Production and marketing of Marigold flowers in Uttar Pradesh with special reference to Kannauj district

The study was undertaken during the season of 2009-10 to estimate the cost of cultivation of marigold flower and returns and marketing margins of different middleman involved in marigold flower trade in Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh. The study was based on information collected from randomly 60 marigold flower growing farmers, commission agent cum wholesaler and retailers. The overall cost of cultivation of marigold flower was estimated as Rs. 7365 per hectare. The overall gross income and average net income from marigold crop was estimated to be Rs. 121792 and Rs. 48141 per hectare, respectively. The average return per rupee investment was estimated as Rs. 1.66, which shows that marigold cultivation was highly profitable in the selected area. Out of two marketing channels, Channel-I (producer-commission-retailer-consumer) was the important channel from producers point of view, where producers received more percentage share (35.68 per cent) in consumer’s rupee than the channel-II (31.95 per cent). The total marketing cost was Rs. 6.90 and Rs. 8.63 per kilogram of marigold flower for channel-l and channel-II, respectively. The major item of marketing cost were the value of quantity loss and labour charges. In channel-I retailers earned a margin of 10.35 and 34.69 per cent of the price paid by the consumers