Managing Market Marginalization of Smallfarmers: An Ethnographic Study

Abstract

India is an agrarian country and agriculture is the principal means of livelihood for more than half of its population. According to the recent Indian National Sample Survey2, there are 90.2 million agricultural households in rural India, which is 57.8 per cent of the total estimated rural households (156.1 million) in the country. For these farming communities, agricultural market is the backbone. Markets tend to marginalize small farmers for lack of assets, want of adequate quality and quantity of assets, and finally the inner dynamics of market itself. If the market marginalizes the farmers, the farmers have no choice but to leave farming or leave this world. The consequent outcome of this situation will be alarming for a country and it may impose socio-economic and political crisis that can adversely affect the business environment of a country. However, India also has stories of valiant fight against this marginalization of small farmers. This paper is an outcome of an ethnographic study to understand the process of marginalization of small farmers in the market. It elucidates some of the strategies these farming communities have developed in managing the markets. The study narrates the successful grassroots story of managing markets in a creative manner.