Problems and Prospects of Agricultural Marketing in Hills of Himachal Pradesh

Agricultural marketing plays a crucial role in accelerating the economic development of hill agriculture. An efficient agriculture marketing system is supposed to add to the welfare of producers as well as consumers. It helps in the optimization of resource use, output management, increase in farm incomes, widening of markets, growth of agro-based industry, addition to national income through value addition and employment creation. India is a country with diverse agro-climatic endowments; conditions under which agriculture in the plains and hills present differing scenario. The mountainous region of the country has tremendous potential or cultivation of many high valued added and rare commodities. Among the 34 million people that inhabit the Himalayan region of the country, a large percentage is of the hill farming communities. The hills of India produces a wide range of goods starting from temperate fruits to subtropical fruits but lacks infrastructure facilities due to which farmers do not get better price for their produce. Traditional agriculture is the major and dominant activity in the hill economy, which confronts multiple risks and uncertainty. The hills of Himachal Pradesh also have lots of inherent constraints related to agricultural marketing in terms of inaccessibility and remoteness, marginality and fragility, scattered land holdings, traditional mode of production, low use of modern inputs, transportation difficulty due to the difficult hilly terrain, non-availability of regulated markets, lack of proper market information and absence of post-harvest infrastructure. As we all know that hilly regions are gradually diversified in favour of fruits and vegetables, different flower plants and forest trees production but, due to scarcity of proper transportation, lack of postharvest infrastructure, under-developed supporting institutions, industries, undulating topography, lack of innovative technologies etc. the growth potential of hill agriculture is still remained unexploited. Therefore, strengthening of markets, innovative marketing techniques and boosting on-line trading can help in a big way for solving the problems of marketing in hills.

Analytical assessment of maize kernels for Fe, Zn, and β-carotene dense cultivars with low phytate contents

The present paper reports that significant genetic variability was evident in Fe, Zn, β-carotene, and phytic acid (phytate, PA) contents in a set of 39 diverse maize genotypes collected from maize breeding programme of hill agriculture, India. The Fe, Zn, β-carotene, and PA concentrations were found to be in the range 19.31–50.64 mg kg−1, 12.60–37.18 mg kg−1, 0.17–8.27 µg g−1, and 6.59–7.13 g kg−1, respectively. The genotypes V335, V420, V393, V416, V414, V372, and V351 were identified to have higher concentration of β-carotene, Fe, and Zn but lower amount of PA. Possible availability of the minerals Fe and Zn was determined using molar ratio between PA as inhibitor and β-carotene as promoter for their absorption. The micronutrient molar ratio showed that Fe and Zn traits could be dependent of each other. Low R2 value revealed relation between β-carotene and kernel colour. The selected genotypes could be considered as potential sources of favourable genes for further breeding programs to develop micronutrient enriched maize cultivars.