Farm to fork: a misleading epithet

Farm to fork is a misleading epithet used by the government and multinational retail giants like Walmart to hoodwink the people. As far as India is concerned it is impracticable to directly procure from farmers by the foreign retail giants because of the extremely small size of the farms. Walmart and other retail giants must have to buy in small batches from small plot-holders in a country where most of the farms are less than 2 hectares. That means contracting with thousands of farmers will still yield only a few thousand tonnes. In  North America, Europe and Australia  retailers like Walmart can buy from a few hundred farmers who provide hundreds of thousands of tonnes of produce between them.  The  local Indian mega corporate retailers, at the start of their retail trading business, had proclaimed that they would model their trade on “Farm to Fork” concept, i.e. buying directly from farmers and selling to the consumers. But a study by RFSTE/ Navdanya revealed that Reliance Retail was very much found to procure food items from mandis. Available information indicates that the practices of other corporate retail giants do not differ from that of Reliance   Retail.  Therefore, there is no guarantee that the multinational retail giants will not resort to such a trend. Experiences show that nowhere in the world have the farmers who supply goods to big retail chains benefited. It  is difficult to understand how they would benefit, when the big retail players like Walmart look for the cheapest possible suppliers. To begin with, they might offer higher prices, inputs and finance; but that would be only until they are able to eliminate the traditional channels of supply. Ultimately the farmers will have no choice but to sell to big players -- at any price as happened in many countries. For instance, in Western countries, 110 buying desk of big companies control the flow of goods from 3.2 million farmers supplying to over 160 million consumers. A detailed examination of information available on the impact of allowing multi-brand global biggies including Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco into countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Canada, Germany, etc., indicates that they will ultimately eliminate competition and will indulge in monopolistic practices; finally putting the farmers under their clutches.  .  Evidences show that farmers in the West have paid a big price, with hundreds of thousands forced to   abandon their farms, due to corporatisation of the farming sector, along with corporate control of the purchasing side among processors and retailers. Therefore, there is no point in giving this stake (i.e. multi-brand retail trading) to the foreign retailers, albeit to cater inflation. India might receive some foreign direct investments; but this will make the situation even worse by displacing the farmers leading to increase in rural unemployment and poverty. Given the already over-crowded agriculture sector, and the stagnating manufacturing sector, and the hard nature and relatively low wages of jobs in both, many million Indians are virtually forced into the services sector, particularly in retail trade.

Dr.C.Murukadas, The Times of India, Oct. 16,2012.