INTEGRATED PROTECTED AREA CO-MANAGEMENT (IPAC) - BIDS

activities. For example, some of the Farias are also collectors; some of the Mahajans, Aratdars
or wholesalers are directly involved as collectors.
Furthermore, the resource collectors or even Beparis or Farias sell their products partly to
Mahajans and partly to Aratdars or even wholesalers at different prices so that buying prices
and selling prices were different. Another limitation is related to costs of collection that are
borne or shared by actors, depending on who are involved in organizing the collection trips.
Hence, consistent and systematic buying or selling prices (price value additions) and even
returns according to hierarchy were not always discerned. Following this, it was not feasible to
estimate Value Additions, from economics point of view, particularly for per unit product.
Associated costs calculations and their segregations were complicated when there were advance
sales to traders or Mahajans by the collectors in the form of dadons, which was applicable
almost for all the cases. Consequently, associated adjustments posed complex, particularly
when there were multi-products that were dealt with by a single actor; in such cases, the
dominant product is considered and relevant costs are segregated for the product in question.
As also discussed in Chapter 5, the calculation of costs and returns is found to be complicated in
that when there was often no systematic hierarchy among actors and when a single actor is
concerned with multi-products and has multiple roles. In normal situations, average selling
prices of one actor should be equal to average buying prices of the next actors in the hierarchy
in turn. But some actors sell directly to other actors through bypassing the immediate higher
level actor. For example, some Beparis sell, in addition to Choto Mahajans, directly to Boro
Mahajans or even Aratdars so that buying or selling prices or value additions selling prices or
price value additions may not appear to be systematic and consistent in all the cases. In practice,
both buying prices and selling prices varied according to various transactions so that average
buying prices in combination with average selling prices were used in estimating gross
margins and gross returns. Consequently, the gross or net returns may also appear to be not
always consistent. Collectors who work for others on wages are not considered to have any
working capital. Majhis get a share of profit in addition to wage as collector when products are
sold at fixed (either by bargains or unilaterally by Mahajans or Aratdars) or reduced price.
Some of the problems discussed above could be surmounted if a single combination/set of
actors, for a single product, single grade 42 , size and quality could be pursued, in accordance
with respective origin (source) and destinations so that the values along actual chains could be
pursued. This was not feasible for this brief study, which dealt with as many as 12 different subsectors,
and at least 7 actors, spread over as many as 159 primary landing places of 5 districts
and 10 upazilas.
Following the above problems, the emphasis in this study is given on estimating gross or net
returns of individual actors (on a monthly basis) so that their relative positions, in terms of
income and inequality, for example, are revealed. The value additions for the resource
collectors, who largely work for others on wages with associated costs borne by trip organizers,
are considered to be merely the price at which the products are sold. Since this study is
concerned with marketing chains, in consequence, the price value additions have been taken as
proxy to economic value additions.
The study makes an attempt to estimate the extent of income concentration at intermediaries
level (share of income of top few traders in total income) and also at area level, in order to have
42 For example, crabs have at least 16 grades, Sada fishs have more than 20 different species types, with various
sizes and quality.
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