Growth performance and seasonality in arrivals and prices of garlic in major marketing institutions of Karnataka and Maharashtra

Garlic is one of the important commercial spice crops. It is cultivated extensively in countries like China, India, Egypt, USA, Russia and Korea. China occupied first position in garlic production followed by India in second position. Wide fluctuation in prices of most of the farm produce in general and spice crops like garlic in particular was observed during the past few years, posed considerable risk to different stakeholders. Present paper attempted to analyse the seasonality and growth performance of arrivals and price of garlic in selected markets of Karnataka and Maharashtra. The data relating to monthly arrivals and prices were collected from major markets of Karnataka and Maharashtra viz. Bangalore (KA), Pune (MH) and Mumbai (MH) based on the highest arrivals for the period from 2008 to 2017. Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) was estimated for garlic arrivals and prices of selected markets. The results of the analysis revealed that among the selected markets, highest growth was observed for arrivals in Mumbai market (12.22 per cent) and for prices in Pune market (9.04 per cent). The highest prices recorded during 2010 and 2016 due to low arrivals during that period. The peak arrival period was observed in the months of February-April, whereas lean arrivals in the months of June to January. As expected, high prices were observed during lean period of arrival and very low prices during peak arrival months. To protect the interest of the garlic farmers, efforts should be made by the concerned marketing institutions should advise the farmers to use pledge loan facilities from the APMCs and State and Central Government institutions and storage of produce to avoid distress sale. In order to minimize the price risk and to protect the farming community under, the respective state governments should take regulatory measures to stabilize the prices as far as possible and long term policies should be adopted to maintain price stability throughout the year.