Explain the steps taken by the government in developing rural markets.

Earlier, the private traders and money lenders would exploit the farmers through various ways which included faulty weighing of farmer’s produce, manipulation of their account, purchasing agricultural produce at very low prices due to farmers’ inadequate information on prevailing market prices, etc. The Government then took initiative to protect the farmers from private traders and develop rural markets. Four such measures taken by the government are as follows:

•Regulation of markets to create orderly and transparent marketing conditions which benefitted both farmers and consumers.

•Improving and developing infrastructure facilities like roads, railways, transport, warehousing, cold storages and processing units. This prevented the farmers from selling their produce at low costs because of lack of storage facilities.

•Co-operative marketing which helps the farmers realise a fair price for their products.

•Safeguarding interests of the farmers by initiating certain policies like minimum support prices for agricultural products, maintaining and storing buffer stock of food grains and establishing a Public Distribution System to distribute food grains and other products. These instruments protected the farmers’ income and also provided food to the poor at a subsidized rate.