An Economic Analysis of Cost of Production and Marketing Channels of Watermelon in Banaskantha District, Gujarat, India

The objective of the study is to analyse the production costs and marketing channels of watermelon in Banaskantha District, Gujarat, India. Owing to maximum area under cultivation in the district, Deesa, Dantiwada, and Lakhani were purposefully chosen for the study. A multistage sampling method was applied and a total of 120 watermelon farmers, 20 intermediaries, and 20 consumers were selected for data collection. The basic tabular approach and the percentage method were the statistical tools used for data analysis. To estimate the cost of cultivation of the watermelon crop, the cost concept was applied. The marketing effectiveness of the channel was examined using Shepherd's and Acharya's approaches. The watermelon cultivation required a total of 78 man days of labour, including 58 family labours and 20 hired labours. Cost A was ₹19671.95, Cost B was ₹17172.05, and Cost C1 was ₹186087.15, for a total cultivation cost (cost C2) per hectare of ₹204695.87. This resulted in the overall cost of production per quintal of ₹537.82. According to the findings, the majority of farmers (61.67%) sell to contractors, followed by retailers (22.50%) and direct customers (15.83%). It was found that channel I had the highest marketing efficiency (Shepherd's method) i.e., 33.67, followed by channel II with 9.87 and channel III with 5.97. The most effective channel in terms of marketing efficiency (Acharya's method) was channel I, with an efficiency of 33.67, followed by channels II and III with an efficiency of 1.33 and 0.76 respectively. This demonstrated that watermelon farming was profitable in the research area.