Introduction

• At present there is a big gap in between producer and consumer. The producer are unknown about the market situation about product, neither market nor insurance policy due to lack of marketing system of fruit and vegetable and growers are disappointed. There are special pocket area for specific fruit and vegetables. There is no proper planning in marketing system.
• There is no proper synchronization of different marketing system like selection of cold storage, production area and establishment of processing industries etc. present context there are still unawareness about the planning of production and marketing systems.

• The marketing of most horticultural produce involves either direct transfer of product from the farmer to the consumer or there is a series of middleman, one to several depending upon scheme involved in the movement of product from the farm to consumer. Such middleman can be agent, contract buyers, assembler, wholesaler, retailer etc. Each of the middlemen plays an important and necessary role in the distribution of goods in the market. One should always bear in mind that for every change of produce, there is a concomitant or associated increases in price as payment of service rendered.

  The most common practices of small farmers are to harvest their crop first and then look for buyer. For perishable crop, the rapidity with which deterioration of quality of produce occurs at existing high temperature necessitates that the producer sell his product as soon as possible. Hence he usually accepts whatever price is involved. Preparation of marketing perishable crops begin with harvesting (maturity selection and some quality control) and depending upon the commodity may include some or all of the following product assembly, receiving, cleaning, trimming, sorting, grading, sizing, waxing, packaging, packing, cooling, ripening initiation, curing, storage and shipping.

  Marketing is a series of services involved in moving a product from the point of production to the point of consumption. The term service refers to the various activities performed on or for the product that after its farm, time place or profession characteristics. Examples of these activities are postharvest handling, advertising, assumption of market risk etc. These services add value to the product and performed due to existing or anticipated consumer demand.

  The total marketing systems involves all activities undertaken to move the product from the point of production (usually farm or gardens) to the point of consumption. Essentially production and marketing of farm products are mutually dependent. If no efficient marketing system exists there will be a lot of losses shouldered by the producers.

  More than 95% of fruits are produced in small scale, which results in low productivity in terms of volume and quality. Furthermore, the task of gathering small amount of produce into quantities economical transport to consumption areas, are both time consuming and costly. Actually marketing policy should be determined not by individual farmers, but by technical and administrative personal in government, loan agencies, international development plans and researches institutions. Since most of the Nepalese farmers are in subsistence economy level, the government should facilitate marketing system development, storage facilities, establishment of processing industries, etc. It will not be worthy to advice commercial and vegetable fruit, production until and unless the marketing system is developed. Recently Nepal has accede to WTO having small and vulnerable economy, Nepal has limited advantage of acceding WTO because market access of Nepalese agricultural products in the international markets has been constrained by fairly low competitiveness and poor quality of the production.

  To facilitate marketing of horticultural produce, we should consider the following points:

  • There should be restriction on the import of fruit and vegetables, which compete with local produce.
  • Development of road and transportation facilities
  • Development of pocket area for specific fruit and vegetable production.
  • Construction of storage structures.
  • Development of marketing structure.
  • Establishment of processing factories.
  • Provision of export.
  • Encourage fruit grower by providing high yielding technology improved varieties.
  • Provision for crop insurance.
  • Arrangement of loan and necessary inputs.