Tomato is one of the most popular vegetables grown in India because of its high nutritive value, higher production and wide ecological amplitude. It is a rich source of vitamin and organic acid. Tomato fruits are used for different food preparations such as soups, salads, pickles, chutney, paste, puree and ketchups apart from being consumed in raw form. Tomato also has medicinal value. It is an excellent source of vitamin A and C and also called as a 'Poor man's Orange'. Tomato is an important vegetable crop and ranks third next only to potato and brinjal in the production of vegetables in the country. Vegetables, especially fruity vegetables like tomato are highly perishable and are subject to lose after harvest. There is no organized marketing system for tomato in India. A major portion of the product is still handled by the middleman. So the marketing of tomato is a complex process. It consists of all those functions and processes involved in the movement of the product from the place of production to the place of consumption. The marketing activities involve not only the functions of buying and selling, but also the preparation of produce for marketing, assembling, packaging, transportation, grading, storage, processing retailing etc. The number of functions and its type vary from product to product, from time to time and from place to place.
KEYWORDS: Vegetables, Perishable, Marketing, Grading.
Introduction Agriculture is the largest and the most important sector of the Indian Economy. India has made a lot of progress in agriculture since independence in terms of growth in output, yields and area under many crops. It has gone through a green revolution, a white revolution, a brown revolution and a blue revolution. Today, India is the largest producer of milk, fruits, cashew nuts, coconuts and tea in the world, the second largest producer of wheat, vegetables, sugar and fish and the third largest producer of fish and the third largest producer of tobacco and rice. The per capita availability of food grains has risen in the country from 350 gms in 1951 to near about 400 gms per day now, of milk from less than 125 gms to 226 gms per day and of eggs from 5 to 30 per annum despite the increase in population from 35 crores to 124.72 crores (2011). At present, only 23.3 per cent of the farmers are able to derive any benefits of extension services provided by various government agencies and every year about 20 percent of the crop is lost due to mishandling, spoilage, floods, droughts, pests and diseases. In fruits and vegetables the loss is around 30 percent.
Objectives of the Study
