Middlemen
Also called: intermediaries · Topic: Agricultural Marketing, MSP, Buffer Stocks and PDS · NCERT: Class 6, Ch 14 "Economic Activities Around Us"; Class 7, Ch 12 "Understanding Markets"
Meaning
Middlemen, or intermediaries, are people who buy goods from producers and sell them on to others, keeping a fee or margin. In farm markets they link scattered farmers to distant buyers. However, they often paid farmers very low prices. Before independence, farmers had no price information and no storage, so middlemen could easily squeeze them. Each extra layer of middlemen widens the gap between what the farmer gets and what the consumer pays.
Example
The AMUL story in NCERT (Class 6, recalled in Class 7, Understanding Markets) describes how middlemen squeezed milk producers in Gujarat. The farmers then formed their own cooperative to sell milk together and cut out the middlemen.
Don't confuse with
- Commission agent (arhtiya): a licensed intermediary inside a regulated mandi who sells for the farmer for a commission. "Middlemen" is the broader term for any intermediary, licensed or not.
Related concepts
- Agricultural marketing
- Agri-value chain
- Distress sale
- Marketable surplus
- Marketed surplus
- Farm-gate price
- Farmer's share in consumer rupee