ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one such venture, a state-managed farmer cooperative the Horticulture Producers' Cooperative Marketing and Processing Society Limited (HOPCOMS), in the south Indian state of Karnataka. It explains a HOPCOMS farmer as one who has used HOPCOMS to sell a crop on the day of sampling. HOPCOMS was founded as a cooperative under the Indian Cooperative Societies Act. It has a membership base comprising farmers, state financial organizations, and the Karnataka state government. The Karnataka Agricultural Policy aims to move away from traditional grain-based agriculture towards crop diversification, promoting horticulture, poultry and livestock. In Karnataka, horticultural crops are grown on 13 per cent of the net cultivated area of the state. Smallholder agriculture in southern Karnataka is best understood in the context of the trajectory of Bangalore's spectacular growth since the 1990s, its population expanding at an estimated 30 per cent annually thanks largely to a booming information technology industry.
