Innovation Documentation and Economics of Apple Production and Marketing

Nepal with its rich diversity offers a huge potential in the agricultural and natural resources development sector. Apple is a prominent and one of the important prioritized high value cash crops. A study was carried out to document the local innovation and to assess the production and marketing aspect of apple in Mustang district of Nepal. The result shows that underground apple storage, apple core remover, glass solar drier and plastic solar drier were major innovation related to apple. Pre-harvest contractual system was the most common mode of selling. Due to labour based farming practices, labour was significant factors affecting the production. From resource use efficiency point of view apple farmers were rational in making expenditures on manure, pesticides and training - pruning but expenditure on human labour was greater than their contribution and used not at an optimal level. Besides these diseases, lack of transportation facilities and lack of market information were major problems.Finally, this book may be equally important for scholars' interest in local innovation. Grass roots level farmers may also have useful insight through this book on apple farming.