Linking small farmers to emerging agricultural marketing systems in India: the case study of a fresh food retail chain in Punjab

Linking primary producers with global and national markets through fresh food retail chains is seen as one of the emerging agricultural marketing practices in India to improve small producer’s livelihoods. This paper examines the operations of a fresh food retail chain named ‘Easy Day’ and its interface with farmers in Punjab.

The study reveals that fresh food retail chain primarily works with less-resourceful small vegetable cultivators who have higher productivity in vegetables. Findings include:

• the retail chain farmers could realise higher profits compared to traditional market supplying farmers mainly because of higher yield and higher price realisation in the traditional market because of better quality produce 
• the retail chain procures only a limited proportion of the grower’s crop without any firm commitment and on a day-to-day basis; the remaining produce has to be either sold in the local markets or disposed off by the farmers elsewhere 
• the retail chain has not made a genuine effort to provide agricultural inputs and extension services to the farmers, and does not have any formal contract arrangements with them 

As a result, the paper proposes a number of strategies to further facilitate the marketing of produce of small farmers: 

• infrastructure of the local markets should be improved to reduce the post-harvest losses
• markets for fruits and vegetables should be regulated to reduce exploitation of the farmers
• since retail chains use local markets to determine their procurement price, a systematic and quality-based price mechanism should be evolved 

Document complet: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/109514/2/16-Naresh-Singla.pdf