A Study of Marketing and Production Constraints Faced by Vegetable Growers

Vegetable cultivation offers a unique opportunity for hill farmers of Uttarakhand due to the favourable climatic conditions. Consequently, vegetable cultivation in Uttarakhand hills, even in off-season, has picked up on quite a large scale. Although it has become quite remunerative but farmers are reportedly facing lots of marketing and production constraints. The present study was conducted in Kumaon region of Uttarakhand to study the production and marketing constraints faced by the vegetable growers. Study sample comprised of 200 farmers selected purposively from eight villages spread across four blocks and two districts in Kumaon division of Uttarakhand. The data was collected using a pre-tested structured interview schedule. The study findings revealed that major marketing constraints reported by vegetable growers were: long chain of intermediaries, inadequate transportation facilities, high transportation charges, inadequate storage facilities, low price / lack of remunerative price and non-availability of market information. Further, some production related constraints reported by the respondents were high cost of seeds/ fertilizers, lack of information about planting material/ production inputs, lack of knowledge about grading and standardization of vegetable, non-availability of farm labour and lack of packaging material. These findings will be helpful to the State government for developing a policy framework and relevant guidelines for promoting vegetable production in the state.