Watts’s paper focused on the trade in fresh vegetables and said that this sector has become one of the most vibrant sectors in international trade, and during the l990s, imports of fruit and vegetable products by EU countries surpassed all other categories of agricultural products . Gereffi reported GCCs novel in increasingly organizing international production and trade in strategic decision making and economic networks at global scale by industrial and commercial firms. Gereffi classified the commodity chains are producer-driven and buyer-driven. Producer-driven commodity chains are governing by transnational firms and buyer-driven commodities govern by retailers, importers and brand-name companies. These firms link overseas factories and traders with evolving product niches in their main consumer markets. India is one of the largest agrarian economies of the world. In the context of economic liberalization, it promotes export led growth. The Indian National Agriculture Policy focuses more on demand driven agricultural growth in domestic and export markets. Of late, WTO trade liberalization and multilateral negotiations also focus more on international agricultural commodity markets in the light of improvement of market access and limitation of export subsidies. Horticulture marketing define as finding out what your customers want and supplying it to them at a profit therefore involves: identifying buyers, understanding what they want in terms of products and how they want to be supplied, operating a production-marketing chain that delivers the right products at the right time and making enough profit to continue to operate. Horticultural sector contributes 54% of agricultural Exports and 28% of AgGDP in India. Over the last decade this sector grown at the growth rate of 3.6 percent. NHB, 2011 reported that India is second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world next only to China. This tremendous production potential offers India’s greater opportunities for exports. India produced in 2010-11, 146.55 MTs of vegetables and 74.88 MTs of fruits.
And its requirement is 175.2 MTs vegetables and 74.40 MTs fruits. In 2011-12, India exported vegetables and fruits worth Rs. 4801.29 crores. The consumption basket is changing towards fruits and vegetables. National Horticultural Mission started in 2005, Foreign Trade Policy advocating to boost export growth and promotion of horticultural products. XI & XII Plans also emphasizing accelerated horticultural growth. India is one of the world’s leading producers of finest tea 23 per cent share by volume in 2013. Its contribute 12 per cent share in world tea exports in 2013- 2014. The CIS countries accounted for 19.8 per cent of total exports in 2013- 2014 with US$ 152.46 million. India registered exports of 225.7 million kg. for approximately 78 per cent of total exports during 2013-2014 . In 2013-2014, the Russian federation was the topmost importer of Indian tea, dutch bucket for tomatoes followed by UAE and Iran respectively. Coffee Board, 2014 reported that India ranked in coffee production seventh largest in the world and third largest Asia. India exported coffee during 2013- 2014, 313,025 metric tonnes and earned foreign revenue 793.22 US$ million. India exports coffee to over 45 countries, over 50 per cent of to Europe. Italy is the largest importing more than 25 per cent from India . We are living in multi-speed world economies.World Development Report reported that markets are central to the lives of poor people and World Bank, World Development Report framed institutions that support the development of markets. UNCTAD study revealed that India’s exports to world are income elastic and found that 1% decline in GDP growth of world will lead to 1.88% decline in India’s growth of exports. Singh and S. K. Singla found from their study that India has been unable to diversify its exports as well as export destinations. Export from India has experienced instability primarily in the developing countries. Demand for India’s exports was found to be elastic to both relative prices and income of the importing countries. Traill predicts that by 2015 supermarket’s share of the retail food market will reach 61% in Argentina, Mexico, and Poland, 67% in Hungary and 76% in Brazil. IFPRI’s research shown that agricultural Market reforms liberalization programs adopted by many developing countries in the past had limited success in developing private, efficient, and competitive agricultural markets. Dastagiri and Immanuelraj advocates reforms needed to shift Indian farming from traditional farming to an agribusiness sector and develop linkages farmers to super markets and export markets is a key driver for industrialization of agriculture. Alberto and Stefano estimated import price demand elasticity in the destination markets of Italian exports found that Italy has a relatively low elasticity of substitution in main specialization sector , while has higher substitution elasticity for traditional goods like textiles, jewelry and leather.
Reardon and Hopkins ; Minton found that super markets and retailers competing om price, convenience, quality of the products and safety. Mithofer et al. found that smallholders were linked to the export market by middlemen in Kenya. Galanopoulos et al. reported that though Mediterranean countries are traditional growers of fruit and vegetables but unable to competitive in the global market. Dastagiri et al. estimated and found that for all vegetables the NPC is less than 1 indicating they are competitive in the international markets. Lenné & Ward found that the export vegetable subsector as a role model for improving the efficiency, growth and economic value of domestic vegetable marketing systems in East Africa. Dastagiri et al. reported that most of the Indian horticultural commodity markets were operating efficiently and producer-consumer was the most efficient channel. Diego et al found in Niamey, Niger for market retailers net profit for amaranth and lettuce on marketplace, whereas the NP of cabbage and tomato strongly depended on season and marketplace. This paper examines the position of Indian producers and exporters in the horticultural export trade from the perspective of the global supply chain analysis. There are limited studies on market research of horticulture commodity global supply chains and identification of major global markets. This study analyses Indian horticultural commodities export markets linking to global supply chains and price trends, elasticity’s and instability & identification of their destinations. Finally, the study will suggest multispeed strategies for improvement of global supply chains, prices, production, and trade.The study analyses the marketing of horticultural commodities exports with global supply chain perspective. India’s major export horticultural commodities were selected. It includes fruits, nuts, vegetables, flowers, coffee and tea. Study Period is 1990-1991 to 2012-2013. Data on quantity, values, and prices of exports, international prices and destinations of fruits, vegetables, flowers coffee and tea were collected. India is exporting these commodities to maximum 130 countries. Data sources are Agricultural Produce Export Development Authority , Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence ,National Horticultural Board , FAO Stat, Centre for monitoring on Indian economy , Foreign Trade Year Book, Planning commission reports, National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development , EXIM Bank, export companies, Tea & Coffee Boards. Compound annual growth rates and trends of quantity exports, prices, and price elasticity’s of exports were estimated. For each commodity, the countries classified in to the top 10 countries based on major share of exports and rest as other countries. Finally top 3 countries of India’s exports for each commodity are identified. India’s horticultural commodities global supply chains traced with the help of experts of export companies, growers and literature. The compound growth rates, price elasticity’s, instability index of exports were estimated using the following formulae’s.The forward linkages of producers to exporters in India and backward linkages of importer to consumers in importing countries channels are discussed in this section. The Flow of Indian horticultural commodities to Europe, UK and US Shown in Figure 1 and to Middle East shown in Figure 2 and to South Asia, Africa and South East Asia shown in Figure 3.
The supply chain channel to Europe, UK, US shows that growers – exporter – importer – supermarket – consumer. It is highly developed model and no middlemen involved in importing countries. Similarly,blueberry grow pot the same type of channel found for Middle East countries. In case of South Asia, Africa and South East Asia importing countries supply chain channels lengthy and middlemen involved. The farmers in Developed countries like UK, US, Europe felt the importance of connecting directly customers of domestic and exporters. This helped them to avoid middlemen as these are no way useful in value addition, quality and economic gains. Scientific, planned and organizing came to fore see and predict market signals and demand and supply position in international and local markets. This has increased their income and living standard. South Asia, East Asia, Latin America and Africa the supply channels are lengthy and middlemen are involved. This is major limitation in these countries farmers to realize high income. There is a need to start data harmonization and single window processing. In this connec-tion Digital India will help exporter to access various resources available at government level. Climate change, trade of ornamental alternative hosts in circulation and air, water, soil, plant and plant products exacerbate the pathogen proliferation and epidemiology of the dieback disease caused by Phytophthora ramorum in Japanese larch resulting in Sudden Oak Death in the UK and Europe . Containment of the outbreaks of this disease normally involves early detection, removal and destruction of infected plants, clear-felling of the infected trees and fungicidal treatments; all such operations have environ mental and forest soil health implications. The life cycle of Phytophthora ramorum is complex depending on the host, and tend to persist in dead or dying tissues in soil for very long periods and the soil phase itself is a critical mass in determining the survival and host root infections. New non-chemical measures to combat this devastating soil oomycetes are desirable worldwide for both woodland and horticulture industry. Recent reviews summarise the current trends accentuating in alternative natural biocontrol methods of using medicinal extracts or forest microbes for phytopathogens including Phytophthora spp. In natural habitats such as forests, field inoculated basidiomycetes for mineralization purposes encounter limitations due to impact emanating from competing forest soil microorganisms. However, antimicrobial potentials of forest resources remain a hot pursuit and poorly understood. Little is known on the efficacy of clusters of naturally evolved antagonists that may take on forest pathogens. Literature is scarce on natural resource expeditions seeking natural remedies for tree pathogens that may exist in their own habitat. Recently we have been actively scouting for natural resources comprising extracts of herbaceous plants including elderberry exotic mushrooms such as shiitake for antimicrobial complimentary therapies for human bacterial and fungal pathogens. In one of the expeditions, we stumbled across, a forest “fairy ring” forming mushroom—Clitocybe nebularis, and non-pathogenic tree-rhizospheric bacteria – Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus pumilis producing unique enzymes, rare antibiotics and exhibiting in vitro inhibition of environmental pathogens. C. nebularis belongs to Tricholomatoid clade of Agaricales basidiomycetes, comprising ~50+ species including commercial Tricholoma matsutake fairy ring forming mushrooms found in diverse ecological niches as ectomychorrhizae or thrive as saprobic ground fungi . Prompted in part by the prevalence of formidable natural cohabitant antagonists in the forest soil, we set out to examine if natural resources may be conservatively manipulated towards the suppression of invasive forest pathogens.
We present in vitro scoping study examining antagonistic performance of forest resources comprising aqueous extract of , ring forming fungi, Clitocybe nebularis, culture suspensions of bacteria , together with non-forest prospective candidates such as garlic extract and aqueous extracts of native medicinal plant for their antifungal efficacy against dieback Phytophthora species. The area covered by each culture was measured and recorded using the bio-imaging technique to assess inhibition/growth promoting properties of novel agents on moulds, using the Autochemisystem UVP Bioimaging system , supported by LabWorks software package. Compared to recording clearance zones by bacterial lawn in the traditional antibiotic assays, the irregular contours of fungal growth is problematic in our bioassays. The emerging irregular progression of fungal hyphal growth from the culture plug at the centre of the Petri dish would resemble an undulated marine coastline. Initially the instrument was set on white light and to an exposure ratio of 490:500, with a constant focus of 47% calibration. Using the “Area Density” tool, the entire “area of individual plate” was measured first, recorded, and then using freehand “draw” tool followed on by the “area of irregular contours” of fungal growth co-integrated within the Cartesian coordinates estimated to reflect inhibition effects as seen in culture plate. Reproductive soil is essential.