Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Rising Food Prices: Can collective action be a solution for it?

Recently we are witnessing sharp rise in the food prices. The government appears to be failing in controlling it. Rather we are being witnessed to verbal duels between the union agriculture minister and rest of the cabinet.

In a situation when the profits arising out of higher domestic consumer prices are getting accumulated in private hands, thereby not incentivising farmers to augment production capacities, can a collective action by the consumers in this regard be possible? Will this collective action be feasible? We seriously need to ponder upon these questions in these trying times.......

SHASHVAT SINGH (30044)

1 comment:

Ritesh Kewlani(p30034) said...

The role of middlemen is crucial in certain situations but it might lead to marginalization farmers. One particular collective action took place during my fieldwork in Uttarakhand. Travelling to markets in the hilly area is costly and time consuming. So a village shop was opened which provided majority of the necessary items. One of the household would buy these items in bulk which other households could buy from them. This reduced the dependence on midddlemen and helped in bringing down the effective food prices.