Market Efficiency and Price Spread in Jaipur District, India

Abstract

“Price spread or farm retail spread” is the difference between the price paid by the consumers and the price received by the producer for an equivalent quantity of farm produce. Sometime, this is called as gross marketing margin. The marketing margin refers to the difference between the price received by seller at a particular stage of marketing and the price paid by him at preceding stage of marketing during an earlier period. The producer’s net share, total marketing costs, total marketing margins, consumer’s price and price spread in channel-III are given in Table 3. Table 3 reveals that, out of price of Rs 5765.00 per quintal paid by consumer, chickpea producer got Rs 5102.00 per quintal which accounted for 88.50 percent share. The share of marketing costs paid by chickpea-producer, wholesaler-cum-commission agent and retailer was 1.37, 2.05 and 0.49 percent of total consumer’s price, respectively. Total share of wholesaler-cum-commission agent was highest followed by chickpea-producer and retailer. Thus, total share of marketing cost of intermediaries in consumer’s price was 3.90 percent Agarwal et al 2015, Hazari et al. 2015. Total margin earned by middlemen, wholesaler-cum-commission agent and retailers was 5.60 and 1.94 percent of price paid by consumer. Wholesaler earned more as compare to retailer. So, total share of market intermediaries in consumer’s price was 7.55 percent. Price spread in channel –I was Rs 660.00 per quintal which was 11.45 percent of consumer’s price Chavhal et al. 2014, Khorne 2014, Bondare et al .2014 and Kumar 2014.