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The Edge Magazine - C K Prahalad about Jaipur rugs
Q: Vasant Sathe, when we
talk of commercializing democracy or democratizing commerce,
particularly in the rural areas, one of the biggest problems
of helping farmers has been not getting a proper price for
their products. Whatever they produce, the middleman gets
the best of it. Is there any way on helping the farmer
directly to have value-added production of his own product
which will go to the market through what you call commerce.
Can something be done?
Prof CKP: Both the examples I gave you — Amul and ITC
— are examples of getting better value for what farmers
produce. Amul increases the value of milk that they produce.
It was a brilliant idea from Sardar Ballab Bhai Patel, it is
not new. He said Polson was really pushing them hard and not
giving them enough value for milk and it was Sardar's idea
to say you organize yourself, create your own milk
processing acilities and get better value. So creating that
co-operative was a big opportunity. The ITC is doing exactly
that. EID Parry is doing exactly that. Today you can go to
Jaipur Rugs which takes village distributed rugs and
builds a global market for them. There are examples in India
having done it, creating opportunities for poor people. The
farmer in ITC’s Choupal gets 8 per cent more for exactly the
same thing he used to produce. Even in regular market, he is
not beholden to the middle man. And now ITC is giving them
information on what grades of soybean or wheat you should
produce. So he can save or the anchorage, he can an increase
to 25-30% and have a steady market.
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