Modern retail offers wide choice, farmers want to exercise it all

When he has a ready crop, Dnyaneshwar Nikam’s day would often start with a phone call, typically to the local wholesale agricultural produce marketing committee (APMC) market, which has for decades been the only wholesale buyer of his produce.
These days, his phone list is a lot longer. It includes officials of Godrej Agrovet Ltd, Aditya Birla Retail Ltd and Reliance Retail Ltd and he carefully compares prices before promising delivery of his ripe but unharvested crop that day.
Nikam, who has a 10-acre farm in Pune’s Ranjani village, has heard Subhiksha Trading Services Ltd may also start buying from around here and is excited because, he says, “The more companies there are, the better it is for us because we can choose where we will get better rates and want to sell our produce.”
The next day, when the Godrej officials land up at his farm, Nikam makes sure he lets them know that Birla offered Rs7 for a kg of cucumber and ITC offered him Rs8 for it, while Godrej offered just Rs6 the previous day. The key to selling to modern retail is to ensure that he sells to more than one retailer, he says. But also letting them know that.
Nikam grows tomatoes, watermelons, onions, brinjals, capsicum and chillies on his farm, apart from oranges and chickoos. He sold several of these vegetables to Godrej the previous day.
Driving past the procurement offices that dot that landscape around rural Pune’s vegetable farming strip, it is clear that change is in the air.
For the first time in India’s history, modern retailers are offering farmers a choice of a buyer other than the traders at government-controlled APMC markets. But some farmers also say this may be something of a limiting choice because they could end up selling to the only buyer who comes to them rather than selling through the APMC’s open auction system that ensures several buyers bid.
As Indians prepare for the army of retailers, who are drawing up plans to open stores in all sizes and price-ranges for them to buy from, the nascent industry is offering selling choices for farmers as well—from cooperatives to big retail firms to higher rates from APMC traders and even farmer-owned stores.
And the way they choose to sell is changing rapidly.
One recent winter day, Godrej Agrovet’s eight gourmet food and grocery stores, Nature’s Basket, paid less than the rate in Mumbai’s wholesale market for beetroots, peas and cabbage; matched rates for brinjals and tomatoes; and paid higher rates for cauliflower and cucumber.