Livelihood Enhancement through Value Addition and Marketing of Turmeric in Dang District of Gujarat

The poor farmers had little knowledge of how to market their produce, so they fetched very low price for their produce, sometimes which even ran into losses. The market study hinted at the fact that raw turmeric is unprofitable to sell, so the farmers should go for value addition, like making turmeric powder, packaging, branding and selling either in wholesale or retail markets. For this in Dang district, some villages have made sincere effort in value addition through purchasing of machineries by jointly /cooperative basis. This effort helped these villages in terms of more production, quality improvement, process improvement and higher earnings. For marketing, villagers have tied up with some retailers. They are also thinking to establish their own wholesale and retail counters at Waghai, Saputara (major tourist centres) and Surat (major market for vegetables in South Gujarat). The benefit of value addition in case of turmeric-wet was found to be Rs. 1100 for 200 kg of turmeric and in case of turmeric powder total benefit was found to be Rs. 1,62,350 for 1700 kg of turmeric.