A Shirt in the Market Test - 2

Cultivation of cotton requires high levels of inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides and the farmers have to incur heavy expenses on account of these.

Swapna had taken a loan from the trader under the condition to sell her cotton to him. Thus Swapna was in his grip. He misused his power and exploited her and paid Swapna a low price.

Most of workers in the garment factory are women. Women are employed as helpers for thread cutting, buttoning, ironing and packaging. These jobs have the lowest wages.

A chain of markets links the producer of cotton to the buyer of the shirt in the supermarket. Buying and selling takes place at every step in the chain.

Those people who made profits in the market are known as gainers.

Large farmers would sell their cotton in the market. Their situation is different from Swapna. They can bear all the expenses and are free to sell their produce anywhere they wish.

Spinning mill buys the bales. Spinning mill spins the cotton into yarn. Spinning mill buys the cotton and sells yarn to the yarn dealers.

Women are employed there as helpers for thread cutting, buttoning, ironing and packaging.

The merchant distributes work among the weavers based on the orders he has received for cloth.

More women employed in the Impex garment factory because they agree to work even at the lowest possible wages.

(c) Both a and b

Garment exporters buy the cloth from merchants for making shirts. The exporter sells shirts to the businessperson from the USA or any other country in the world.

Weavers are dependent on cloth merchants for raw materials and markets.

A Putting-out system is the arrangement between the merchant and the weaver, whereby the merchant supplies the raw material to the weaver and receives the finished product.

Swapna is a small farmer in Kurnool of Andhra Pradesh. She grows cotton on her small piece of land.