An economic analysis of nursery enterprise in Sindhudurg districts of Konkan region

Introduction

Nursery management is the cultivation, care, and maintenance of young plants, such as trees, flowers, shrubs, and vegetables, in a nursery. Nursery management is a vital part of horticulture and agriculture, and is important for growing healthy plants, trees, and crops. Nurseries can be retail, wholesale, or private. Retail nurseries sell to the general public, wholesale nurseries sell to other nurseries and commercial gardeners, and private nurseries supply institutions or private estates. Nursery is a place where planting material, such as grafting, seedlings, saplings, cuttings, etc., are raised, propagated and multiplied under favourable conditions for transplanting in prepared beds. The availability of quality and true to-type planting material is the prerequisite of successful and remunerative horticultural crop production. Nursery management plays a critical role in the horticulture and landscaping sectors, serving as the backbone for quality plant propagation and supply. A nursery business, whether focused on ornamental plants, fruit samplings, vegetable seedlings, or forest species, contributes significantly to agricultural development, environmental sustainability, and rural employment generation. The Konkan region has made significant headway in horticultural production due to availability of production technologies and new crop varieties. The area under mango and cashew, which are foreign exchange earning crops has been increased by 8-9 times during the last two decades. Nursery management holds considerable economic importance in Sindhudurg district, where agriculture is the mainstay of the local economy. The productivity and profitability of the agricultural sector are closely linked to the quality of planting inputs supplied by nurseries.

Data source and methodology

From the south Konkan region, Sindhudurg district was selected purposively for investigation the information regarding the list of nurseries, number of nurseries in each tehsil were obtained from District Superintendent Agricultural Officer. On the basis of number of nurseries in each tehsil, three tehsils having maximum number of nurseries were selected purposively district. Namely kudal, vengurla, and kankvali from Sindhudurg district. Total 30 sample nurseries were selected on proportionate number basis from district. Data was collected from selected nursery owners by personal interviews with the help of specially designed schedule. Simple statistical tools such as average, percentage, ratios, standard cost concepts, Benefit cost ratio etc. were used for analysis.

Objective

To estimate Cost, returns and profitability of nursery business.

To estimate cost, returns and profitability of nursery business

For all types of plant materials variable/direct and fixed/indirect costs were estimated separately in each group of nurseries.

Items of variable/direct cost

Reference period

The information and data for present study is pertained to year 2023-24

Results and Discussion

Capital investment in nursery enterprise

Capital investment are crucial as they reflect the financial status of farmer. These asset encompass investment in land, building, livestock, equipment and machinery, shed and irrigation structure.

(100.00)

It was also revealed that per farm total income received in study year was Rs. 5166154 out of which maximum (40.63%) income received by mango followed by cashew (21.10%), areacanut (14.19%, coconut (11.95%), kokum (4.51%), black pepper (2.63%), nutmeg (2.60%), hibiscus (0.87%), golden plumeria (0.79%), rose (0.70%). It was also revealed that mango, cashew, arecanut major component of nursery accounted more than 90 percent income. It was concluded that nursery enterprises one of the substainial where relatively less capital investment required and the per farm income is higher.

Another important attribute of this enterprises is the existing farm resources such land, irrigation, water can be used more efficiently and provide higher income to the farmers in study area. The farmer they do not need to invest much in capital like machinery and building such as business conducted in rural area. It is observed that farmers in study area they should aware benefits of these enterprises which also supported with climate of konkan region which is very much suitable for hardening of grafts and overall nursery operation .

Per farm cost and returns of nursery enterprise

Information regarding Per farm cost and returns from nursery enterprises is given table 3. The total cost per farm incurred for the preparation of grafts and seedlings amounted to Rs. 2011) [1] studied the economic evaluation of private horticulture nurseries in Ratnagiri District.

Per farm profitability of nursery enterprises

Information regarding Per farm Profitability of nursery enterprises is given table 4. The table clearly indicates profitable outcomes across fruits, spices, and flower nursery. Among fruits, mango grafts showed the highest net returns at total cost level, amounting to Rs. 14,48,350, followed by cashew grafts (Rs.4,40,981) and coconut (Rs. 4,17,980). Cashew again stood out with the highest net profit, while crops like arecanut and black pepper also yielded more returns. Per nursery farm Among flowers, hibiscus and golden plumeria generated net profits of Rs.31,726 and Rs. 24,036 respectively, whereas rose earned Rs13,951. In terms of the benefit-cost ratio (BCR), rose recorded the highest at 2.62, indicating its excellent profitability relative to the investment. Cashew grafts also showed a very strong BCR of 2.47, making it the most economi-cally efficient nursery enterprises. [2] conducted study to understand the economic contribution of small scale nursery industry in Port Harcourt, Rivers State of Nigeria and Sudha (2003) studied the economics of nursery management in Bangalor.

Conclusion

The study clearly demonstrates that nursery enterprises are economically viable and have strong potential for income generation and rural employment. The per-farm capital investment was about ₹329.20 lakh, of which land constituted the major share (94.59%), indicating that nursery production is largely land-oriented and requires comparatively limited investment in machinery and other infrastructure. The nursery enterprises produced 78,257 grafts, with mango, cashew and arecanut being the major components in terms of production and market contribution. Mango generated the highest income of ₹21.71 lakh, followed by cashew (₹10.90 lakh) and coconut (₹8.18 lakh). Overall, the nursery enterprise generated gross returns of ₹54.80 lakh and net returns of ₹31.49 lakh per farm, confirming its high profitability. Among individual crops, mango was the most important crop for large-scale returns, whereas cashew, golden plumeria, rose, coconut and kokum demonstrated attractive benefit-cost performance. Golden plumeria recorded the highest B:C ratio (2.79), followed by rose (2.25) and cashew (2.47). Thus, nursery enterprises provide an effective means of efficiently utilizing land, water and existing farm resources, while generating substantial income with relatively lower infrastructure requirements.

Policy implications a)

Considering to the demand for good grafts of different fruits crops, spices plantation crops, and ornamental crops the proper training regarding grafting skills and maintenance of graft should be given to nursery entrepreneur to reduces mortality as grafts.

b)

The financial institution should provide a loan for nursery enterprise at lower rates as loan procedure should be easy.

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30. How to cite this article: Jadhav SC, Bondar DU, Gavhane P, Bachhao K. An economic analysis of nursery enterprise in Sindhudurg districts of Konkan region. International Journal of Agriculture Extension and Social Development. 2026;9(10):281286. doi: https://www.doi.org/10.33545/26180723.2026.v9.i10d. 4395