An Economic Analysis of Sorghum to Estimate Marketing Channels, Marketing Cost, Marketing Margin and Price Spread in Each Channel of Distribution in Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh

The study is on marketing cost, marketing margin and price spread in each channel of distribution of Sorghum in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh. The study was carried out in both conventional and functional analyses were employed to analyze the data and to arrive at valid conclusions. the data was collected using well structured questionnaire from three different marketing channels. Channel I: Producer → Consumer Channel II: Producer→ Village merchant/Retailer→ Consumer Channel III: Producer→ Commission agent → Wholesaler → Consumer Finally the data is analyzed using a tabulation method along with a statistical tool.


INTRODUCTION
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), being a tropical crop as its history related to the hot and humid areas of the world. The cereal grain is said to have originated around the Ethiopia as a wild grass as early as 8000 years ago. The cereal crop, once adopted and cultivated, spread across the African continent especially the regions of Egypt and Sudan. Sorghum marked its entry to the Asian continent in the first millennium. The weather conditions in the continent suited for the plantation. It is found in the arid and semi arid parts of the employment world due to its feature of being extremely drought tolerant. Sorghum is suitable to tropical as well as temperate climates, although it is best known for its good adoption to the drought prone semi-arid tropical (SAT) regions of the world.
Sorghum, (sorghumbicolor) is an annual or perennial grass in the family poaceae grown primarily for its grain.
Sorghum has an erect solid stem with one or more tillers (additionally suit that grows subsequent to the parent suit) and curving leaves which are arranged alternately on the stems and are lancelike in shape, measuring 30 -135cm (12-53) in length. The inflorescence of the plant consists of racemes of spikelets arranged on branches at the head of the plant. The spikelets are paired and have two florets. When the plant flowers, yellow anthers begin to appear on the head. Sorghum is usually grown as an annual, harvested after one growing season and can grow to a height of 4m (13ft). Sorghum may also be referred to as broom corn in Ethopia. Sorghum is also called as great millet, Indian millet, milo, durra, orshallu, cereal grain plant of the grass family and its edible starchy seeds. In India sorghum is known as jowar, cholam, or jonna. in West Africa as Guinea corn, and in China as Kaoliang. Hence jowar is commonly called as great millet belonging to Graminae and 5 th most important crop sorghum is gaining importance because of their benefits to health use to reduce sugar levels for diabetic patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was conducted in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh which is one of the 13 districts of A.P. Kurnool district comprising 54 blocks among 1 block was selected. i.e., Banaganapalli and kovelakuntla block was selected for the study. A list of 4 villages were selected randomly out of them. A list of all Sorghum farmers/respondents is prepared with the help of head of the villages pradhan or head of each selected villages in the both block, there after farmers/respondents is categorized into categories on the basis of their land holding and then from each village 10% farmers were selected randomly from all the different size of farm groups. Data for the study was collected from all 100 farmers randomly i.e., 50 marginal farmers, 35 small farmers, 15 medium farmers. Tabulation method is used for analysis of data along with required statistical tools for the interpretation of the results.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The study was conducted in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh. The necessary data were collected from the sample farmers spread over two block in the above mentioned district. The present chapter is going to talk about the results and discussion for various objectives. The chapter is arranged in different subsection according to objectives of the study. To work out price spread, marketing cost, marketing margin in different existing marketing channels.

Marketing cost
The total cost incurred on marketing by various intermediaries involved in the sale and purchase of the commodity till it reaches the ultimate consumer was computed as follow: C=C f +C m1 +C m2 +C m3 +……………………+C mn Where, C= Total cost of marketing C f = Cost borne by the producer farmer from the produce leaves the farm till the sale of the produce, and C mn = Cost incurred by the i th middlemen in the process of buying and selling.

Marketing margin
This referred to the net share to the different marketing intermediaries for particular quantity of produce after deducting marketing costs from gross marketing margins at each stage of handling the commodity.

Percent margin=
Where, PRi = Sale price of the middleman Ppi = Purchase price of the middleman Cmi = Marketing cost Incurred by the middleman  From the above table it revealed that the through channel-I, the total marketing cost was Rs.63.5/q, total marketing margin Rs.550/q, price spread rs.680/q, producers share in consumer rupee (%) was 89.54 with a marketing efficiency 9.55. Through channel -II, the total marketing cost was Rs.123.5/q, total marketing margin Rs.1050/q, price spread rs.1240/q, producer's share in consumer rupee (%) was 82.44 with a marketing efficiency 5.69. Through channel -III, the total marketing cost was Rs.121.5/q, total marketing margin Rs.1550/q, price spread rs.1550/q, and producer's share in consumer rupee (%) was 79.18 with a marketing efficiency 4.08. CONCLUSION  cropping pattern on sample farms shows that on an average in season sorghum occupied highest area 64.20 percent followed by sorghum.  In respect of market efficiency, channel I was found most efficient over channel II and channel III, because there is no anyone middlemen engaged in this marketing channel. The marketing efficiency decreased with increase in the number of intermediaries.  The village trader are the main market functionaries for purchasing sorghum from the farmers in the study.