Milk Marketing in Co-operative sector and Private sector in Andhra Pradesh, India: A Comparative study R.V.Sujatha, T.Suseela and K.Suseela

Abstract- The study on market structure, price spread, marketing costs and marketing efficiency for milk in cooperative and private sectors of Andhra Pradesh was conducted during 2013-14. The market structure analysed using Hirschman – Herfindall index for the presence of monopoly if any, shows that the H value is 0.231, which indicate the lack of monopoly in milk marketing. To estimate sellers concentration, Bain’s classification was used according to which farmers are said to constitute a “atomistically competitive ” market. Four marketing channels were identified for milk marketing in coastal Andhra region. It was found that producer’s share in consumer’s rupee is highest in channel- I. Price spread was minimum in channel – I and highest in channel IV. The highest price spread is due to the fact that the intermediary incurred some costs and retained some portion of profit which added to the inflated price spreads. Channel-I was found to be the most efficient channel with highest marketing efficiency. It was observed that in all the channels price paid to the producer was high in private sector compared to cooperative sector. It was also found that price spread was less in private sector and hence the consumer price was also less. The major constraints identified in milk marketing were high feed cost, inadequate price for milk, poor credit facility, disease outbreak etc. Because of delay in the payment of fee for the milk sold to the cooperative society, the farmers are turning towards private firms. Infrastructures like chilling plant, pasteurization and dairy products processing plants have to be developed