Abstract
Opening up agriculture to retail trade is a controversial issue today, but the implications of such a change for farmers has received less attention. This chapter presents an integrated picture of three cases of farmers’ marketing through retail chains using primary data, both quantitative and qualitative in nature, from three states in India. The chapter seeks to understand how the linkage between producers and the buyers in the value chains is constructed. Both direct and indirect and latent implications of the channels for producers are explored.
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- 1.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in retailing has been allowed only in single-brand chains up to a point, restricting the growth of the sector. FDI in retail has recently been a major issue of political confrontation among the opposing parties in the central government and faced strong resistance from opposing state governments. In November, the issue was put to vote in the Parliament and despite the contentions, the central government found majority support in favour of FDI in retail. It is now up to the state governments to accept the motion through legislation.
- 2.
The data are part of a larger set of data analysed on different marketing channels emerging in different parts of the country.
- 3.
Also see Emerging Marketing Channels in India reports submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India by Agricultural Economics Research Centre (Bhagalpur, Delhi and Shimla).
- 4.
A joint venture between Spencers and Hongkong’s regional multinational supermarket chains—Dairy Farm International was probably one of the first examples.
- 5.
Even in Delhi, the capital of India, majority of the distribution of fruits and vegetables is done through ‘push-cut’ retailers and ‘wet-market’ retailers but, contradictory to experiences in other countries, modern retail stores in Delhi spread equally to rich and poor neighbourhoods.
- 6.
Examples of cooperative outlets, cheap stores for employees and Kendriya Bhanadar outlets have been known for a long time, though on a limited scale.
- 7.
Some headway was made in the central government in a recent Parliament session in 2012, but actual implementation will be revealed over time by the inclinations of the states in India’s federation.
- 8.
Adani Fresh Limited, Container Corporation of India and Dev Bhoomi Cool Chamber Limited are two such operators.
- 9.
Not all the proposed reforms are implemented and the act has not been amended.
- 10.
Post-harvest losses of major fruits at various stages of marketing are estimated by unconfirmed sources and methods at 15–50 % (FAO 1981, Roy 1989) and at 1.2 % of agriculture gross domestic product (GDP) by a systematic study (Murthy et al. 2009). Another study estimates the losses (CIPHET 2010) to be in the range of 6.3 (citrous) to 12.3 (apple).
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Ghosh, N., Vadivelu, A. (2016). Linking Farms with Consumers Through Organized Retail Chains: Implication for Producers in India. In: Rao, N., Radhakrishna, R., Mishra, R., Kata, V. (eds) Organised Retailing and Agri-Business. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2476-1_14
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