Sonam Kumari Kalwar , Kiran Thapa , Rejina Sapkota , Pappu Kumar Sah

Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, 44200, Nepal
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2024, Vol. 14, No. 3   doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0021
Received: 09 Apr., 2024    Accepted: 24 Jun., 2024    Published: 02 Jul., 2024

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Kalwar S.K., Thapa K., Sapkota R., and Sah P.K., 2024, Economics of production and marketing of potato (Solanum tuberosum) in Rasuwa District, Nepal, International Journal of Horticulture, 14(3): 186-194 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0021)

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is one of the important cash crops of Nepal which contributes a lot to the rural livelihood of Nepal. It accounts for 5.52 % to AGDP of Nepal. To study the economics of production and marketing attributes of potato farming, a study was conducted in Uttargaya rural municipality of Rasuwa district. Questionnaire-based household surveys along with field observations were conducted, taking in consideration a total of 60 potato farmers selected by simple random sampling method. Additionally, 10 traders were also selected to study about the marketing. Among the different varieties used by farmers, Cardinal was the most preferred (46.7%). The average cost of production was found to be NRs 209,238/ha with BCR of 2.02. The average productivity of potato in the study area was found to be 16.15mt/ha. The average gross margin per ha, market margin and producer’s share were found to be NRs 206,604, 28/kg and 53.33% respectively. Similarly, four types of marketing channels were particularly identified. Five-point scaling technique was used for ranking the production and marketing problems. It identified that high cost and lack of quality inputs (I=0.87), scarcity of irrigation water (I=0.72), disease/insect/pest (I=0.78) were the major production problems whereas wholesaler’s dominancy over the market (I=0.87), low market price (I=0.77) were the marketing constraints. Moreover, middlemen’s dominancy influenced the farm gate price. Technical, infrastructure, government support through subsidies if provided will surely enhance the production and profitability of potato enterprise with the advantage of climatic condition of the district.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum); Economics; Rasuwa; Production; Marketing