A lose-lose situation

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: investment which would neutralise the yield reducing effect of climate change. Thus, we are looking at a scenario in the long run where differential rates of farm improvement and technological change in developed and developing countries (such as India) might make the distribution of agricultural incomes even more skewed in the future. This article is, however, not meant to be a prediction of doom. Rather, the idea is to highlight the trends in the Indian economy which might help us to overcome the mentioned difficulties.

Contract farming and direct farming — peasants entering into contracts with large retailers such as supermarkets or even selling produce on their own — have made a beginning in India and signify hope for the future. But these only account for a miniscule proportion of total agricultural transactions taking place in the Indian economy. Unless these reforms gather speed they will be soon swallowed and neutralised by the demons of climate change, paving the way for pauperisation of peasants and further agricultural decline. Time is certainly of the essence.

Pro-active government intervention might be a way out. For instance, in Jaipur, the government has made efforts to nurse back farmers to the pink of financial health by reserving a certain number of shops for them in the subzi mandi for direct sale of farm produce. Here they can make their own fortune instead of being short changed by hawk-like commission agents; the seeds for productivity increase have been sown.

Another way out is to encourage the formation of cooperatives, where farmers can pool their wealth together to arrange for means to transport produce to distant remunerative markets. The idea is to break down the narrow walls within which producers are hemmed in by the lack of infrastructure facilities and within which intermediaries thrive.

However, transport facilities on their own would not be adequate to galvanise peasants into action. Information, through computer kiosks, television and radio bulletins, as well as the print media might be the grease that might lead to greater mobility in agricultural produce and farmers across markets. This should ultimately culminate in the integration of agricultural markets in India with greater participation by farmers and the marginalisation of intermediaries whose interests have been served so well by our fractured agricultural markets.