Abstract
The present study attempted to forecast fresh vegetables production, total export and agricultural export earning especially vegetables export earning, estimate domestic demand, determine nature of market integration of domestic and international markets, estimate growers' profitability, identify the efficient marketing channel and examine export potentials of fresh vegetables including their problems and prospects. Out of 22 selected vegetables, cubic and quadratic growth models are applicable respectively for ten and six, which means that growth rates of these vegetables are not constant over the time. Five-year forecast of vegetable production has also been made using the best-fitted model implying that if the present growth rate continues, the summer, winter and total vegetable production in Bangladesh would be 303048 MT; 549097 MT and 852145 MT in the year 2010-11.The study examined based on best fitted ARIMA model. The findings of the study revealed that if the present export earnings continue, Bangladesh would earn $647 million from total export, $418 million from agricultural export and $386 million from vegetables export in the year 2010-2011. The budget shares of vegetables, pulse and other cereal, milk and milk products and fruits were found higher compared to national average implying that urban households spent more for quality food. The expenditure on non-food, vegetables, rice, milk and milk products was higher for rural households compared to urban households indicating that any policy for increasing the income of the rural people is likely to enhance the diversity in a high quality diet. The compensated and uncompensated own price elasticities of vegetables were found inelastic. The estimate of cross price elasticities indicates that the substitution effects of price are not quite strong. The cross price effect had no clear direction and a relatively low degree of complementary and substitutability existed with other food commodities. Therefore, government price intervention may not lead to considerable price repercussion in the economy. The fresh vegetables markets in Bangladesh are highly cointegrated except in some hilly and costal areas. So, it would be easy for the government to take a centralized effective intervention to achieve food sufficiency, remove nutrition deficiency, and implement efficient market policy. The fresh vegetables export markets of United Kingdom (UK)-Saudi Arabia; UK- United Arab Emirate (UAE) and UK-Singapore were less integrated for having less communication and complexity in export procedures. Bangladesh and other selected export markets are highly integrated for having the facility of information technology. The UK-Saudia Arabia; UK-UAE; UK- Singapore and UAE-Singapore do not support the strong form of market integration because of inadequate communication facility. The highest marketing cost was found for exporters (90%), followed by Beparis and selected Agents (3%), Paikers and Farias (2%). The average vegetables yield was estimated to be 13912 kg/ha. The average gross return was Tk.78823/ha, which was the highest Tk. 147919 for bottle gourd and the lowest of Tk.89579 for sweet gourd. The average benefit cost ratio stood at 2.45, which ranged from 3.28 for ash gourd to 2.01 for pointed gourd. Involvement of large number of intermediaries in export of fresh vegetables resulted in the increase of marketing cost and margin. Net margin per tonne earned by exporters was Tk. 17763 for Middle East, Tk. 77703 for EU and Tk. 25686 for Asian countries. Among the six marketing channels, channel VI (Producers-selected Agent-Exporters) emerged as the most efficient channel. The exponential growth rates of total export, agricultural export and fresh vegetables export earnings were 11.77%, 11.01% and 17.77% respectively during the study period. The export demand was significantly affected by export prices, import prices, domestic production, exchange rate and trade liberalization indicators. The export demand was inelastic might be due to high cost of airfreight, the scarcity of cargo space, lack of proper storage management, lack of sufficient transportation, delay in plane departure and lengthy custom procedure, non-availability of domestically produced packaging materials and, non-availability of refrigerated vans or rentals to maintain cool chain system. Major recommendations for increasing fresh vegetables export were: establishing cold storage and processing units, introducing refrigeration van for transporting fresh vegetables from farmyard to exporters' godown, formation of export fresh vegetables producers associations, establishing export villages, encouraging private airlines to increase cargo facilities, reduction of freight rates of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, simplification of airport formalities, increase of flight operations, reorientation of existing packaging industry, participation in trade fair and sending trade mission in exporting markets.