Since the middleman is, by far, the biggest investor, the farmers listen to him more than the extension workers who can only advise without any financial clout. In these Far-Eastern markets, the middleman has been turned into a very effective vehicle of technology transfer. All successful models are available, but the provincial governments in Pakistan are trying to swim upstream now. Most of the emerging Far-Eastern markets like China, Singapore, Thailand and even India have not only acknowledged the role of middleman but also used him for improving the quality of agricultural produce. Punjab started this anti-middleman campaign way back in 2000 when the country, for the first time had a record wheat crop and the federal and provincial bureaucrats raised issues such as “Pakistan is not only becoming self-sufficient in wheat but also becoming an exporting state, cleaning the production line of middleman's exploitation etc.” Since then, Punjab has done everything administratively possible, even involving the State Bank of Pakistan to restrict commodity finance, to throw the middleman out, but failed. No player from the formal sector has ever dared to venture where the middleman routinely does. They get as much money as required and frequency dictated by their agricultural, and even social (family functions), requirements. The middleman's mode of credit is tailor-made for farmers. The government banks hardly provide Rs80 billion. The financial role of middleman can be gauged from the fact that of the total loan requirement of around Rs1,000 billion, the formal sector (banks) provides around Rs275 billion.
That is how ground realities define the role of the middleman and make him an essential part of the crop cycle. They will not even be able to prepare their fields for sowing if the middleman does not provide money for the diesel. Without middleman's credit, over 80 per cent farmers would not be able to buy seed and fertiliser. In rural economy, the farmer uses land and his labour power and the middleman provides money to facilitate production. The middleman is very much part of the production process. Punjab failed to throw the middleman out of the commodity trade (especially wheat) because it treated him as an 'outsider,' who jumps in at the time of trading, exploits farmers, makes money and gets out of market. Can Sindh succeed where Punjab has failed? But Punjab has not been able to even reduce, leave alone to eliminate, the middleman's role. The act has come after Punjab's continuous maligning of the middleman for more than a decade and repeated attempts to reduce his role. The Sindh Assembly has enacted the Wholesale Agricultural Produce Marketing Development and Regulation which empowers the provincial government to eliminate the middleman's role. THE role of middleman in the commodity trade is back in focus.