WHAT THE FARMERS NEED – PART IX

GOOD MARKETING OF THEIR PRODUCE

With no proper education to their credit, Indian farmers are by far one of the best and are more intelligent than most of educated farmers of the world. They can predict rain perfectly when they see the clouds changing above, have a great knowledge about various ills & benefits of climatic influence on various crops and other agriculture related technicalities... however, not being educated surely have its disadvantages as well. They toil hard in hot sun, heavy rains and cold winters to feed the nation however, what they have always lacked are good marketing skills to sell their produce in the market. All their hard work goes in drain because it is not the farmers who control the market price of the produce but it is the market lobby which has an upper hand to exploit the farmers’ hard work.

Over the years, government policies and strong market lobby have been exploiting Indian farmers or may I say, most of the farmers of the world, to make the farmers depend on these external forces. As we have seen in the previous post how government MSP (Minimum Support Price) plays havoc with farmers with respective cash crops and food grains... Since most of the Indian farmers are not all that rich and educated, they have no option but to give in to the middlemen (of the market lobby) to sell their produce at lower rates most of the time. If the produce is more, the lobby sees to it that they buy the produce at the lowest bid price to match the MSP and when there is shortage, they will entice the farmers with a high price... yes, it is the same law of economics of demand & supply.

When I was running a high-end vegetable supermarket TARKARI in Hyderabad, there was this educated farmer called Maru, who was really intelligent & smart to market his Organic English Vegetables in the most profitable ways to demand high returns because of his quality grown produce. However, he was not greedy and content at the price people were ready to pay what he deemed right for him. Since he was the only farmer who had the expertise to grow Organic vegetables, his rates were never challenged. He was a regular supplier for our shop and I must confess we made good profit too. The end stores always end up making good profits than the farmers... somewhere down the line, this thing should be mutually agreed upon to benefit the farmers as well, so I think and consider. Like, we at TARKARI never hesitated to pay Maru Farm their rates as long as we were making our customers happy. He, as the farmer was happy, we as the end store were happy and customers getting pure Organic vegetables were happy. In such a scenario, everyone is content and happy to get what each one wishes...

Now, such situation doesn’t happen in the large national, state or city based markets... because a large quantity is involved and a large variety is at stake. However, I strongly feel that it is certainly not difficult to achieve the best possible ways, where in everyone involved to serve the society at large are benefitted... but it is the greed factor which always end up exploiting the poor farmers’ condition... which leads to suicide due to debt trap. Good marketing skills of farmers will lead to a better future but since majority of the farmers in India are poor, they cannot fight the system to change it to their benefits... and yes, government is also to be blamed for not being with the farmers in this respect. If government have stringent laws to benefit the farmers, there will be less farmers’ suicide in India.

The fault also lies with the farmers because they don’t unite to be the force to demand a set price from the market lobby... wherever farmers have united, they have fetched great results. In a village near Medak, Andhra Pradesh, 7 women farmers took over growing sorghum (Jowar) during drought as men farmers had failed miserably to sustain agriculture in the village... within three years of hard work, these women are running an export house by exporting sorghum to European Countries and have written a new chapter in Indian Agriculture... there are many cases like Medak, where women have become more successful than men in terms of farming because they united to become a force with an attitude that – ‘We are better capable than men to feed our family better’...

Whenever I read such achievements, I feel proud of women in villages of India and I salute them from the bottom of my heart. A good marketing skills have to be learned by the farmers within their own villages to take on the might of city market lobby and this change in attitude will fetch good returns to farmers of the world...

... to be continued...