New agricultural marketing system: Awareness, status, perceptions and impact in Uttarakhand

Agricultural marketing is an ever-evolving process. Depending upon the structure and conduct the performance of the marketing system changes. Present study was conducted to study the basic market infrastructure, competitiveness based on stakeholder's participation and awareness and perception of various stakeholders about agricultural marketing system. The study utilizes both primary and secondary data collected from a sample of five markets and 120 farmers, obtained by using two stage sampling procedure. Simple descriptive statistical tools have been employed for concluding results and Five-point Likert Scale was used for recording perception. The result shows that the infrastructure status of the mandis that were converted into e-mandis in the first spell, is ahead of those that were converted under second spell. However, there is lack of storage facilities in the mandis. Among major commodities traded in the respected markets, most of them are horticulture commodities. Uttarakhand state government presently has successfully gone under many components of the reforms. However, there is lack of awareness about e-trading facility and private wholesale market among farmers. Participation of the farmer is found too low in the e-NAM. Various charges are not uniform among the mandis. More than 60 per cent of the farmers reported that after reform there is reduction in losses of perishable commodities, uniform grading and standardizatio and comparatively quicker settlement of prices. Most of the sampled farmers are found to be satisfied with the market fee (61%), weighing methods (56%) and payment methods (56%) prevailing in the markets. 70 per cent of the farmers reported that there is lack of cleanliness in the market. It shows that more than 77 per cent of the farmer are unsatisfied with market information. The satisfaction level of the farmer has somewhat increased in the post-reform situation as more than 54 per cent of the farmers revealed that useful, accurate and interpretable price information is now timely accessible to them.