Sub-Themes: Agriculture and rural development market mechanism for lac agricultural product

Lac cultivation was once the main economic activity of the district and it was the main source of income for villagers because the land and its texture and climate were not congenial for traditional cultivation of paddy etc. specially lac agriculture plays an important role in the life of forest fringe communities invariably to medium farmers as well as small/marginal farmers. I have dealt with such type of 50 farmers who have resorted lac agriculture as their livelihood. My endevour is to show the marketing phenomenon from head-load selling to large scale marketing.

The price which the consumer paid for per unit of produce minus the price which the producer received is properly known as the price spread. The larger the price spread or gap, the smaller the share of the producer in consumer's rupee. As the material has to pass through some intermediaries, naturally the price goes up or the share of the cultivator is reduced. The study was taken up to consider the marketing channels, costs and price spread to understand the lac marketing scenario at different levels such as growers, middlemen and processing units. The information regarding the price of raw lac, amount of lac arrivals and number of primary purchasers, wholesalers and Arhatiyas involved in lac trading have been collected. This analysis deals with the collection of primary data from the adjacent areas of Jhalda, Balarampur and Baghmundi with the help of pre-tested schedules.

The marketing channels play an important role in marketing structure, magnitude of marketing margins of marketing intermediaries and market efficiency. As it is well understood the return over cost of production is higher in direct selling. It tends to decline with an increase in the number of intermediaries in the marketing process. As it is well understood the return over cost of production is higher in direct selling. It tends to decline with an increase in the number of intermediaries in the marketing process. In order to get vivid picture we have surveyed four important Haats and personalities and functionaries associated with Rangeeni and Kusumi (two strains of lac crop) sticklac marketing. In this presentation I also focus light on the price spread and producer's share by different size groups (large-medium-small) and channels as percentage of wholesaler's price. The result come out with the conclusion contrary to the general belief that small farmers get higher price as compare to larger firms.

But result revealed that producer's share is low while the margin of intermediaries and marketing costs are high meaning, thereby, less efficient market still operated in this district. The seminar presentation will highlight a few salient feature involving constraints of marketing efficiency, which was mentioned in the concluding part of final paper.