Economic Analysis of Production and Marketing of Pineapple in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh
Loading...
Files
Date
1995
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University
Abstract
The present study entitled llEconomic analysis of production and marketing of pineapple in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh" was undertaken with the objectives of studying the costs and returns, resource productivity, resource-use-efficiency and marketing aspects of pineapple. The investigation was carried out in Visakhapatnam district, which was purposively selected for the study as it is known for its pineapple production among the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh for the year 1993494. Three mandals with highest area under pineapple were purposively
selected.' Following the same criterion six villages, two from each mandal were selected. The size of the sample was 60 farmers. Tabular analysis was carried out to study the costs and returns, operationéwiSe cost of cultivation, unit cost of production, cost concepts, from business measures and break—even output on pineapple farm. Cobb—Douglas production function was employed to study the resource productivity and reSource use efficiency on pineapple farms. An opinion survey was conducted to study the problems in pineapple production and marketing. The pineapple cultivation was carried out mostly by the farmers belonging to scheduled_ tribes (63.34 per cent) followed by scheduled castes (23.33 per cent) and backward castes (13.33 per cent). The human labour employed on pineapple farms was 101 and 121.68 mandays per farm and per hectare respectively. The average cost of cultivation on pineapple farms worked out to Rs.6,817 per farm and Rs.8,213 per hectare. Among the operational costs expenditure on suckers constituted the major cost (32.16 per cent).
The expenditure on planting operation was highest claiming 52.78 per cent in the total operation—wise cost of cultivation. The per fruit cost of production worked out to Rs.l.34.A net income of Rs.6,972 per farm and Rs.8,4OO per hectare was obtained from pineapple cultivation. Other farm income measures like family labour income, farm business income and farm investment income were found to be substantially high from pineapple cultivation. The break-even output worked out to 1,021 fruits which constituted 16.60 per cent of average yield. The results of production function analysis showed the pineapple cultivation in the area was subject to increasing returns to scale. Further an over View of productivity of resources revealed that any re-adjustments in the use of land, suckers and human labour results in the increase in output. Two marketing channels were identified in marketing of the pineapple fruits. Total marketing costs amounted to Rs.2.64 and Rs.l.68 in channel I (Producer-Wholesaler-Retailer-Consumer) and channel II (Producer-Retailer—Consumer) respectively.
Gross marketing margin was Rs.4.08 in channel I and Rs.3.02 in channel II. Though marketing efficiency of channel I was 0.66 and that of channel II was 1.00, the bulk of the sales was routed through the channel I. Non-availability of good variety of pineapple suckers locally, high price of suckers, non-availability of institutional credit for pineapple crop and lack of good extension facilities were some of the production problems identified in pineapple cultivation in study area. Lack of organised markets, low share in consumer's rupee, domination of middlemen in the marketing of fruits and absence of cold storage facilities were the marketing problems identified in the study area. Most of the recommended package of practices were not adopted by the pineapple growers in the study area. From the above discussion it can be concluded that pineapple cultivation is profitable.
Description
Keywords
null
Citation
D4909