keeping in view of the results obtained in the study for efficient marketing of groundnut by the farmers.
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