Marketing of sweet jelly seeds of palmyra fruit: A study covering the tribal region of South Gujarat, India

Abstract

Palmyra is a naturally occurring palm in Gujarat’s southern region, spread randomly on all soil and land types. The major produce utilized from palmyra palm for livelihood by the tribal communities, contributing considerably to their income, is through sales of the immature soft jelly seed nuts of the fruit called “galeli”. The present investigation was carried out to study the marketing cost, margin, and price spread in galeli marketing. Primary data for the period collected from 2015-16 to 2017-18, were pooled from 50 palmyra palm growers selected randomly, representing five tribal villages of Mahua taluka of Surat district in the South Gujarat region. Two marketing channels viz., Channel-I: producer-consumer and Channel-II: producer retailer consumer were observed, and the marketing cost, incurred on galeli marketing in these channels were worked out, which was `51.64 and ` 33.94 per hundred galeli, respectively. The highest producer’s share in consumer’s rupee was worked out in Channel-I. The study showed that the major constraint faced by 78 per cent of the palmyra palm growers in the marketing of galeli was the poor functioning of the climber equipment and non-remunerative prices for galeli in the local market.