Economic benefits of marketing of value added marigold flowers

The production of high value cash crops such as flowers has always been more beneficial to the farmers than the traditional crops but the marketing channels used for its marketing, post harvest management and value addition significantly affect the returns of the farmers. This study covers the value addition aspect in marigold flower crop and its impact on the marketing efficiency of crop. The study was conducted in the subtropical region of Jammu for which the farmers, wholesalers and retailers of Jammu and Kathua districts were selected by multistage sampling technique. The marketing channel (Farmer-wholesaler-Retailer-Consumer) was selected for analysis. The study concludes that the marketing of marigold as garlands increase the income of the farmers by more than 40 percent. The marketing efficiency of the channel was 0.60 when farmer was making garlands while it was 0.26 in case of wholesaler and retailer although the marketing margin of the beneficiary performing value addition was increased.