Research Proposal Md.

Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

Research Proposal on

PRICE DISCRIMINATION OF RICE: FACTORS CAUSED TO DEPRIVATION OF

FARMERS FROM FAIR PRICE

Agricultural Marketing
[Course No: 421]

Md. Faruk Hossain

Roll No – 35
Section – A
BBA 12th Batch (Marketing)
University of Dhaka

Date of Submission: June 01, 2010

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

S. No. Topic Page No.

1. The Statement of the Problem 03

2. Aims and Objectives 03
3. Key Research Questions 04
4. Literature Review 04
5. Conceptual Framework 05
6. Development of Hypotheses 06
7. Research Methodology 06
8. Sampling Technique 07
9. Research Implication 07
10. Research Program Timeline 07
Bibliography 08

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

PRICE DISCRIMINATION OF RICE: FACTORS CAUSED TO DEPRIVATION OF

FARMERS FROM FAIR PRICE

Abstract
This study is concerned with the price discrimination of the Rice Farmers who don’t get fair
price of their cultivated rice despite bumper production in each year. Several factors and
causes might be responsible for that. This study will be tried to seek these factors and variable
by conducting mainly three steps of research with two types of research design: Exploratory
and Descriptive. Both focus group and Agricultural Experts will be included in research
discussions and fifty samples will be taken from the relative population of farmers. After
collection and analysis of data, conclusion will be made by qualitative research that results a
significant decision and implication of both in General and Managerial Implication.

1.0 The Statement of the Problem

Rice is the main staple food of Bangladesh. It also holds the greater percentage of food crops
cultivated here, because lots of farmers live on Rice Cultivation. Despite large amount of
production, Bangladesh has still to import Rice to balance the consumption (IRIN News,
2008). Due to the worldwide shortage of Rice Production (Bangladesh News, 2008), Rice
price has been soaring frequently, for which import price has been increasing day by day.
On the other hand, though the full swing with bumper productions of Rice in every year,
farmers are still deprived of fair price (The Daily Star, 2010). So it is needed to seek for the
factors and causes for what farmers are not obtaining their deserved price of the Rice Paddy,
where at the same time consumers have to purchase Rice at a soared price. This study will
seek to find out the factors caused to deprivation of farmers from fair price of Rice despite
the bumper production of rice every year.

2.0 Aims and Objectives

The main broad objective or Aim of this study is:

To seek out the causes and factors of depriving the farmers from obtaining fair price of Rice
after the cultivation by comprehensive review of literature and empirical studies.

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

And the specific objectives are:

1) To seek for the factors of price deprivation
2) To evaluate these factors
3) To explain the factors and causes
4) To suggest some general remedies to ensure the fair price of Rice to the farmers

3.0 Key Research Questions

1) What are the primary causes or factors affecting farmers to ascertain the fair price of
Rice?
2) How these factors can be evaluated? How many of these factors can be manipulated
and mitigated by adopting necessary action programs and remedies?
4.0 Literature Review
Though farmers conduct bountiful rice production, the biggest problem of farmers remains
to be solved, which is poverty (Xuan, 1995). Xuan (1995) also depicted that the main cause of
that poverty of farmers is their limited capability in managing their resources for sustainable
development. In another study, irrigation inefficiency is mentioned a cause to low price of
Rice paddy (Kan, 2004). Due to irrigation inefficiency, farmers get the crops harvested in
inadequately dried form that offer them low price from the middlemen (Priyo News, 2010).
Mondal (2010) opined that middlemen and millers are the most influential key factors who
collected rice paddies from farmers with a very low price. He also stated that there is the
need for devising the procurement mechanism in such a way that the growers or farmers,
not the middlemen or the rice-millers, are benefitted most from the government
procurement drive. The farmers must get the right price of their produce so that they feel
encouraged to grow more food to feed the nation. Majumder et al. (2009) mentioned
predominant tenancy arrangement as the factor of not getting fair price of rice because the
crop share tenants were unable to invest on modern farm inputs. Regional Imbalance and
Information gap can be big factors or causes for farmers not to have expected price of the
crops (Ullah, 2008). Ullah (2008) also depicted preservation crisis, Increase of food
production, and Transportation as the basic causes of selling Rice with very low price. In
another study, it was suspected that food production and distribution are centrally
controlled by giant, globe-spanning business enterprises (Barker, 2007), that might be the
cause not to getting fair price for the farmers. In an IMF country report on Bangladesh,
Inadequate marketing infrastructure of agro-based products and farmers’ getting of
inappropriate price of their products are considers two of the major impediments to poverty

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

reduction in several districts in Bangladesh (IMF, 2004). Regarding and considering all of
these facts, this study will be conducted to find out the causes of deprived pricing to the
farmers and the ways of mitigating these effects.

5.0 Conceptual Framework

This research is concerned with the variables and factors that cause for failing to ensure fair
price to the Rice farmers who cultivates bumper rice every period. Seeking out these factors,
Middlemen & Millers effects, Information gap, Knowledge of Price, Preservation crisis of
rice, Imperfect transportation & distribution facility, and inadequate marketing
infrastructure will be used as main treatments or independent variables which will be tried
to be manipulated (Xuan, 1995; Barker, 2007; Ullah, 2008; Mondal, 2010). Here, highly
increase in food production and Rush money expectation of farmers (IMF, 2004; Ullah, 2008)
will be used as Extraneous Variables that might affect the treatments to perfectly create the
effect on dependent variable. Here, dependent variables should be the outcome of the effect
on Farmer Price, as well as the evaluation and control of the treatments on the Farmer Price.
The Model can be sketched as below:

Extraneous
Variables

Treatments (Independent Variables) 1. Highly increase in

food production

2. Rush money Dependent

1. Middlemen & Millers effects expectation of Variable (Result
farmers Outcome)
2. Information gap
Farmers’ having
3. Knowledge of Price
of Fair Rice
4. Preservation crisis of rice Price
5. Imperfect transportation &
Evaluation and
distribution facility Control Possibility of
Each Treatment
6. Inadequate Marketing
infrastructure

Figure-1: Schematic Diagram of Conceptual Framework / Model

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

6.0 Development of Hypotheses

H1: Due to the Middlemen and Millers, farmers don’t get fair price of Rice despite bumper
production.

H2: Information gap is one of the main factors of fair Price deprivation.

H3: Farmers don’t have enough knowledge of current price that lead them to sell their Rice
with very low price.

H4: Considering Preservation crisis, farmers sell Rice with a minimal price.

H5: Due to Imperfect transportation and distribution facility, farmers don’t sell their crops
perfectly with fair price.

H6: Inadequate Marketing Infrastructure also causes to hinder to ensure the fair price to the
farmers.

H7: Treatments can be perfectly evaluated and controlled that drive the fair price conformity
to the Rice farmers.

H8: Highly increase in food production and Rush money expectation of farmers can affect
the treatments to make effect on the farmers’ fair price having.

7.0 Research Methodology

Both Exploratory and Descriptive Research will be conducted in this study. In Exploratory
Research design, both focus group and Agricultural Experts will be contacted. After the
discussion with focus group and interview with experts, descriptive research will be
designed. Here, rigorous questionnaire will be designed to conduct a survey on farmers.
Randomly around fifty samples will be drawn from the farmers. Descriptive research will be
both quantitative and qualitative. In quantitative, data collection and analysis will be
conducted, and decision making will be based on qualitative research. Research will be
conducted in one district to conduct survey on fifty samples of farmers. The Respondents
then will consist of Farmers, Agricultural Experts, and Focus Group. Farmers’ price attitude
toward the treatments as well as the questionnaire would be used as the Instruments. Data
collection will be conducted in three steps: 1) Discussion with focus group, 2) Interview with
Agricultural Experts, and 3) Survey on farmers. Measures of Central tendency, Dispersion,
ANOVA, Regression analysis, and Multivariate Analysis would be applied as Statistical

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

Techniques. Finally ‘evaluation and control possibility’ of the treatments will be concluded
with qualitative research design.

8.0 Sampling Technique

The Population is defined mainly as the farmers who are the sufferers of Rice price
deprivation. Among this population, randomly fifty samples will be taken to conduct
survey. Based on these sample size, quantitative and qualitative research will be conducted
to draw the conclusion.

9.0 Research Implication

As a part of General Implication, this study will help the future study conducted based on or
relevant to this issue as references. On the other hand, as a part of Service or Managerial
Implication, this study will help the country policymakers to design the policies in
agricultural sectors, as well as help to reduce the poverty line.

10.0 Research Program Timeline

Item Week- Week- Week- Week- Week- Week- Week- Week- Week- Week- Week- Week-
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
May May May May June June June June July July July July
1

P.T.O.

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

Literature Review Finding

Research Proposal Preparation

Research Design Preparation

Data Collection

Data analysis

Write up

Editing and submission

-----------------------

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Research Proposal Md. Faruk Hossain (ID # 35)

Bibliography

1. Barker, Debbie, (2007). ‘The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture’,
International Forum on Globalization (IFG), San Francisco, USA.

2. Bangladesh News Online, (2008), ‘Worldwide shortage of rice shoots prices soaring’,
Available from: http://www.independent-
bangladesh.com/200802212190/business/worldwide-shortage-of-rice-shoots-prices-
soaring.html [Accessed May 22, 2010]

3. Hossain, Nazmul, 2000. Ecommerce in Bangladesh: Status, Potential, and

Constraints, Available from: http://www.jobsproject.org/content/publication/E-
Commerce_in_Bangladesh_status.pdf [Accessed April 22, 2010]

4. IMF, (2004), ‘Bangladesh: Preparation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper’, IMF Country
Report No. 04/279, 2004.

5. IRIN, (2008), BANGLADESH: ‘Rice price stabilises but shortages continue’, Available
from:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/d08bdc8ed113a42989155893cca
08dec.htm [Accessed May 22, 2010]

6. Kan, Chun, E., (2004). ‘Improving Irrigation Management Systems for Rice Farming’,
Available from: http://www.agnet.org/library/eb/547/eb547.pdf [Accessed May
23, 2010]

7. Majumder, M. K., Mozumdar, L., Roy, P. C., (2009). ‘Productivity and Resource Use
Efficiency of Boro Rice Production ‘, Journal of Bangladesh Agricultural University, 7(2):
247-252, 2009.

8. Mondal, M., Abdul, Latif, (2010), ‘The middlemen rule the roost’, The Daily Star, May 6,
2010.

9. Priyo News (2010), ‘Boro harvest continues in full swing with bumper productions’,
Available from: http://priyo.com/news/2010/may/21/40786.html [Accessed May
23, 2010]

10. The Daily Star, (2010), ‘Boro harvest continues in full swing with bumper productions’,
Available from: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-
details.php?nid=137151 [Accessed May 22, 2010]

11. Ullah, Mr., Shahid, (2008). ‘Budget 2008-09: Agriculture, Food security and Public
Service Sectors’, Paper Presented at CIRDAP, Dhaka, Bangladesh, April 20, 2008.

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12. Xuan, Vo-Tong, (1995). ‘Priorities for Rice Research - A View from Developing Countries’,
paper presented at the Festival of Rice, Montpellier, France, Oct. 6-8, 1995.

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