Who Gets What? Citrus Marketing in Bunir District of Pakistan

Citrus is a group perishable fruit and require good marketing practices, proper time and methods of harvesting, packaging, storage and processing. There are various middlemen (market intermediaries) involved at different stages in the marketing of citrus. This study is an attempt to examine the marketing margins of the intermediaries involve in the value chain of sweet oranges of citrus group. Three villages in Bunir district are randomly selected and a total of 120 sampled respondents are selected using proportional allocation method. The findings revealed that majority of the farmers sold their orchards to the pre-harvest contractors. The most widely used marketing channel was producers selling their orchard to pre-harvest contractor who then harvest the orchard, pack the produce and transport it to the market where the produce is handed to wholesalers. Wholesalers then channel the produce to retailer from where the ultimately consumers buy the product. It was also observed that considerable marketing margins were taken by the marketing intermediaries in the citrus value chain. It is recommended that the post-harvest management/marketing skills and market intelligence of the citrus growers should be developed to enable them practice self-marketing whereby they can easily pocket the market share of the pre-harvest contractors by eliminating him from the marketing chain.