An Evaluation of Marketing of Groundnut and Sunflower in Bagalakot District of Karnataka State

Agricultural marketing is now being considered as an integral part of production process. The various aspects of marketing of groundnut and sunflower have been studied in six talukas of Bagalkot district of Kamataka state taking a sample size of 240 respondent that is around 40 respondent farmers from each taluka. An effort has been made to evaluate and examine the problems in the various functional areas of marketing of groundnut and sunflower crops pertaining to assembling, storage, packing, grading, insurance, transportation, channel of distribution, obtaining market information, pricingof product. It was found that the government as well as private warehouses and Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) warehouses were used by the grower for storage. The responses indicated that they preferred sales at APMC yard. Grading was generally done by the farmers themselves with the help of expert laborers. The farmers did not insure their produce before it was sold and the main sources of market information was obtained from commission agents, APMCs, newspapers, radio and Television. All the farmers were not satisfied with the present system of price fixing for their produce and have affirmed that the price they obtained from the buyers is arbitrary.