Paddy farmers of Koppal harness tech tools to market their produce directly, and edge out exploitative middlemen.

Raghottam Koppar

KOPPAL: For the paddy farmers of Koppal, social media has arrived as the great leveller. It has also opened up many windows of opportunity, helping them break out of the iron grip of middlemen. The farmers are now using search engines, social media and digital platforms to bypass middlemen and reach out to wholesalers.

Many farmers, leading a rather cloistered life in Koppal, had no idea of pricing in various markets and were dependent on agents and middlemen, who took advantage of their ignorance and made their little bags of profit. The price of paddy had been hit for the past few years, but they would somehow manage.

Gradually, they began observing that paddy prices were low but the price of rice was high. A few months ago, this price variation in different markets became a hot topic of discussion, and farmers decided to use the power of the internet and social media to market their crop. With the help of friends in tech fields, they learnt to check market prices online and reached out to wholesalers in Bengaluru and neighbouring states.

How things changed

Earlier, the paddy growers had not considered contacting wholesalers directly as they used to get good rates, but they didn’t know that the middlemen were taking a high percentage of profit. It was only after two years of consecutive losses that they realised they needed to do something about their hard work reaping low rewards.

A few months ago, many growers had gathered at Koppal market to sell their crop. They shared their bitter experiences and how middlemen were making profits. One of them suggested that they use their mobiles to check day-to-day prices, while another grower shared website addresses and details.

Farmers learnt to upload photographs of their crop on WhatsApp and other platforms, and this set the digital revolution in motion. Growers began sharing details of paddy bags, with prices and quality, on WhatsApp groups and asked friends to share the same on other social media platforms. Initially, they got a few calls but after a few days, their phones were ringing continuously. As news of online marketing spread, the number of middlemen visiting paddy farmers dropped to a trickle. Incidentally, there are still some farmers who have not yet taken to digital platforms.

Games agents play

What set off the revolution was something sinister. Months earlier, agents had spread rumours about excess chemical usage for the paddy crop grown in Koppal region, stopping wholesalers from visiting farmers here. Many agents claimed that wholesalers who export rice to Gulf countries were not keen on buying rice from Koppal because the farmers use excess fertilizers, and brought down the price of the crop. They used the opportunity to make profit by helping farmers find markets.

Raju Kampli, a farmer from Koppal, said, “We have decided not to sell our paddy crop to agents. They give us a low price. Some of our friends told us to use online marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation) to sell our crop. We started using our mobiles and learnt many things in very little time. We also shared our paddy crop details, its quality and our contact numbers on some social media groups and started getting orders. We collected wholesalers’ numbers from some websites and contacted them. Our paddy quality is good and Gangavati is called the ‘Rice Bowl of Karnataka’, which helped us get many clients.”

Mahantesh Hiremath, another paddy farmer from Gangavati, said, “Earlier we never used our mobiles in a fruitful way. When we came to know that our produce goes to Gulf countries and middlemen are taking advantage of us, we decided to sell directly. It took two months to reach the right customers but we finally succeeded. We used Google, WhatsApp and other market-related websites to check prices and reach wholesalers and other customers.”

A few paddy growers have now decided to start an awareness campaign about using digital platforms and avoiding middlemen.

Published Date: January 26, 2025