E-auction system in FCV tobacco: a case to be emulated in other crops

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to evaluate the e-auction system in terms of the modus operandi of auctioning and the extent to which it has succeeded in offering fair price to tobacco farmers in terms of feedback from Tobacco Board officials, Traders and tobacco farmers. Karnataka Light Soils (KLS) region of Karnataka was selected purposively as a representative study area for e-auction system in FCV tobacco. A total of 10 tobacco farmers from 6 auction platforms in Karnataka constituting 60 tobacco farmers were randomly selected and data was collected through semi structured interview schedule in the year 2018. A total of 20 stakeholders (10 from Tobacco Board and 10 from Trade) were purposively selected to collect feedback from the respondents thus constituting the total sample size of 80 in the present study. The findings from the present study revealed that to keep a check on market flaws associated with the manual auction system, Tobacco Board has introduced e-auction system of marketing in FCV tobacco. This new system has shown positive impact in terms of transparency, automation, time saving, fair pricing and real time availability of information to the tobacco farmers.