Agricultural Produce Markets in the Tribal Hinterland of Mandla District in Madhya Pradesh

Abstract

Agriculture markets are old and complex in structures existing across many parts of the India. The locality of such markets has formed a dense site for economic, political and social activity connecting towns and local agricultural markets to much bigger hub of commerce and consumption. These agricultural markets as the ‘first crucial transaction’ between the producer and the buyer that has been widely portrayed as oligopolistic, entrenched, with a wide gap between what the farmers get paid for their produce and the prices at which the consumers buy. The APMC markets and LAMPS Cooperative as a marketplace were introduced to protect the farmers from the whims of traders who routinely exploited through unfair prices and terms. There has been increasing demands for dismantling of the mandi system and strengthening of cooperatives in the tribal context and as a key to liberalisation. Drawing on a fieldwork conducted in 2019 in Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, this thesis centres on everyday life of a tribal, medium of livelihood, and relationship with the agricultural markets in the central Indian state. It discovers the complex and dynamic natures of marketplace relation to the production structure. Furthermore, it shows the culture of tribal and their closeness with the nature, regional context with the choices and constraints of small and marginal farmers, and processes of reform. This thesis is an attempt to form an integrated view of agricultural markets. Part One of the analysis follows the Krishi Upaj Mandi of Mandla District as a major state led intervention, which is set up in the local context of the tribal area and agricultural production, producing a variety of effects on the mandi due to the spatial variations, range of intermediaries, structures, social relation among the mandi actors and the domestic policies that are experienced in the market yard. Part Two dives into the regional context of the commodity markets for paddy, one of the major produced crops in Madhya Pradesh. The analysis traces the livelihood options available with the tribal, land condition, credit availability and farmers’ preferred market. It deals with bigger and more complex problems of the tribal society that highlights the lack of empirical evidence in the formation of policies ignoring the range of social, cultural and rural factors. It raises serious questions to local actors and importantly to more distant policymakers.