There are around 7,500 wholesale agricultural markets in the country that are regulated by states according to the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act. This act allows states to issue licences and Metro Cash & Carry, a wholesale retailer, was being denied a licence renewal under the APMC laws. India’s wholesale markets are so inefficient thanks to poor infrastructure and produce handling that farmers’ effective income realisation is no more than 40-60 per cent. Among other reforms — the APMC act is supposed to be changed — entry of big corporate players in marketing is crucial because it will act as a force multiplier.

Bengal in particular should be very welcoming to retailers because its labour-intensive, rice-led farm sector growth has plateaued and it has been apparent for some time that agriculture marketing is a big problem in the state. Just as the decision to get big-ticket industrial investment in the state was the CPM’s strategy to counter flattening farm growth, encouraging big retail is also a reformist response. The CPM’s leadership understood what politicians nationwide need to say aloud: farming cannot be transformed in India in isolation from modern economic practices and farmers cannot have a better future in isolation; the supermarket is the farmer’s friend.