Articles
PRODUCTION AND MARKETING OF TEMPERATE FRUITS IN NORTH-WEST REGION OF INDIA
Fruit farming is not only more remunerative as compared to field crops but is also labour intensive and thus helps in absorbing the growing population.
Such tree crops also effectively check the soil erosion.
Apple used to be the most popular fruit grown in this region and therefore, the emphasis was given to this fruit.
Recently, the emphasis has somewhat shifted to other fruits like peach, plum and apricot and these too are grown now in substantial quantum.
The cultivation of these fruits is a long term preposition and hence requires long term planning both at production as well as marketing level.
With this background, the cost of cultivation production, marketing system, economic viability of apple cultivation, plum, peach and apricot orchard raising forms the subject matter of this paper.
The primary data was collected from randomly selected fruit orchards through personal interviews.
The net returns per hectare were observed to be Rs. 14,672 for peach, Rs. 12,530 for plum and Rs. 29,208 for apricot.
The analysis revealed that the net returns were highest for orchards in the age group of 21–30 years for apples and 11–16 years for plum, peach and apricot.
The application of project evaluation measures revealed that the net present value was Rs. 26,257 for apples, Rs. 89,222 for peach, Rs. 1,17,837 for plum and Rs. 1,60,541 for apricot.
The internal rate of return was found to be about 22 per cent for apples, 33 per cent for peach and 47 per cent for apricot orchards.
The benefit-cost ratio was also worked out and was found to be 1.36, 3.87, 4.62 and 5.10 for apples, plum, peach and apricot respectively.
The producers’ share in consumers’ rupee was about 42, 40, 42 and 45 per cent for apple, plum, peach and apricot respectively.
The producer spent maximum on packing material followed by transportation cost in all the fruits.