Role of intermediaries and cooperatives in agricultural supply chain

Abstract

Agriculture has been a significant part of India’s economy contributing almost 16% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well as sustaining livelihood for more than 58% of the population in rural areas. Even after launching various schemes to benefit the farmer community at large, only a small portion of the profit is received by farmers mainly due to uncertain weather conditions, poor infrastructure, lack of financial investment and pulling out of a large portion of money by intermediaries in between farmer and end user. In short, the entire supply chain in agriculture needs to be reconsidered so as to extract the larger benefits to the farmer. In this paper, we aim to analyze the existing supply chain for various agricultural commodities, what roles or value addition intermediaries perform in the supply chain and how the entire value network can be redefined by the use of technological platforms, contract farming and agricultural tourism.