Economics of ginger marketing in Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya

The present study has been carried out in Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya to work out the marketing patterns of ginger and also to identify the major constraints in the production and marketing and to suggest suitable measures to overcome the problems using multistage random sampling. Four marketing channels were identified in Ri-bhoi district and found that channel I was the most effective channel in case of quantity transaction while channel iii was most efficient channel with marketing efficiency of 8.11%. producer incurred the highest marketing cost in all the channels and observed that price paid by the customer was the lowest in channel iii and the highest in channel I while the price received by the producer was the highest in channel iii and the lowest in channel i. the producer's share in customer's rupee was the highest in channel iii (53.42%) and the lowest in channel (36.36%). Thus the total marketing cost was directly related to the number of intermediaries involved in that channel. The most important constraints of ginger marketing were inadequate transportation facilities and small marketable surplus due to which farmers preferred to sell their produce through channels I at village level through it was most inefficient among all the channels.