Middlemen and retailers seemed to have cornered a large part of the price paid by consumers, thus profiteering at the cost of farmers, during the time of high inflation in case of fruits and vegetables, working papers by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) show.
In working papers prepared by RBI’s Department of Economy & Policy Research, farmers were found to have earned far lesser share of the consumer rupee in case of fruits, including bananas, grapes and mangoes and essential vegetables such as tomatoes, onions and potatoes, while the share wamuch higher in dairy, poultry farming and pulses.
As per the working paper ‘Livestock and Poultry Inflation in India,’ the farmers’ share in the consumer rupee is estimated at 70% for milk and 75% for eggs; for poultry meat, the share of farmers and aggregators is 56% together.
According to Working Paper titled ‘Price Dynamics and Value Chain of Fruits in India,’ farmers’ share in the consumer rupee is estimated at about 31% for bananas, 35% for grapes and 43% for mangoes in local value chain.
Pulses inflation
The paper ‘Pulses Inflation in India’ finds about 75% of the consumer rupee spent on gram (chana) came back to farmers while the share was about 70% for moong and 65% for tur.
The paper on ‘Vegetables Inflation in India’ puts farmers’ share in consumer rupee at about 33% for tomatoes, 36% for onions and 37% for potatoes.
