Roads form an integral part of this. Says Virendra D Mhaiskar, CMD, IRB Infrastructure, “If there are no proper pucca roads then how do you expect that the crops would reach the destination on time.” And this way the vicious cycle continues. A farmer who does not get enough money for his crop continues to be part of subsistence agriculture since he is unable to go for a higher crop for the next season. Even the presence of best of technology is unable to help him because he does not have money to use it. Tells Rohtash Mal, CEO, Escorts Agri Machinery Group, “We have seen growth, no doubt, but the growth is merely 2-3%, which is very less considering the rate at which the economy is growing.”
Besides lack of proper means to reach the market, the farmers are also looted by the middlemen who buy crops at a price much lesser than the price at which they sell it in the markets. The Minimum Selling Price mechanism is not of much help since the farmers are either unaware of it or it has a very low control over market forces that determine the prices in Indian market. This kind of corrupt and inefficient mechanism makes agriculture marketing nothing more than a nightmare. The situation is aptly described by The Rural Credit Survey Committee. As per it, “While standards of marketing have improved in most of the relatively few regulated markets which have been established, a number of malpractices still exist even in them since personnel and enforcement are two great problems, not always sufficiently attended to, much less solved.”
These malpractices get new life when private parties are involved and the producers i.e. the farmers are in no case in the position to get any kind of protection from these practitioners. The report also says, “there is a great lacuna that no control at all is exercised over village sales, in which the primary producer is literally, legally and in practice at the mercy of the village trader.”
Agrees Salil Singhal, CMD, PI Industries Ltd. “MSP becomes ineffective the moment intermediaries come into act. And unfortunately they still exist.” Another reason which has been cited by all those whom B&E met was that the reputation of Indian products in the global markets is very low both in terms of quality and brand value. Believes Goyal, “Indian products (agriculture) have no USP”. In today’s globalized market this is a bad combination, more so for the food processing industry.
Besides lack of proper means to reach the market, the farmers are also looted by the middlemen who buy crops at a price much lesser than the price at which they sell it in the markets. The Minimum Selling Price mechanism is not of much help since the farmers are either unaware of it or it has a very low control over market forces that determine the prices in Indian market. This kind of corrupt and inefficient mechanism makes agriculture marketing nothing more than a nightmare. The situation is aptly described by The Rural Credit Survey Committee. As per it, “While standards of marketing have improved in most of the relatively few regulated markets which have been established, a number of malpractices still exist even in them since personnel and enforcement are two great problems, not always sufficiently attended to, much less solved.”
These malpractices get new life when private parties are involved and the producers i.e. the farmers are in no case in the position to get any kind of protection from these practitioners. The report also says, “there is a great lacuna that no control at all is exercised over village sales, in which the primary producer is literally, legally and in practice at the mercy of the village trader.”
Agrees Salil Singhal, CMD, PI Industries Ltd. “MSP becomes ineffective the moment intermediaries come into act. And unfortunately they still exist.” Another reason which has been cited by all those whom B&E met was that the reputation of Indian products in the global markets is very low both in terms of quality and brand value. Believes Goyal, “Indian products (agriculture) have no USP”. In today’s globalized market this is a bad combination, more so for the food processing industry.
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