Market arrival and price behaviour of potato in Uttarakhand

An attempt has been made to study the market arrival and price behaviour of potato in Uttarakhand. The study is based on secondary data on wholesale monthly/weekly arrivals and prices for the period of 2003 to 2012. The seasonality in market arrival and wholesale price was analyzed using multiplicative model; the Fourier analysis was used to analyze cyclical variation in market arrivals and wholesale prices. Distribution lag model and Autoregressive model were used to study the relationship between market arrival and price of potato in major markets of Uttarakhand. 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 potato. Most of the potato markets registered the positive and increasing trend in market arrivals and wholesale prices during the study period. The periodicities of 2, 3 and 4 years were observed in the market arrival and the periodicities of 2 and 3 years were observed in the wholesale price of potato in major markets of Uttarakhand. 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 of potato in the major markets of Uttarakhand. Therefore, improved market information system is a need of efficient markets in Uttarakhand 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 potato in the major market of Uttarakhand.