Objectives: To know the profile and identify the marketing practices of grape growers.
Methods and Statistical Analysis: The study is based on preliminary data collected from 90 grape growers. The collected data was analyzed using frequency, percentage and mean.
Findings: The study findings reveals that majority of grape growers interviewed were small farmers (56.67%) and more than one-third of grape growers were having medium level of education (35.56%), annual income (35.56%), cosmopolite (34.44%), social participation (36.66%) and mass media participation (36.67%). The reasons for all the grape growers (100.00%) for selling the produce at farm gate to the pre-harvest contractors are due to perishable nature of the produce, convenient to sell the produce in the village, no/less marketing and transport costs and no labour cost is required for loading and unloading of produce.
Applications/Improvements: There is a need to establish grape growers association by the farmers which would help in organizing/facilitating joint activities like value addition, processing and collective grape marketing. Information about market price should be passed on to the grape growers through mass media and other means of communication.