For many of
India’s 850 million rural inhabitants, 40 per cent of whom live in poverty,
delivering agricultural output in a timely manner is a significant challenge.
Poor infrastructure, lack of scale economies
(70 per cent of landholdings are less than one hectare, or 2.5 acres), and
costly transportation means smallholders routinely sell their output to
traders. However, this potentially efficient division of labour suffers from
limited competition among these middlemen, who are able to exploit their
bargaining power to extract a surplus. On the other hand, farmers who sell
their produce directly to end consumers face difficult timing and/or locational
decisions, uncertainty about prevailing market prices and an inability to visit
every market every day.
CMF's “Increasing rural incomes by expanding access to agricultural price information” in Karnataka intends to rigorously evaluate the “success or failure” of Fasal (a cell-phone based service that provides current price informa…
CMF's “Increasing rural incomes by expanding access to agricultural price information” in Karnataka intends to rigorously evaluate the “success or failure” of Fasal (a cell-phone based service that provides current price informa…