Is direct marketing of perishables a feasible option for farmers?

Due to perishable nature, seasonal produce and bulkiness nature of fruits and vegetables, its marketing is complicated. Selling the produce directly to the consumer helps producer to get higher percentage of consumer's share and get higher return per unit sold. But producers don't want to take risk due to perishable nature of the crops, price fluctuation, small quantity ofproduce, storage of leftover produce, labour intensive andfinancial burden etc., producers are reluctant to get involved in direct marketing of fruits and vegetables. To encourage producers for direct marketing government can create farmers’ cooperatives which can help farmers in marketing of their produce. In public sector, collection centres could be formed at village level/block level/at a cluster of villages where produce could be assembled, value addition may also be done and further could be distributed from there to different locations for direct marketing or processing. Also, during slack period, surplus labour could be used to enhance the value of the produce by proper grading, processing and packaging and could be shifted from production to marketing of the produce along with value addition.