Abstract
An attempt has been made to study the price behaviour of major vegetables in hill region of Nepal. The study is based on secondary data on wholesale monthly/weekly arrivals and prices for the period of 2000-01 to 2009-10. The seasonality in wholesale price was analyzed using multiplicative model; the Fourier analysis was used to analyze cyclical variation in wholesale prices and Autoregressive model to study the relationship between market arrival and price of vegetables in market of hill region of Nepal. It was found that during the post-harvest period, the wholesale price ruled very low while during the lean period, the prices were quite high which is due to seasonal and perishable nature of the vegetables. The entire vegetables registered the positive and increasing trend and periodicities of 2 to 3 years in the wholesale price of vegetables. The effect of lagged price on current wholesale price was positively significant and high in magnitude and significant negative response was observed for the relationship between wholesale price and market arrival for all the vegetables in the market of hill region. Therefore, improved market information system is a need of efficient vegetable markets in Nepal in order to enable farmers to make proper production and marketing decisions. Further, Government is required to create market infrastructure facilities like warehousing, processing, transportation, etc. for reducing the variation in prices of vegetables in the market of hill region of Nepal. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/sja.v10i2.18332 SAARC J. Agri., 10(2): 107-120 (2012)
Highlights
Nepal is a landlocked country lying on the southern slope of Himalayas in South Asia between People’s Republic of China in North and India in South, North and East
In view of above situation, the present study was conducted with the main objective to examine the temporal price behaviour of vegetables in the hill region of Nepal
The change in determinants of supply and demand over a period of time will affect the price which will lead to seasonality effect in price series that is generally more during off-seasons
Summary
Nepal is a landlocked country lying on the southern slope of Himalayas in South Asia between People’s Republic of China in North and India in South, North and East. The importance of vegetables in agricultural economy of Nepal can be very well appreciated in terms of their rising domestic demand, providing better employment and income opportunities to the growers in view of their being labour intensive nature and more remunerative. While domestic demand is steadily rising, the production and supply of vegetables face tremendous uncertainties on several accounts. Their extremely perishable nature, bulkiness, and sensitiveness to climatic conditions results in inability on the part of producers to manage their supply in assembling markets. In view of above situation, the present study was conducted with the main objective to examine the temporal price behaviour of vegetables in the hill region of Nepal. The hill region has the potential for producing seasonal as well as off-seasonal vegetables
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call