Litchi growers demanding for the formation of co-operatives.

I went to the villages of Kaparpura and Sarmaspur in the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar state for my field work segment (FWS). Muzaffarpur district ranks number one in production of Litchi(Litchi Chinensis). It accounts for 70% India's Litchi export. The agro-climatic condition of the district is conducive for litchi cultivation. My themepaper for the FWS was " exploring various kinds of horticultural products and their marketing networks in the Kaparpura and Sarmaspur." Litchi was one among the various other horticultural products under my study. Here I would like to share the amazing facts regarding production and marketing of litchi. I will emphasize much on the marketing aspects of litchi.
there were 52 farmers owning litchi orchard. out of that only two owners were directly involved into marketing. Rest have sold their orchard to the local middleman called paikaar. The orchard owner sell their trees in the orchard to these middleman on the basis of previous year yeild. once the orchard is sold the risk is transferred to middleman. these middle mand have contacts with the businessman outside the state. in the month of April which is the season for the litchi, these businessman send their traders to the city of Muzaffarpur. these traders purchase the litchi tree from the middleman. Grading, sorting and packaging in done in the fields. After that the packed fruits are transported to the markets of Delhi, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh. On the basis of that day market price, the price of litchi boxes are decided. the businessman informs the local middleman. upon his confirmation, boxes are sold in the market. The entire transaction takes place verbally. There is no written contract or agreement.
I wanted to know about the non-involvement of orchard owners into direct marketing of litchi. For this purpose, conducted three rounds of focus group discussion with different sets of growers. The most common reason for their non-involvement was the very short shelf life of litchi. it is just 24-36 hr. Also these growers do not have link outside the state market for exporting the fruit. so they are dependend upon the middleman and are devoid of reaping actual benefit out of litchi export. this is the scenario at the villages of my study. Most of the growers agreed that if the government starts co-operatives for litchi, then they will sell their produce to the co-operative and the government will look after the marketing of the fruits. by doing so the growers will reap maximum benefit. the litchi is sold in boxes as well as in the bunch of 100 pieces. the litchi which costs Rs. 15-25/100 piece costs around Rs. 120/kg in the markets of Ahmedabad. If co-operative is formed, the role of middleman will be abolished. Growers will be involved in the production as well as selling processes.