This study was conducted to examine the characteristics of agricultural land parcels and identify important determinants of their prices in Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. For this purpose, a sample of 79 land parcels, having transaction record for the year 2015-2017, was selected from 10 randomly chosen villages. Data were collected on their prices and their physical, agricultural and location characteristics. Descriptive statistical tools were used to summarize data on agricultural land characteristics. A linear Hedonic Pricing Model (HPM) was used to estimate agricultural land prices based on physical, location and agricultural characteristics. Results show that agricultural land parcels in Central Swabi district have comparatively high prices, and this is due to their high residential and commercial potential. Developmental projects for roads, hospitals, universities and gas supply infrastructure in the surroundings of Swabi city are resulting human influx from rural areas, and are increasing demand for residential and commercial units in the suburbs. This high demand is pulling land prices and causing utilization of fertile agricultural land for residential and commercial units' construction. Around 50% of the sampled agricultural lands were used for residential and commercial purposes. Results from HPM reveal that agricultural characteristics, such as land fertility and irrigation water availability, were the significant determinates and have positive effects on land prices. Location characteristics, such as road distance, city distance, distance to nearby houses and distance to agricultural market are the important determinants of land prices. These findings imply that agricultural land prices depends on agricultural and location attributes and this is consistent with the Ricardian's Land 'Rent' and Von Thunan's 'Land Location' theories. Based on these findings, the study recommends that agricultural land must be protected through laws from residential and commercial encroachments. Investment in development of agricultural infrastructure and provision of subsidized on important inputs could raise farmers' returns from agriculture and could change their perception to favor using land for agriculture.
| Vegetables are perishable in nature, and it requires a well-established market to facilitate the farmers for selling their produce at a reasonable price and make it accessible for ultimate consumers in preferred shape and location in the required duration. This research is carried out to analyze the existing marketing channels, marketing costs and margins of different market functionaries of potato crop in the selected villages of district Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan in 2019. For this purpose, a total of seventy producers, twenty wholesalers and twenty retailers are randomly selected and interviewed for data collection. From the current research it can be revealed that majority of potato growers followed the same marketing channel i.e. Producer → Wholesaler → Retailer → Consumer. The analysis shows that marketing-margins of potato growers, wholesalers and retailers is estimated as 31.8 percent, 24.1 percent, and 42 percent respectively. Similarly, the share of producer in consumer rupee is obtained as 31.3 percent, respectively. Marketing margin and cost indicated that by reducing the huge margin of retailers the share of growers and wholesalers can be raised in the prevailing marketing channels. The research findings recommended that government must focus on establishing markets at village level, by minimizing the role of intermediaries which will help farmers to generate more profit.
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