Problems of Agriculture and Horticulture Marketing in Jharkhand

Jharkhand’s agriculture is characterized by its low productivity which has resulted into a far above the ground incidence of rural poverty. It is a disappointment that there has not been any noticeable improvement in the economic situation of the people and rural infrastructure such as irrigation, water harvesting, rural connectivity and communication, storage & marketing etc. due to ill–governance, political instability and corruption. Agriculture marketing system in developing countries including India can be understood to arrange of two most important sub–systems such as product marketing and input marketing. Jharkhand is one of the most important producers of vegetable in India. About 3.2% of the gross cropped area of the state is under vegetable crops. The most important vegetable crops grown in the state in order of area covered by them are potato, tomato, lady finger, peas, cauliflower, brinjal and cabbage. The purpose of the study the paper to study of the situations of the agricultural and horticultural marketing in Jharkhand and the problems of agriculture and horticulture marketing in Jharkhand. The extend of vegetable cultivation in rural areas has created new problems, particularly of transport, handling, packing and storage which are at a standstill in their formative stage. There is also regional specialization in growing some vegetables. They are grown in one area but marketed in other areas for creating wider market and also to fulfill the demand of some people, who have liking for them. This also involves long distance transport.


Introduction
Agricultural marketing refers to all or any those processes which share to delightful the agricultural product from the farmers to the consumers. It includes get-together the agricultural produce, their standardization, grading, storage, sending them to the market all the way through various middlemen, selling within the market and arranging the required finance etc. It is an important part of agricultural production. Our efforts towards rising agricultural production cannot be sustained for long except raise in production results in rising incomes for farmers and ensures remunerative prices and fair deals in the removal of their produce. In a predominately agricultural country the prominence on raising farm productivity has always received considerable attention from policy makers and planners. This has resulted into implementation of scientific inputs all through the world and in rising degree has been accepted as the most significant component for raising agricultural production. Horticultural development had not been a main concern in anticipation of recent years in India. It was later in the post 1993 phase that focused attention was given to horticulture sector development in India as well as the state of Jharkhand, an improvement of plan distribution and knowledge based technology. All taken together, India's contribute to the world's vegetable market is 17%. At present, the horticultural crops cover 13.6 million hectares, i.e. 7% of the gross cropped area and contribute 18-20% of the gross value of India's agricultural output. China is the first and India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world and accounts for about 16% production of vegetables and 10% production of fruits in the world. But we are at a standstill lagging behind in actual exports of these produce. Jharkhand is a fast up-and-coming vegetable growing state in India. The various factors like appropriate geo-physical situation of the state, increased area under vegetable cultivation, higher profitability of vegetables etc. has been support to grow vegetables all through the year. Potato, cauliflower, tomato, brinjal, lady finger etc are grown throughout the year. The vegetables of the state are not only catered to the demand of the consumers in the local market of Ranchi but also to the regional and extra-regional markets issues. About 7% of food grains (paddy, wheat, maize, etc), 30% of fruits and vegetables are lost before reaching the market due to lack of suitable handling i.e. cleaning, sorting, grading and packaging etc. facilities at the village level. Lack of infrastructure like storage, transportation, telecommunication, internal control, packaging, price risk management, integration of spot markets with commodity exchanges, pledge financing through a series of accredited storage and warehouse receipt system, cool chains, market led extension and conducive framework for encouragement of contract farming are others barriers. The important reverse constraints for competitive agricultural and horticultural marketing system within the economy of India. Agricultural and horticultural marketing is a bridge between producers and consumers, is said to the activities taken places within the whole process during which agricultural and horticultural marketing products move from producers to consumers. The effective agricultural marketing system ensures efficient association between farmers and consumers and rapid transfer of consumer's must production process. Having efficient agricultural marketing system will then help to develop not only the agricultural sector but also economy as an entire. Therefore, it is nationally a vital task to determine an efficient food marketing system. Having efficient agricultural marketing system is more significant in developing countries than in developed countries, for two distinctive reasons. Firstly, in fast-growing countries, urban areas develop speedily thanks to an outsized migration of population from rural to urban areas. As urban areas grow, it becomes more significant for a nation to efficiently supply food to urban people. Secondly, developing countries got to decrease marketing margin of agricultural goods so as to be competitive in international markets. The efficient agricultural marketing system will help reaching this goal by falling distribution costs to overseas markets. "At current there are a unit variety of agencies occupied in storage and storage activities. The Food Corporation of Asian Nation, the Central Storage Corporation and State Storage Corporation area unit among the major agencies engaged during this task. These agencies facilitate in build up buffer stock, which might be utilized in the hour of want."

Objectives
➢ To study the situations of the agricultural and horticultural marketing in Jharkhand. ➢ To study the problems of agriculture and horticulture marketing in Jharkhand.

Review of Literature
Vegetables are grown all through the year even then the per capita accessibility is about 120 gm/head/day in contrast to the recommended level of 300 gm/head/day (Kaith, 1996), Therefore there is more than enough scope of improving productivity of agricultural and horticultural crops (vegetables) in our country. Jharkhand is one of the states a major producer of agricultural and horticultural crops (vegetable) in India.
The gross cropped area of vegetables is about 3.2% of the state total cropped area. The most important agricultural and horticultural crops (vegetable) grown in the state in order of area enclosed by them are potato, tomato, ladies finger, peas, cauliflower, brinjal and cabbage. The various agro-climate situation of Jharkhand are good-natured for production of a variety of agricultural and horticultural crops (vegetables) all through the year. The agricultural and horticultural crops (vegetables) produced in this plateau region have special comparative advantage as these are of superior quality and ready for market when these are not produced in plains. Therefore, the offseason vegetables produced in this region obtain high prices. This has made vegetable farming a highly profitable and attractive venture for the farmers.

Universal Problems in Agricultural Markets
As per International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) research, the situation of agriculture markets has changed as compared to situation before twenty five years especially for smallholder producer thanks to trends in national and international agriculture markets. Markets not have fixed nominal prices. Instead, new commercial relations must be established with a countle ss of suppliers and buyers and costs. Selling produce or purchasing inputs are now largely negotiated. For farmers particularly those producing export crops in areas enjoying high quality communications this has created new opportunities. For several others, especially those trying to supply market staples in remote areas of low down agro-ecological potential, it is created major problems. The complexity of market access may usefully be considered constant with three dimensions: ✓ Physical Access to Markets, ✓ Structure of the Markets and ✓ Lack of Skills.
Jharkhand is a state of potential for vegetables and fruits production. It is predictable that the annual production of vegetables has achieved 36 lakh million tones. An excellent proportion of these vegetables are being marketed in the neighboring states of U.P, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and Chattisgarh by produce's societies. The 28 Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) are scattered with many numbers of gramin haats which are the centers of trade for these agricultural produce apart from slight forest products. The state after its formation in the year 2000 has present at birth undeveloped rural marketing infrastructures which will require vast financial resources for its restructuring. In current years, the state has taken steps to meet this gap. Apni Mandi Yojna in gramin haats of Ranchi APMCs is under process which comprises cleaning, grading, sorting and packing platforms along with 16 numbers of cold rooms of 5 million tones capabilities with e-kiosk. This rural haat has witnessed multiple growths in vegetable production. It is being implemented with a view to link it to state and national markets to facilitate the farmers get a sensible return at their produce. The growth of vegetables and fruits markets requires complete cold chain infrastructures. For the year 2015-16, one integrated cold chain infrastructure at a cost of 21.97 crores with Information Quality Guidelines (IQG) and ripening chamber facility and five adjoining rural haats with model haat infrastructure of 30 million tones cold room, core facilities and support, service and maintenance infrastructures have been permitted under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) for Ranchi and neighboring APMCs. Similar models of development of gramin haats need to be replicated for all the rural haats of the entire state. However it is initially capital concentrated and the state will require central funding or soft loans from other windows on a large scale. It will be valuable to mention that capital from private sector is not easily flowing to this sector. Keeping in view of requirement for a national market, Jharkhand State Agricultural Marketing Board (JSAMB) has entered into a first stage Memorandum of Understanding (MoS) with National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) -eML with a view to begin appropriate measures for physical and electronic requirement of e-market. In the first stage infrastructures for 17 APMCs and 17 gramin haats will be decorated up with e-market facilities. It will go a long way in linking the state with national market especially for the vegetable market where the produce is highly perishable and the price is highly unstable, e-trading will further ensure homogeneous and transparent prices for the agricultural commodities. JSAMB has also required the services of consultants for attaining zero wastage of vegetables which is anticipated to be nearly 30% of the produce. Indian agriculture is overwhelmed by several problems; some of them are natural and some others are artificial.

Lack of Information:
The market place for agricultural products in India is not perfectly competitive within the sense that the farmers do not usually get adequate information about the value that overcome in large and organized markets. Due to lack of communication facilities, the knowledge about market prices rarely reaches the farmers. Since most farmers are illiterate and badly informed they take at face value whatever price rules in all parts of the market. As a replacement for, lack of market information causes variations in market prices.

A Long Chain of Intermediaries:
The number of middlemen and intermediaries between the farmer and the final consumer of most agricultural commodities is very big. Thus, the total margin going to the traders is quite a huge part of the market price. Some of them, like the dalals, hardly perform any economic function. So the farmer hardly gets anything compared to the problem put and expenses incurred.
Unethical Practices: Many imitation practices are observed in rural markets. The whole method of transaction is against the interest of the farmer. In the mandis, the farmer has to approach a broker (a dalal) to be able to dispose of his produce to the arhitiya. These two intermediaries often use code words to settle the value under cover and not in open. Although they act for both the customer and thus the seller, they serve the interest of the customer than that of the vendor by forming collusion with the arhitiya. Moreover, false weights and measures are used and unnecessary deduction is formed from the quoted price on the pretention that his produce is of lower quality. Therefore, the farmer is exploited in different ways and the whole method of transaction is against the interest of the farmer. In short, most transactions are inequitable and unprincipled.

Multiplicity of Charges:
There are multiplicities of charges on the seller. Some of these are rightful such as commission, carriage and weightiest, while others are not. In each case the seller has to pay more than the buyer. Peasants are also to pay different indirect taxes such as octroi (a tax on the inter-state movement of goods), terminal taxes and municipal tolls. In theory, these are in general paid by the consumers because the demand for agricultural commodities is elastic. But in practice these are paid by the seller the poor and helpless cultivator.

Lack of Proper Marketing Facilities:
In very current times, the quantum of marketed surplus has enlarged significantly in certain areas due to the raise of green revolution. But this has not been supported by a corresponding raise in market yards and other subsidiary facilities. Therefore, the farmer has been the single sufferer.

Debt Obligation and Distress Sales:
The typical farmer is nearly at all times in debt. So he cannot wait after the harvest so on obtain superior prices in future. He has got to make distress sales to the moneylender or the trader straight away after the harvest, for clearing his debt. This weakens the situation of the farmer. His situation deteriorates further when, at a later date, he has to make suffering purchase from the open market by obtaining consumption loan. Therefore the major point is that the farmer has to sell his produce at the wrong time, at a wrong place and at an unfavorable price. As a result his revenue falls.

Condition of Agricultural and Horticultural Wholesale Markets in Jharkhand
Wholesale markets play a vital role in distribution of agricultural and horticultural marketing products. Wholesale markets have different functions including assembling and disassembling, price discovery, dissemination of market information, etc. There are two sorts of agricultural and horticultural marketing wholesale markets in Jharkhand are public wholesale markets and personal wholesale markets. Public wholesale markets are constructed using budgets of the central and local governments and operated by the local governments. In 2014, there have been public wholesale markets in big cities. Public wholesale markets are operated by the principles laid out in the law about marketing and price stabilization of agricultural and horticultural products as well as marine products. The law requires, within the public wholesale markets, all of agricultural and horticultural products should, in theory, be transacted by auctions during which registered jobbers and institutional buyers contribute. Private wholesale markets, once a leading sort of agricultural and horticultural wholesale market, became smaller in agricultural and horticultural marketing than before. As the numbers of public wholesale markets have greater than before, the amount of personal wholesale markets has decreased in current years. Traditional commission wholesalers are frequently criticized as conducting inequitable trade practices and evading taxes, justifying government's involvement within the expansion of public wholesale markets. At the wholesale markets, agricultural and horticultural products over and over again undergo several hands of different wholesalers.

Figure -01: Distribution Process in Agricultural and Horticultural Wholesale Markets
Source; Agricultural and Fishery Marketing Corporation, 2013 Wholesale markets, however, have stagnated in current years takes to some limitations. Firstly, wholesale markets do not react rapidly to changes in food retail structure. Wholesale markets do not perform well in supplying agricultural and horticultural products to large scale retailers who want constant prices and standardized products. Agricultural and horticultural products traded in wholesale markets are in most cases not well standardized in terms of quality and size. It is also argued that prices formed in wholesale markets are excessively fluctuated. Because of these limitations, large scale retailers are raising the share of direct purchase from producer organizations, like agricultural and horticultural cooperatives and farming relatives. Secondly, agricultural and horticultural wholesale markets bring upon yourself more cost than other marketing channels because agricultural products undergo many marketing stages. Higher fees and logistics costs also are charged in agricultural and horticultural wholesale markets.

Position of Cooperative Marketing in Jharkhand
Cooperative marketing plays a vital role in connecting farmers with consumers. While bargaining coops are formed for bargaining for price and other terms of trade, general marketing coops perform full marketing functions, like grading, processing, packaging, labeling, storage, distribution, merchandising, etc. In particular marketing cooperatives may advance quality by adequate sorting and grading and have stronger bargaining power by pooling of members products and marketing agreement with producers. Cooperative marketing in agricultural and horticultural products implies participation of selling and processing functions by farmers or producers as a sort of forward integration. Benefits of cooperatives are decrease in transaction costs, raise in bargaining power by cartelization, raise in counter-veiling power against monopolized marketing and processing firms and diversification of agricultural producers to processing or marketing as new income sources. As a trading method, National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation (NACF) integrated food distribution centers adopt private agreement unlike wholesale markets, which adopt the auction system. Functions of distribution centers are unloading, unpacking, inspecting, receiving, handling, storing, consolidation, picking, retrieving, replenishing, packing, sorting, palletizing, loading/shipping, order processing, documentation, cycle counting, inventory control, tracking etc. It is often argued that wholesale agricultural and horticultural crops distribution centers have lower marketing margin and better effectiveness than wholesale markets because they will reduce marketing stages of agricultural and horticultural products. However, it is criticized that NACF distribution centers focus more on retailing as a substitute of wholesaling which is meant to be the nearly all agricultural and horticultural marketing. The Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a logistics skill to help the allocation center efficiently connect the suppliers as well as the retail customers utilizing highly developed Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Utilizing the SCM system, retail customers can order merchandise on line to the allocation center and successively the allocation center can order merchandise on line to the shippers. In addition, the allocation center can adopt advanced SCM technology such as Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), which makes the allocation center control inventory itself using inventory data provided by retail customers .

Figure -03: Concept of Supply Chain Management
Source; Agricultural and Fishery Marketing Corporation, 2013 The current marketing system has certain shortcomings as, (a) Value chain is too long and fragmented and therefore, particularly in perishables, share of the producer in the consumer's rupee is extremely low, (b) Lack of standardization and enforcement of quality and grades, (c) Insufficient and ineffective services to the farmers regarding inputs and information, (d) Lack of facilities of grading, packing, cold storage and processing, (e) Inadequate transparency in marketing, (f) Lack of private sector investment, (g) Lack of coordination among concerned line departments, (h) No convergence of the schemes, (i) The schemes implementation is not integrated, (j) End to end approach is missing, (k) Inadequate availability of funds, (l) Inadequate infrastructure in agricultural marketing system, (m) Lack of adequate arrangements to take the marketing information and marketing intelligence to the producers, (n) Inadequate risk improvement measures and (o) Lack of alternate marketing system, coupled with poor knowledge of agricultural and horticultural marketing.

Problems in Agriculture and Horticulture Marketing in Jharkhand
In agricultural and horticultural marketing transportation cost, inadequate market infrastructure, lack of market information, lack of processing units, storage facility, price fluctuation are the main problems. Eliminating middlemen, enough storage facility, freedom from moneylenders, adequate transportation facilities, availability of loan and training facilities, etc. are required for satisfactory agricultural and horticultural marketing. Some people have suggested that crop insurance and technical guidance should be provided for development in agricultural and horticultural marketing in India as well as the state of Jharkhand. Among all these problems, transportation charges are concerned as a major problem by the maximum number of farmers. Although the future of vegetable production in the Jharkhand seems very intense with the version of some of the techniques mentioned above, but the issues that delay a flat walk for the version of these techniques and also in realizing the full potential of the vegetable sector of Jharkhand, are listed below: ➢ Lack of professionalism and small land holding ➢ Falling water levels and lack of irrigation facilities ➢ Lack of market knowledge and marketing skills ➢ Expensive credit ➢ Poor infrastructure ➢ Controlled prices ➢ Many intermediaries who raise cost but do not add much value ➢ Laws that stifle private investment ➢ Inappropriate R&D-agriculture is a state subject ➢ Most states have little funds to invest in vegetable R&D. Vegetable growing being labor concentrated can substantially raise employment avenues too with high quality returns to its producers, if cultivation and marketing will properly do. Our country is gifted with a wide range of agro-climatic situation which enables the production of vegetables throughout the year in one part of the country or the other and then maintaining a nonstop supply of fresh vegetables. These off season vegetables are in large demand in home market as well as in the neighboring gulf countries. It is to be noted here that crop production has now became a big business whereas marketing of vegetable crops is quite compound and risky due to their perishable nature, seasonal production and bulkiness. Thus, marketing of vegetables is one of the significant aspects of agricultural business. Jharkhand is a fast rising vegetable growing state in India. The different factors like suitable geo-physical situation of the state, increased area under vegetable cultivation, higher profitability of vegetables etc. has been support to grow vegetables throughout the year. Potato, cauliflower, tomato, brinjal, lady finger etc are grown throughout the year. The vegetables of the state are not only catered to the demand of the consumers in the local market of Ranchi but also to the regional and extra-regional markets. Vegetables are an item of daily consumption, they are necessary in human diet but they are very perishable in nature. Therefore, the cultivation of vegetables is in general concentrated around towns and cities, so that they can be harvested and transported to the market immediately and in fresh form. With the raise in transport and communication facilities, vegetable cultivation has extended in interior areas where irrigation facilities are available. This is because growing vegetable crops is more gainful than any other seasonal crop particularly the food grain crop. The extend of vegetable cultivation in rural areas has created new problems, particularly of transport, handling, packing and storage which are at a standstill in their formative stage. There is also regional specialization in growing some vegetables. They are grown in one area but marketed in other areas for creating wider market and also to fulfill the demand of some people, who have liking for them. This also involves long distance transport. For this purpose, high-quality roads in the interior villages are necessary. Fortunately there are good state and national highways, but there are no good roads in the interior. This brings us to the problem of marketing of vegetables grown. The producer cannot go to long distant market and he has to depend on some intermediaries to sell his vegetables.
In view of the scale and objectives of vegetables growth envisaged in the coming years, the troubles afflicting the systems and structures of vegetable marketing have to be addressed on a priority basis. This necessitates the following measures: 1. Encouraging the collective organization of farmers with related economic interests 2. Timely supply of the quality inputs, particularly seeds 3. Training on recent methods of production should be provided to the farmers before vegetable sowing of appropriate practices suited to small & marginal farms 4. Encouragement of contract farming throughout vertical integration with large marketing and vegetable processing firms 5. Encouraging the organization of actual cooperative marketing societies, that should be allowed to function without technical interference and with professional management 6. Increase of the marketing infrastructure by rising the number of market places, upgrading the facilities at the designated market places, constructing rural go downs, cold storages and making arrangements with the credit institutions to honor ware house receipts and pledges 7. Condition of inclusive and timely information on vegetable prices by establishing IT enabled village information kiosks all over the state at panchayat/block level 8. Deduction of policy hurdles by regularly reviewing legislation and government orders to meet exigencies 9. Beginning of an awareness movement for examining standards and sorting out products according to well-established grades.
Other Measures: 1. Creation more funds available to agricultural university and centers of all India Council for Agricultural Research, ICAR for research work leading to discovery of HYV seeds appropriate for different geophysical situation. 2. Ensuring sufficient and timely institutional credit to the farmers, simplification of process for approve and payment of loans and issue agricultural credit cards to every farmers. 3. Arrangement for supply of inputs and marketing of farm's produce together with storage. 4. Improving Soil Fertility: The farmers should be motivated to obtain their soil samples tested at soil testing laboratory and use the soil nutrients according to the soil deficiency.

Provision of Extension Services:
The extension agents should be provided regular training about the most recent developments of new seeds and crop practices and they should encourage the farmers to use the same. 6. Diversification of Farming Activities: Farmers should be motivated and assisted to spread their agricultural activities into dairy, poultry, goatry, fishery, horticulture, flower, mushrooms, agro processing and other market driven activities. Therefore, in the marketing of vegetables costs are involved for grading, packing, transport, loading/unloading, fees, etc. In addition, the intermediaries also take some margins for them. These costs and margins settle on the final price to be paid by the consumer. After deducting market costs and margins from the final price paid by the consumer, farmer gets his net price, which is referred to "Farmer's share in consumer's price."

Conclusion
It is concluded that the respondents rate high level troubles of marketing vegetables in farmers' market with reference to damage cost, intermediaries exploitative practices and perishability of product, transportation cost and high storage cost. The respondents rate low level troubles of marketing vegetables in farmers' market with reference to irregular supply, ancient method of selling and price fixation, packing and loading problems, quality variation in production, packing of products. There is an inverse relation between the farm size of the respondents and their overall troubles of marketing vegetables and fruits in farmers' market. It could be noted that higher their farm size, lower their overall troubles of marketing vegetables in farmers' market and the vice versa. Thus, the existing system of marketing of vegetables output in Ranchi has not proved to be sufficient and efficient. Farmers are not able to sell their surplus produce remuneratively and there are widespread suffering sales, particularly by marginal and small farm households. The vegetable markets suffer from some structural weaknesses, such as the subsistence of unorganized small producers as against organized buyers, weak holding capacity of the small producers, and the absence of any storage infrastructure. The system has undergone several changes during the previous five decades owing to rising commercialization, raise in urbanization and the consequent change in the pattern of demand for marketing services. More than 90% of the vegetable growers sell their produce in villages, mostly to traveling traders; at much lower prices than the procurement price of the respective agricultural commodities. There are very few procurement centers and a majority of them do not operate on a regular basis. Jharkhand's agriculture is characterized by its low productivity which has resulted into a far above the ground incidence of rural poverty. It is a disappointment that there has not been any noticeable improvement in the economic situation of the people and rural infrastructure such as irrigation, water harvesting, rural connectivity and communication, storage & marketing etc. due to ill-governance, political instability and corruption. The state needs to make a deep investment in rural infrastructure including irrigation which is the most important uncertain block to agricultural prosperity. The banking and co-operative institutions should rise their lending to the farmers. Further, the agriculture needs to be diversified into dairy, poultry, fishery, horticulture, sericulture, mushrooms, flowers, medicinal plants etc. to raise the farm income and employment. After these measures are taken, there would be a higher possibility to increase agricultural and horticultural productivity and production and get better the economic situation of the rural people.