International Journal of Management (IJM)

Volume 11, Issue 12, December 2020, pp. 4327-4334, Article ID: IJM_11_12_414
Available online at https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=12
ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/YUZ4W

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

BEHAVIOUR OF PRICE AND MARKET

ARRIVAL OF BRINJAL IN THE WHOLESALE
VEGETABLE MARKETS OF ASSAM
Dr. Surajit Saikia
Assistant Professor, Tinsukia Commerce College, Assam, India

Ritu Singh
Assistant Professor, Tinsukia Commerce College, Assam, India

ABSTRACT
Vegetables are one of the main sources of nutrition to human body. Humans
consume wide varieties of vegetables found in the market and among them brinjal is one
of the most common vegetable. However, now a day people find it difficult to consume
these vegetables due to high volatility in the price. Taking into consideration, a study
was conducted to study the behaviour of price and market arrivals of brinjal in the
vegetable wholesale markets of Assam. To ascertain the desired result, a time series
analysis of multiplicative model and Pearson correlation coefficient is employed. The
study concludes that there is a significant impact of Secular, Seasonal and cyclic
variations in the price of brinjal. The relationship between price and market arrivals of
brinjal shows both positive and negative. Positive correlation was observed during slag
period of market arrivals and negative correlation was observed during peak period of
market arrivals.
Key words: Investment avenues, Investment awareness, risk taking capacity,
expectations
Cite this Article: Surajit Saikia and Ritu Singh, Behaviour of Price and Market Arrival
of Brinjal in the Wholesale Vegetable Markets of Assam, International Journal of
Management (IJM), 11(12), 2020, pp. 4327-4334.
https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=12

1. INTRODUCTION
Brinjal is one of the most common and favourite vegetable consume across India. There are
many popular dishes prepared from this vegetable. The brinjal has great economic importance
due to high productivity per unit area, comparatively lower requirement of water, higher returns,
and higher potential for employment generation and economic empowerment. However, in
recent years the price of brinjal has sow to its record high.[1] During 2000-01, a kilogram of
brinjal cost in between Rs. 8.00 to Rs. 10.00 but today it may cost more than Rs. 40.00 during

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 Behaviour of Price and Market Arrival of Brinjal in the Wholesale Vegetable Markets of Assam

peak market arrivals. The price of vegetables depends on the market arrivals and demand.
Sometimes due to large arrivals in the market, Prices decreases and ultimately producer will be
in loss. A report published by the newspaper “Assam tribute” on 27 October, 2017, says that
the prices of Tomato are going through the roof from Rs 50 per kg a few weeks back to Rs 75-
85 per kg. Cauliflower, carrot and capsicums are above Rs 100 and even the vegetables like
pointed gourd, ladyfinger and brinjal are being sold between Rs 60-70 per kg. “Though various
reasons are cited for the price hike, we often notice that all the so called reason pop up just
ahead of the festive season every year and continue for months together. The reason that our
State does not have a strong consumers’ movement, the unscrupulous elements have a field day
here,” Tilak Barman, a customer from Chandmari area alleged [2]. In such cases it is very
important to have the empirical studies on market arrivals and prices of brinjal.

2. OBJECTIVES
By keeping in mind, the importance of the crop, a study was under taken on behaviour of prices
and arrivals of brinjal in Assam with the following specific objectives-
• To study the price behaviour of brinjal in the wholesale markets of Assam,
• To examine the relationship between market arrivals and prices of brinjal.

3. METHODOLOGY
In this study both primary and secondary data were used. The primary data was collected with
the help of questionnaire and the required time series data (secondary data) on arrivals and
prices of brinjal were collected from the office records of the Assam State Agricultural
marketing board, Guwahati for the period 2011-2020. The ASAMB provides 14 regulated
market committees’ information but only 7 regulated market committees were selected due to
lack of information. The selected regulated market committees were Howly, Kharupetia, Lanka,
Cachar, Jorhat, Golaghat and Uparhali Guwahati.
Price behaviour is the study of hidden components that exists in a time series data. In a
commodity price series, there are number of common characteristics that have important
implications for a sound statistical analysis. In a time-series data, there are certain hidden
components like secular trend, seasonal variation, cyclic variation and irregular variation. To
study the price behaviour of Brinjal, a time series analysis of multiplicative model was used.

Data = Seasonal variation x Secular Trend x Cyclical variation x Irregular variation

To estimate the secular trend, single Ordinary Least Square Regression is used. The formula
for which is, Y = α + βx + ε. Here, Y is the endogenous variable or dependent variable or
response variable (price of vegetables are dependent variable). x is the independent or predictor
variables (time). α is the intercept, β is the slope and ε is the error term.
Seasonal variation can be computed with the help of Simple Moving Average or Ratio-to-
Trend Method or Ratio-to-Moving Average Method or Link Relatives Method [3]. However,
the most common method of computing seasonal variation is computed by simple moving
average of the dependent variable and then the series were fitted to the Linear equations as: Y
= α + βx + ε[4][5]
The cyclic variations in the price of brinjal is estimated with the help of a simple spectral
density functions which was plotted on the Log SMwpi for brinjal for all the market to highlight
the hidden periodicities/cycles
Pearson Correlation Coefficient is used to determine the relationship between price
behaviour and market arrivals of brinjal

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 Surajit Saikia and Ritu Singh

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Time series Analysis of the price of brinjal in the selected vegetable wholesale
markets of Assam
Table 1 Summary Statistics of sample wholesale price indices of brinjal in the vegetable wholesale
markets of Assam.
Markets Mean Median Min Max S. D. C.V. Skewness Ex.
Kurtosis
Cachar 5.16 5.16 4.28 5.91 0.42 0.08 -0.07 -0.92
Golaghat 4.73 4.79 3.91 5.52 0.39 0.08 -0.24 -0.97
Howly 4.47 4.44 3.46 5.42 0.44 0.10 0.01 -0.54
Jorhat 5.09 5.27 3.72 5.77 0.44 0.09 -0.91 0.32
Kharupetia 5.25 5.26 4.08 6.35 0.51 0.10 -0.08 -0.70
Lanka 5.29 5.32 4.23 6.28 0.46 0.09 -0.32 -0.63
U.G. 5.05 5.07 4.29 5.89 0.36 0.07 0.14 -0.32
Interpreted: SPSS 17.
Summary statistics highlights the nature of the sample data and to communicate a largest
amount of information in the simplest way. The Arithmetic Mean is used to determine the
measure of central tendency. The smallest variable is observed in Howly vegetable wholesale
market (3.46) and the largest variable is observed in Kharupetia vegetable wholesale market
(6.35). The spread of the variables is also highest in Kharupetia vegetable wholesale market
(0.51). The maximum variation in the price of the brinjal is observed in both Howly and
Kharupetia vegetable wholesale market (0.10). Negative skewness is observed in the price of
brinjal in five major vegetable wholesale markets which includes Cachar, Golaghat, Jorhat,
Kharupetia and Lanka whereas positive skewness is observed in the price of brinjal in Howly
and Uparhali Guwahati. Maximum Negative skewness (-0.91) and Positive skewness (0.14) is
observed in Jorhat and Uparhali Guwahati vegetable wholesale market. The results of excess
kurtosis test indicate that only Jorhat vegetable wholesale markets have a positive excess
kurtosis of 0.32 and the rest have negative excess kurtosis. Among the negative excess kurtosis
markets Golaghat has the highest of -0.97 followed by Cachar (-0.92) and Kharupetia (-0.70)
vegetable wholesale market. The Platykurtic distribution means the price of brinjal at Jorhat
has a fatter tail and also it exhibit positive excess kurtosis and has large skewness. Leptokurtic
distribution means the price of brinjal has a thinner tail and exhibit negative excess kurtosis.
The vegetable wholesale markets of Cachar, Lanka, Golaghat, Kharupetia, Uparhali Guwahati
and Howly possesses Leptokurtic distribution.

4.2. Secular Trends

Ordinary Least Square regression (OLS) model is used to determine the secular trend as the
previous table allows us to apply the parametric test. The OLS Regression considered time as
independent variable and price as dependent variable. The analysis of OLS regression were
shown below-
Table 2 Estimated OLS Regression models for the price of Brinjal.
Markets R2 Adj. R2 Coefficients Std. Error P-Value
Cachar 0.2474 0.2403 37.32447 6.32245 0.000
Howly 0.6484 0.6451 64.75614 4.63125 0.000
Golaghat 0.2248 0.2175 33.66957 6.07341 0.000
Jorhat 0.4732 0.4682 48.79396 5.00067 0.000
Kharupetia 0.2944 0.2877 33.39619 5.02171 0.000
Lanka 0.5102 0.5056 48.19855 4.58678 0.000
U.G. 0.3540 0.3479 52.07183 6.83168 0.000
Interpreted: Stata 9.

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 Behaviour of Price and Market Arrival of Brinjal in the Wholesale Vegetable Markets of Assam

The OLS regression table includes R2, Adj. R2, Coefficients, Standard Error and P-Value
as different parameters. The R2 indicates that the estimation of trend in price of brinjal in the
vegetable wholesale markets of Assam possess goodness-of-fit at different levels. The
goodness-of-fit is most favourable in the markets of Howly (0.6484) and Lanka (0.5102). As
per regression outcome rules, the value of Adj. R2 is favourable for the price of brinjal. The
estimated value Adj. R2 is always smaller that the R2 value which is indicates that the prediction
equations for the price of brinjal in selected vegetable wholesale markets are as follows. One
unit change in time leads to an increase of 37.32 % in the price of brinjal in the Cachar vegetable
wholesale market. Similarly, the maximum increase in price over time was found to be Howly
vegetable wholesale market (64.76 %) followed by Uparhali Guwahati (52.07 %), Jorhat
(48.79) and Lanka (48.20 %) vegetable wholesale markets. The lowest effect of time on price
of brinjal was on Kharupetia vegetable wholesale market where the lowest change is observed
33.40 %. To provide a better understanding of the estimated secular trend in the price of brinjal,
trend plots were given below in figure 1.

Figure 1 Secular Trend Plots of the price of brinjal in the selected vegetable wholesale markets of Assam.
Interpreted: Microsoft Excel, 2007.

4.3. Seasonal Variations

The result of the seasonal variations is shown in table 3.2.3 and was supported by the graphical
presentation of the same in figure 3.2.3.
Table 3 Seasonal variations in the price of Brinjal.
Months Cachar Golaghat Howly Jorhat Kharupetia Lanka U.G.
January -0.15 -0.06 -0.33 0.05 -0.40 -0.26 -0.02
February -0.33 -0.09 -0.38 0.01 -0.47 -0.26 -0.21
March -0.34 -0.06 -0.30 -0.01 -0.40 -0.25 -0.36
April -0.39 -0.03 -0.30 0.07 -0.05 -0.18 -0.25
May -0.03 0.00 -0.07 -0.17 0.16 -0.01 -0.10
June 0.09 0.03 0.16 -0.09 0.20 0.05 0.03
July 0.15 0.04 0.17 0.01 0.13 0.19 0.12
August 0.16 0.06 0.21 -0.05 0.22 0.17 0.03
September 0.23 0.06 0.34 0.01 0.45 0.15 0.22
October 0.32 0.09 0.36 0.04 0.41 0.27 0.32
November 0.27 0.02 0.23 0.03 0.06 0.21 0.24
December 0.04 -0.02 -0.11 0.08 -0.29 -0.05 -0.03
Interpreted: Num XL 2007.

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 Surajit Saikia and Ritu Singh

From the above table both negative and positive seasonal variations in the price of brinjal
in the selected vegetable wholesale markets of Assam can be observed. The negative seasonal
variations can be observed in the months of December to May and positive seasonal variations
can be observed in the months of June to November. The maximum negative seasonal variations
in the price of the brinjal can be observed in the month of February and the maximum positive
seasonal variations in the price of the brinjal is observed in the month of September. The
Kharupetia vegetable wholesale market has the highest fluctuation in price of the brinjal.
Maximum positive seasonal variation of 0.45 in the month of September and maximum
negative seasonal variation of -0.47 in the month of February was recorded in Kharupetia.
0.60

0.40
Cachar
Golaghat
0.20
Howly
Jorhat
0.00
Kharupetia
Lanka
-0.20
U.G.
Average
-0.40

-0.60

Figure 2 Seasonal variations in the price of brinjal for the selected vegetable wholesale markets of
Assam.
Interpreted: Microsoft excel, 2007.

4.4. Cyclic Variations

The cyclic variations are long term wave-like pattern which occurs regularly but may vary in
length. To determine the cyclic variations in the price of brinjal in the selected vegetable
wholesale markets of Assam, spectral plots were used. After removing trend and seasonality
variations from the data set Spectrum were plotted. The spectral plots show the dominant
frequency of cycles in the price of brinjal. (The spectrums of the price of brinjal for the selected
markets were presented in the Annexure 3.2.4.). As presented in the annexure 3.2.4, the vertical
axis of the spectrum presents the magnitude of the frequency, the horizontal axis presents the
scaled frequency and on top of the plot periods are presented. From the spectrums it is clearly
seen that the dominant frequency of above 24 was observed in case of Cachar, Howly,
Kharupetia, Lanka and Uparhali Guwahati vegetable wholesale markets of Assam. Frequency
24 indicates toward a cyclical change in price of brinjal after a period of 24 months. However,
the spectrum of Golaghat and Jorhat vegetable wholesale markets has a frequency of less than
20 which means a cyclical change in the price of brinjal took place after every 20 periods.

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 Behaviour of Price and Market Arrival of Brinjal in the Wholesale Vegetable Markets of Assam

4.5. Relationship between Price and Market arrivals of vegetables

Table 4 Relationship between Price and Market Arrivals of Brinjal.
Chr Chr Glgt Glgt Hwly Hwly Jrt Jrt Khru Khru Lnk Lnk U.G. U.G
MAP MMA MAP MMA MAP MMA MAP MMA MAP MMA MAP MMA MAP MMA
Chr 1 -.925 .921 -.316 .933 -.718 .451 -.042 .900 -.543 .967 -.340 .949 -.770
MAP
Chr -.925 1 -.938 .263 -.974 .862 -.460 .010 -.899 .701 -.955 .358 -.909 .880
MMA
Glgt .921 -.938 1 -.420 .914 -.706 .609 -.120 .804 -.520 .964 -.352 .895 -.763
MAP
Glgt -.316 .263 -.420 1 -.293 .050 -.457 -.064 -.212 -.022 -.333 -.386 -.299 .104
MMA
Hwly .933 -.974 .914 -.293 1 -.856 .439 .015 .931 -.693 .943 -.317 .930 -.848
MAP
Hwly -.718 .862 -.706 .050 -.856 1 -.201 -.178 -.898 .960 -.759 .444 -.688 .955
MMA
Jrt MAP .451 -.460 .609 -.457 .439 -.201 1 -.679 .386 -.063 .470 .078 .563 -.376
Jrt MMA -.042 .010 -.120 -.064 .015 -.178 -.679 1 -.015 -.252 -.068 .190 -.229 .042
Khru .900 -.899 .804 -.212 .931 -.898 .386 -.015 1 -.805 .876 -.372 .878 -.922
MAP
Khru -.543 .701 -.520 -.022 -.693 .960 -.063 -.252 -.805 1 -.586 .437 -.485 .904
MMA
Lnk .967 -.955 .964 -.333 .943 -.759 .470 -.068 .876 -.586 1 -.450 .923 -.798
MAP
Lnk -.340 .358 -.352 -.386 -.317 .444 .078 .190 -.372 .437 -.450 1 -.305 .480
MMA
U.G. .949 -.909 .895 -.299 .930 -.688 .563 -.229 .878 -.485 .923 -.305 1 -.762
MAP
U.G. -.770 .880 -.763 .104 -.848 .955 -.376 .042 -.922 .904 -.798 .480 -.762 1
MMA
Interpreted: SPSS 17.

During the study period, the market arrivals of brinjal in Cachar was (4154.82 quintals),
Golaghat (7120.35 quintals), Howly (7738.76 quintals), Jorhat (3674.33 quintals), Kharupetia
(6305.35 quintals), Lanka (1529.63 quintals) and U.G. (3560.12 quintals). The average monthly
arrivals of brinjal in the vegetable wholesale markets show maximum positive seasonal
fluctuations in the months of November to March and the minimum market arrivals of brinjal
were observed in the months of June to September. Similarly, the highest price per quintals of
brinjal was observed in the month of September and October and the lowest price was recorded
in the months of February and March. According to markets, the highest price was recorded in
Kharupetia i.e. Rs 3004.76 per quintal followed by U.G. (Rs. 2925.00), Lanka (2535.71),
Cachar, Golaghat (Rs. 2500.00) Howly (Rs. 2485.19) and Jorhat (Rs. 2333.33). Similarly the
lowest price per quintal was observed as follows, Jorhat (Rs. 300.00), Kharupetia (Rs. 310.00),
Lanka (Rs. 325.00), Howly (Rs. 350.00), Cachar (Rs. 488.46) and Golaghat (Rs. 500.00).
The relationship between price and market arrivals of brinjal in the vegetable wholesale
markets of Assam shows a negative relationship in all the selected vegetable markets. Negative
correlation indicates that a unit increase in price of brinjal leads to a fall in market arrivals of
brinjal. The Pearson correlation coefficient shows that a unit increase in price leads to fall in
market arrivals of brinjal as follows, Cachar (-0.925), Golaghat (-0.420), Howly (-0.856), Jorhat
(-0.679), Kharupetia (-0.805), Lanka (-0.450) and U.G. (-0.762). The maximum fall in market
arrivals was observed in Cachar and the minimum fall in market arrivals was observed in
Golaghat vegetable wholesale market.

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 Surajit Saikia and Ritu Singh

5. DISCUSSIONS
From the results of the study, it was clear to state that there have been significant differences in
the price behaviour of brinjal in the wholesale markets of Assam. The price behaviour of brinjal
varies from market to market. The Kharupetia VWM and Howly VWM have the highest
variation in the price of brinjal. similarly, markets like Lanka VWM and Uparhali Guwahati
VWM also have high variation in the price of brinjal. Moderate variations were observed in the
rest of the studied markets. The Multiplicative Model of Time Series Analysis reveals that the
price of brinjal is significantly affected by Trend, Seasonal and cyclic components.
Secular trend The estimated trend values of the regression on the price of brinjal for the
selected vegetable wholesale markets clearly indicate towards upward trend. There have been
differences in upward trend in the price of brinjal and varies market to market. Upward trend
in the price of brinjal is favourable for the farmers in the market. However, there is a need to
study the relationship between price received by the farmers and the actual cost of cultivation.
Seasonal Variation On investigating the existence of seasonal variations in the price of brinjal,
the study detects both negative and positive seasonal variations. The negative seasonal
variations were observed from the month of December to May which indicates that the price of
brinjal during these months falls below average and market arrivals tends to move upward
whereas, positive seasonal variation was observed from the month of June to November which
indicates that the price of brinjal tends to move upward and falls in the market arrivals of brinjal.
Cyclic Variation The Periodogram analysis clearly indicates that the price of brinjal have
cyclic variation or periodicity of 20 months to 2 year which means that the average price of
brinjal may tend to change within every 2 years.
Relationship between price and market arrivals of the vegetables in the wholesale markets
of Assam The Pearson’s correlation function shows that there is statistically significant
relationship between price and market arrivals of brinjal in the wholesale markets of Assam
The relationship between price and market arrivals of vegetables was negative. The negative
correlation means that if market arrivals increases, price decreases and vice-versa.

6. CONCLUSION
The study concludes that the price of brinjal is significantly affected by Secular, Seasonal and
Cyclic variations. The relationship between price and market arrivals was also negative and as
a result, Farmers have to suffer heavy losses during peak production period. The study would
like to offer a suggestion to the farmers that they have to understand the trend, seasonal
variations and the risk associated with the trend and seasonality. Moreover, the study also
suggests that there is a need to understand the behaviour of other vegetables in these markets
so that more support can be provided to the farmers.

REFERENCES
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[2] The Assam Tribune, (2017), “Soaring prices of onion, vegetables hit customers”, News report,
October 27, 2017, p4.

[3] Paoli, C., et. al. (2010), “Forecasting of pre-processed daily solar radiation time series using
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[4] Sharma, R. 2011. Behaviour of market arrivals and prices of tomato in selected markets of north
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[5] R. Mishra and Kumar, D. A. 2012, Price behaviour of major vegetables in hill region of Nepal:
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