CASI, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, undertook a large study of Indian agricultural markets between 2017 and 2019. This study was spread over three states in India: Bihar, Odisha, and Punjab.
Shoumitro Chatterjee | Mekhala Krishnamurthy | Devesh Kapur | Marshall M. Bouton
The study was guided by the following research questions:
- Markets and market sites—how do we best conceptualize the agricultural marketing systems in these states?
- How do different market sites, including APMC mandis, function? What features of these sites are valuable for small and marginal farmers?
- How do farmers across the study districts bring their produce to the market? In what ways does this vary with farm characteristics including crops grown, size of cultivated holding, amount of land owned, tenurial status, family size, and distance to market locations?
- What are the marketing challenges faced by small and marginal farmers, and how do these differ from marketing by larger farmers?
- What roles do intermediaries of various kinds, from village-level traders to mandi traders and commission agents, aggregators and processors, actually play? Are their roles and returns commensurate with the risks they take?
- What factors most affect price realization, and how do these vary across agro-economic patterns and holding sizes?
- How is payment made to farmers, how long are the delays, and what are the imputed costs of delayed payments?
- How does risk affect farmers’ decisions about which crops to grow and their market behavior?
- How important are MSP and procurement policies, whether sponsored by the national or state governments, in crop choice and price realization? Do these help or hurt small and marginal farmers and in what ways?
- What is the penetration and usage of eNAM? What is its impact on market behavior, and what are the impediments to greater adoption?
VIEW FULL REPORT with initial findings of the study
The research also entailed the collection of data on farmer's production, marketing decisions, and intermediaries business: VIEW ANONYMIZED DATA & QUESTIONNAIRES
Citation for the report:
Chatterjee S., Krishnamurthy, M., Kapur, D. and Bouton, M. 2020. A Study of the Agricultural Markets of Bihar, Odisha and Punjab. Final Report. Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia.
Citation for the dataset:
Chatterjee S., Krishnamurthy, M., Kapur, D. and Bouton, M. 2020. A Study of the Agricultural Markets of Bihar, Odisha and Punjab. Farmer Survey Data. Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia.
For further questions/queries please contact Mekhala Krishnamurthy (mekhala.krishnamurthy@gmail.com) or Shoumitro Chatterjee (shoumitrochatterjee@gmail.com)