Impact of Seasonality on Price Behaviour of Jasmine Flower in Madurai District of Tamil Nadu

Price is a matter of vital importance to the value chain actors in a market place. In a competitive market economy, price is determined by free play of supply and demand. The competitive and remunerative prices paid to the farmer, would be an incentive for further production. It is for this reason that the price of jasmine tends to show greater variations than variation in any other commodity. Jasmine price is highly fluctuating, even on hourly basis, varies between Rs.600 and Rs.3,000 per kilogram during the wedding and lean seasons.During heavy supply periods, i.e., in peak season, jasmine is sold at a meagre rate of Rs.200 to Rs.250 per kilogram. Therefore, the present study is made to identify the existing prices, seasonal variations, intra year variations of prices, cyclic and irregular variations of the jasmine flower. The study identified that months between March and June are considered as peak periods (high yield season) and months between October and February are considered as lean period (low yield season). During the months of November and December there will be no yield. that the co-efficient of variation of jasmine prices was found to be higher in the Madurai Mattuthavani market, which was about 24.22 per cent. The results also revealed that the seasonal variation percentage was high in the market during the month of December (140.06 per cent) and was low during the month of May (48.75 per cent). This means that for the month of December, the price increases 1.40 times of those of the monthly average price. The results of seasonal variation indicated that the highest price index was observed during the month of December (1683). The prices began to slightly decline during March, which was the peak season and the price index was the lowest in the month of May (582). The results also showed that the marketing efficiency was the highest in channel IV (3.07), where jasmine was directly marketed to consumers and hence there was no involvement of middle men in this channel which reveals significant insights into the market performance of jasmine, emphasizing the pivotal role of marketing in transforming farmers’ efforts into income. It is suggested to implement a mission that would develop a ’Jasmine Cluster’ and evolve measures to ensure off-season production of jasmine by giving technical guidance to jasmine farmers on timely pruning, integrated nutrient and pest management.