Kachai Lemon (Citrus jambhiri), a Geographical Indication (GI) recognized fruit of Manipur, holds immense economic and cultural significance for the farming community in Ukhrul district of Manipur. Despite its unique quality attributes and potential for commercial expansion, its marketing remains unstructured/fragmented due to weak infrastructure and dependence on intermediaries. The present study investigates sources of market information, adoption of marketing practices and growers’ choice of marketing channels. Employing purposive sampling, Kachai village under Lungchong Meiphai block was selected. The findings revealed strong reliance on informal networks such as friends, relatives and neighbors for market-related information, while formal channels like extension services, cooperatives, and media channels were underutilized. K-Means clustering revealed heterogeneity in growers’ marketing practice adoption. The majority of growers sold their produce immediately after harvest in local mandis. The multinomial logit model identified farming experience, access to market information and extension contact as the factors influencing choice of marketing channels.
Devi et al. (Thu,) studied this question.