Implications of Middlemen and Agriculture Marketing: A Look into the livelihood of farmers of Savar Region

Abstract

Bangladesh is an agricultural country which gets most of its income through this sector. Most of its people live off agriculture. Despite this huge involvement of general people in this sector, it has been seen that agriculture is the main driving force of poverty since 2000. The farmers remain in distress due to the huge price margin between producers and end users caused by middlemen. Asymmetric information happens to affect the whole supply chain, proving agriculture marketing to be the biggest challenge to small-scale farmers. Another factor that is to be blamed is the lack of control by the government in the price gap. In order to have a direct overview of this scenario, this study has been conducted in Savar, which is one of the most popular agricultural regions of Dhaka City. A total of 55 respondents agreed to participate in this survey. Study shows that most farmers were more than 38 years old and the main bread earners in their families.  It was revealed through the farmer that there is no control of the government in the high price charged by middlemen. Farmers also sold off their goods to middlemen at cheap prices which wasn’t monitored by the government either. This may also turn out to be a economic risk in future as it implies to wastage of agricultural resources