Hugar, L BShivarayaBalappa2019-07-152019-07-152000No. of references 168http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810114473"India is the second largest vegetable producer in the world next to China. The total vegetable production in India (72.83 million tonnes) accounts for 6.74 per cent of the world production. Vegetable cultivation forms a supplementary cash crop for the farmers. The present study was conducted in North Kamataka during 1999-2000. A positive growth in vegetable production over the period of 1977-96 at all the locations was mainly due to increase in mean area, while it was due to mean yield in Belgaum, Dharwad and country as a whole. Correspondingly, the change in area variance and yield variance hav^ contributed to the variability of vegetable production in respective locations. The extent of inputs use and cost of cultivation in brinjal (Rs.70345.41/ha) and tomato (Rs.59880.80/ha) were higher than the potato (Rs.25973.07/ha) and onion {Rs.24400.38/ha). Further, majority of the farmers were operating at medium level efficiency as they used 28 to 84 per cent of excessive inputs to achieve the existing level of output. However, the benefit cost ratio was higher in onion (2.08) and potato (1.71), compared to tomato (1.68) and brinjal (1.47) mainly because of lower level of inputs used in these enterprises. In general, farmers realised returns less than 70 per cent of the consumers rupee. However, the magnitude of price spread in tomato (48.85%) and brinjal (47.93%) was higher than for onion (31.49%) and potato (31.43%). Strong price integrations between the selected markets for onion and potato were noticed (above 0.8). Growth in terms of quantity and value of fresh vegetables exports was significant during the study period (1979-98). However, during postliberalisation period, the growth in quantity exports was higher than growth in value for all vegetables, while growth in value exceeded growth in quantity for onion. The vegetables were competitive for their export. UAE and Malaysia for onion, Sri Lanka and Nepal for potato and Bangladesh and Nepal for tomato were the loyal markets for India. Export earnings from fresh onion, potato and tomato were estimated to touch Rs. 1110.1.5 crores, Rs.60.77 crores and Rs. 1.16 crores respectively by 2004-2005."ennullThesis