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Short abstract

This paper examines the cooperation based on mutual-trust, between small and marginal farmers and financiers in banana plantation ventures of Daranggiri. The farmers usually repay the loan once they accrue profit post-production, followed by remaining amount shared in-between as an established norm.

Long abstract

Located at Goalpara district of Assam, India and inhabited mostly by the plain tribes of Rabha, Koch and Garo, this paper attempts at capturing how kinsmen, relatives and village-fellows act as ‘financiers’ to the banana cultivators of Daranggiri, fostering an informal collaboration and pragmatic growth. “This system works best unlike bank-loans, because there is no paper-work required, and all of us could equally prosper”, says a small-scale producer, which certainly over time has enhanced their entrepreneurial skills, productivity and purchasing power. The growth of the site entails its team-effort to ensure a stable market via the ‘middlemen’, who buy their produce at bulk and transport them to the nearby regions. Apart from native-grown varieties of Cheni- Champa, Malbhog, Jahaji; extensive research on hybrid/improved varieties are also carried out by government institutions such as the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, and as experimentation, G9 tissue-cultured banana plantlets were distributed to the farming community a few years back, to verify its adaptability, growth and market-demand. Today Daranggiri has turned out as a banana epicentre and the reputation it held for its ‘retail banana market’, which is one of Asia’s largest and biggest (The Hindu, 2016) shines, out of years of joint-collaborative effort of research-production-marketing-transportation network. The objective of this paper is to understand this external linkage of overlapping units alongside unravelling how the internal collaboration between actors/financiers/middlemen works. A possible outcome is expected at locating the role of ‘networking’ and potential for collaboration among different actors and institutions in banana fruit production.