Constraints faced in production and marketing of arecanut in Karnataka

Abstract

The arecanut is one of the most important crops grown in Karnataka and the state’s area under arecanut cultivation has nearly doubled in the last 15 years. Shivamogga, Davanagere, Chikkamagaluru, Dakshina Kannada. Tumkur and Uttara Kannada are the major arecanut producing districts of Karnataka, the accounting for a sizable share of 60 per cent of the area and 65 per cent of arecanut production in the state. The random sampling method was used for selection of arecanut growers and four districts were selected namely Dakshina Kannada, Chikkamagaluru, Davanagere and Shivamogga. Each districts two talukas were selected based on highest area and production of arecanut, each talukas six villages were selected and four farmers from each village were chosen for the study. Thus a total of 192 arecanut farmers were selected. To analyse the problems faced by the market intermediaries five traders, five wholesalers, five pre harvest contractors and five retailers were selected from talukas from selected districts. The total marketing intermediaries were 160. Thus, the total sample size was 360. The majority of the farmers are facing problems in production mammalians pest attacking on arecanut bunch (73.56) in Davanagere district, high wage rates of labour in Chikkamagaluru and incidence of pest and diseases attack in Shivamogga and Dakshina Kannada districts. In case of arecanut marketing problems were lack of storage facilities, poor transport facility and price fluctuations. The need of present era is to increase the productivity of arecanut crop. This could be achieved by adopting improved production practice, high yield varieties and new technologies of crop