A Study on Price Spread and Marketing Efficiency of Honey Value Chains in Thrissur District of Kerala

Abstract

Honey is produced and consumed in large quantities all over the world. India ranks eighth among honey producing countries, with a production of 0.62 lakh tonnes of honey, which contributed 3.83 percent to the world production of honey (2020). The objective of the study was to identify the value chain actors in the study area and to analyse the price spread and marketing efficiency of honey in different value chain. Thrissur district was purposively selected for the study. The study was conducted during the months of May and June 2022 and in total, 100 beekeepers, all the four processors, 30 wholesalers, 30 retailers and 30 consumers were randomly selected for the study. The tools used for the study were price spread and marketing efficiency by Shepherds method. Four value chains were identified in the study area, in which the value chain I has the highest price spread and the value chain III has the least price spread which include only beekeepers and consumers. Marketing efficiency of honey value chain was computed using Shepherd’s method and the channel III was found to have the maximum efficiency with the score of 19.27, which include only beekeepers and consumers, whereas, channel I had the least marketing efficiency with score of 4.71 which mainly includes beekeepers, processors, wholesalers, retailers and consumers. The study concluded that Channel III was efficient, from which beekeepers got the highest price of Rs. 30000 from the consumers directly.