The small-sized family farms that constitute nearly 85 per cent of the entire farming community of the country, also account for the largest share of the agricultural produce. The winter vegetables, for instance, are mostly grown by these small farmers in rural Bangladesh. Considering the high prices of the vegetables in the city's kitchen markets, it may appear to some that the farmers who produce them are doing a brisk trade. Unfortunately, the reality is quite the opposite. Actually, the growers of the agricultural crops have no control over the prices of what they produce as they lack access to the market. On the other hand, the intermediaries who have the money and hence control the market dictate the prices of the agricultural goods.
In this connection, a report carried by this paper on Monday, December 18 said that the winter vegetables were selling at the city's retail markets at prices 80 to 450 per cent higher than that at the farm levels. The production cost of a cauliflower, a winter vegetable, for instance, is Tk 11, according to the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM). But at the city's retail market, it is selling between Tk45 and Tk 50 apiece. In other words, this is a price gap ranging between 300 and 350 per cent. Such a big change in a commodity's price from the beginning of its distribution chain to the end point (consumer level) is quite out of proportion. In the process, farm produce reportedly changed hands six times before they finally reached the retailers in the city's kitchen markets.
Needless to say, each delivery point of the supply chain is controlled by intermediaries, or farias as they are called locally. As is obvious, the irrationally high prices of the agricultural produce are generally attributed to these intermediaries who are looked upon by the public as interlopers in the market chain. So, the common prescription is, as the intermediaries are to blame for the irrational price hike of agricultural goods, they should be removed from the distribution network of commodities. But the issue is not that simple. The reason is, the intermediaries are not a bunch of outsiders just meddling in the marketplace. In the existing structure of the market, especially of the agricultural commodities, intermediaries have grown over the millennia. The primary cause for this is that, historically, small farmers or peasants have been living at a subsistence level and as such had to depend on village moneylenders for capital to continue their farming activities. It is at this point that the non-producers like moneylenders and the intermediaries with capital enter the scene to take control of farm produce.
Evidently, in this system of marketing, which has not changed over the centuries, the ultimate losers are farmers as producers and the general public as the consumers of agricultural goods. As reported, the official data on the agricultural goods' irrational price variation between the field level and the cities has been attributed to what it termed 'weak and outdated value chain' and that it has come to such a pass because there is no 'proper regulation'. But in view of the past experience, various regulatory interventions made so far by the government could not produce expected results. So, until small producers have their cooperatives and thus empowered financially to control the market for their produce, both producers and consumers are destined to lose.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
