Market survey of promotion of Agricultural Commercialization and Enterprise (PACE)

Factory owner

• Almost half of the factory owners in the study area young enough and are in the age group of 38 to 45 years & all of them are male practicing Islam (94.1%) as a religion where the largest portion are Secondary school graduate.
• All the factory owners conduct single ownership business and almost half of the factory owners invested taka below 10 lacs in their business where they mainly produce Biscuits, Chanachur, Chira moa, Cake, Muri/Chira and Papor and other items too.
• 6% run business in their own enterprises & the rest are in rented ones while the minimum rent is 6000 and maximum is 20000 takas.
• The initial monthly income of majority of the respondents was 30000 to 50000 taka which has increased to 50001 to 100000 takas currently.
• A vast majority of the respondents (88.2%) have to take loan from different NGOs including ESDO (35%), ASA (23%), BRAC (11.8%) and others to conduct their business where the minimum amount of loan is below 2 lac & the maximum amount is 8 to 10 lacs. However, the largest portion have taken loan within 4 lacs.
• All the respondents have male workers where largest portions have 6 to 10 workers in their factories while 76.5% factories have female workers having maximum 1 to 2 workers. However, more than half of the factories deploy contractual workers which is 2 in numbers in most of the cases when necessary.
• More than half of the respondents claimed of having government registration and only 29% claimed of having membership in any homogenous association while a significant number of the respondents (47.1%) do not have VAT/TAX certification of their enterprises.
• The largest portion of the buyers consists of local buyers and the second largest portion consists of district level buyers.
• Only a small portion of the factory owners and the workers of their factories received trainings on food production and procedures.
• 2% of the respondents facing different difficulties in conducting their business including lack of fair price (11.8%), insufficient buyers (29.4%) and others.
• More than half of the respondents do not testify their products before launching them in the market where 41.2% of the factory owners consult with the experts for ensuring quality products.
• More than half of the respondents are interested in producing new items–eco-products (including Cake, Jhal muri & Motor vaja, chira moa, nimki, murubba, jhal chanachur) while the percentage increased if they are supplied with enough raw materials.
• Those who are not interested in launching new products (eco products), believe that there is a risk of less profit for new items while these launched for the first time while the second larger portion there might not be enough number of buyers there and some seem it difficult to create market for the new launched items and they are not ready to take the risk.
• Less than one fourth of the respondents believe that creating market for eco food is possible while the largest portion do not believe that but pointed out some ways of creating market for eco food including ensuring quality products, much promotion and others.

Farmers

• Majority of the farmers in the study area are in the age group of 46 to 55 years who have completed their elementary education and practice Islam (85.3%) as a religion.
• Majority of the farmers (32.4%) have 1 to 200 decimals of cultivable lands while maximum 801 to 1000 decimals cultivable lands belong to 14.7% of the respondents in the study area.
• Almost similar number of the respondents (26.5% and 26%) produce paddy and maize respectively while one fourth of the respondent cultivate vegetables in their land where local market are the buyers of 72.1% of the produced items. However, 48.5% respondents believe that they do not get fair price of their products while sell.
• Majority of the respondents are interested in producing traditional crops but those who are not interested pointed out some reasons including producing these crops is not much profitable while some believe production cost of the non-traditional crops is high comparing to the traditional crops.
• Though only one third of the respondents are currently involved in contract farming but a vast majority are interested in contract farming. However, those who are not interested pointed out some reasons of not being interested in which include belief contract faming as less profitable, farming costs a lot of money and others. (to be continued)