Since transactions between the traders and buyers from distant markets are often bilateral, in-
formation about what price the trader receives when he sells potatoes at the mandi is not in the
public domain. Farmers therefore do not have the opportunity to learn directly about prices at
which the traders are able to resell their potatoes. Their main source of information is the village
trader whom they deal with most frequently: in 2007 before our intervention began, nearly half
of our sample farmers reported they learnt about wholesale prices only from the village trader.
Another 15 percent reported they found out prevailing prices from friends or neighbours. The me-
dia tends to report wholesale prices in distant city markets, and only about 6 percent of farmers
reported that as their source of information. Note that telecommunication facilities are available:
51% of the villages in our sample had telephone booths, 24% of the households reported they had
landline phones and 33% had mobile phones in 2007. When asked in informal interviews why they
could not nd out the price at which traders were selling in the wholesale market, they reported
having no contacts in the wholesale market who would be willing to give them this information.