Do you think various measures taken by the government to improve agricultural marketing are sufficient? Discuss.

Question

Accepted Answer

The measures taken by the government to improve agricultural marketing have brought definite improvement, but they are not sufficient as yet. Much more needs to be done to realise the full potential of the agricultural sector.

**Storage:** Although the government is maintaining buffer stocks and providing storage facilities, these facilities are still inadequate. Even today, more than 10% of the goods produced on farms are wasted due to lack of storage. Storage facilities at the farm level as well as warehousing in markets and consumption centres need further extension.

**Infrastructure:** The available infrastructural facilities - roads, railways, godowns, cold storages and processing units - are inadequate to meet the growing demand and need improvement in terms of both quality and quantity. There is still a need to develop about 27,000 rural periodic markets as regulated market places to realise the full potential of rural markets.

**Cooperatives:** Except a few successful societies like the milk cooperatives of Gujarat, many marketing cooperatives have received a setback in recent years due to inadequate coverage of farmer members, lack of an appropriate link between marketing and processing cooperatives, and inefficient financial management.

**Dominance of private traders:** Despite government intervention, agricultural markets are still dominated by private traders such as moneylenders, rural political leaders, big merchants and rich farmers. The quantity of agricultural produce handled by government agencies and consumer cooperatives constitutes only about 10%, while the rest is handled by the private sector.

Hence, while the government's measures have helped protect farmers to some extent, they are far from sufficient. Many scholars argue that commercialisation of agriculture, with limited government intervention, offers tremendous scope for farmers to earn higher incomes.