PhD

Kerala, even with its rich agricultural heritage, depends on neighboring states
like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to meet the vegetable demand. To phase out this
scenario, the state government initiated many schemes and programs to promote
vegetable cultivation among smallholder farmers. Realizing that marketing is the area
where smallholder farmers are the weakest, attempts to promote small holder
marketing were also devised by the Government. Analysis of such interventions will
help to see how far they have benefitted the smallholder farmers.
The present study analyzed the marketing interventions like VFPCK, Ecoshop,
Kudumbasree Nattuchantha and Agricultural Wholesale Market. The objectives of the
study include identification of the components of market-led extension employed by
the marketing interventions, analyzing and comparing the marketing efficiency
through these interventions, studying the marketing behaviour of beneficiary farmers,
examining the constraints experienced by the farmers as well as the implementing
agencies and suggesting ways to enhance the marketing system for better inclusion of
marginal and small holder farmers.
Palakkad district was purposively selected as the location for the selection of
VFPCK farmers’ market, Kudumbasree Nattuchantha market and Ecoshop. Two
markets each under the selected market interventions were selected randomly. One
market under the three Urban Wholesale Markets and one market under the three
Rural Wholesale Markets were selected randomly. A sample of 20 farmers each from
the different market interventions were selected randomly to form a total sample size
of 160 farmers and 40 stakeholders including the marketing officials were selected
randomly.
Analysis of profile characteristics revealed that more than 50 per cent of the
farmers belonged to the middle aged category and 77 per cent had at least high school
level education. About 60 per cent of the farmers depended on agriculture alone and
the majority of the farmers with vegetable area less than 0.25 ha and 0.25 to 0.4 ha
had an annual income of less than 2 lakhs. More than 50 per cent of the farmers used
the selected main marketing interventions.
Identification of components of market led extension employed by each
intervention revealed that VFPCK provided better market led extension services to its
beneficiaries. The binary logistic regression analysis revealed that variables like
owned land, leased land, area under vegetables, organizational membership and
source of price information showed a significant relation with the satisfaction of
farmers towards market led extension components. The analysis of marketing
efficiency of channels under each intervention revealed that marketing channel 4
under the Ecoshop showed highest efficiency for all the crops and the net price
received by the producer was also high for this channel.
A scale was constructed to measure the marketing behaviour of the vegetable
growers and the results revealed that the beneficiaries under Ecoshops and
Agricultural Wholesale Markets showed very good marketing behaviour. Factor
analysis using the principal component method was used to reduce the variables into
four predictor factors. The results revealed that production factor, proficiency factor
and social participation factor had significant influence over the marketing behaviour
of farmers. Cluster analysis was carried out to categorize the smallholder farmers into
different groups based on their common traits and four clusters identified were named
as neoteric farmers, full time farmers, contemporary part time farmers and
economically sound part time farmers. Discriminant analysis confirmed the
correctness of the predicted group membership of cases under each cluster to be 98
per cent.
Competition from other state produce, improper utilisation of surplus produce,
poor market infrastructure, delayed payment and lack of coordination among the
producers were some of the constraints faced by the smallholder farmers. Facilitation
of market oriented production among farmers, provision for value addition and
processing of surplus produce, establishing better market infrastructure, ensuring
timely payments to farmers and proper channelization of government support towards
market infrastructure development were some of the key suggestions for improving
the marketing interventions for better inclusion of smallholder farmers.