If Chapter 1 punctured the myth of “direct-from-farm”,

this chapter tackles a deeper misunderstanding:

Most people think procurement is about buying goods. In reality, procurement is about managing human behavior under pressure.

The crop is only the surface.

The real action is happening inside people’s heads.

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The uncomfortable truth

Every participant in a procurement chain is:

• rational,

• self-interested,

• pressured,

• and operating with incomplete information.

This includes:

• farmers,

• buyers,

• field staff,

• transporters,

• accountants,

• supervisors,

• and sometimes even founders and CEOs.

Procurement systems fail not because people are bad —

but because systems pretend people are not human.

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Farmers are not emotional. They are situational.

Let’s start with farmers.

Take Meena, a vegetable grower near Bagru.

She is intelligent, observant, and experienced.

In February, when cash is stable and crops are steady, Meena negotiates calmly.

In May, when school fees are due and water is scarce, her behavior changes.

Same person.

Different pressure.

When procurement systems label this as “unreliability” or “emotional behaviour,” they miss the point entirely.

Farmers don’t change their values.

Their situations change.

A governance system that ignores situational pressure will always misread intent.

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Buyers are not neutral. They are incentivized.

Now look at buyers.

A procurement manager may appear neutral, but their incentives are rarely neutral:

• reduce cost,

• avoid rejection blame,

• meet volume targets,

• manage cash flow,

• look competent to seniors.

Imagine Rahul, a mid-level buyer handling vegetables and milk.

If he rejects too much produce, farmers complain.

If he accepts too much poor quality, processing suffers.

If he pays early, finance pushes back.

If he delays, farmers lose trust.

Every decision Rahul makes optimises something — rarely fairness alone.

Governance exists to protect buyers from their own incentive traps.

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Field staff live in the grey zone

Field staff sit at the most dangerous intersection:

• farmer pressure,

• buyer instructions,

• and ground reality.

Take Shyamlal, a collection supervisor near Dausa.

A farmer arrives late.

Quality is borderline.

Truck is waiting.

Phone network is patchy.

Senior wants the material.

Shyamlal must decide now.

No SOP can cover this moment fully.

Only governance — pre-agreed boundaries — can.

Without it, Shyamlal improvises.

And improvisation, when repeated, becomes informal policy.

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Transporters optimise survival, not ethics

Transporters are often treated as neutral logistics providers.

They are not.

They optimise for:

• time,

• fuel,

• penalties,

• and personal convenience.

A poultry transporter may over-stack cages.

A milk truck may delay chilling to save a trip.

A vegetable carrier may mix lots to unload faster.

Not because they are dishonest —

but because no one governed their decision space.

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Why “good intent” collapses at scale

In early stages, intent carries systems.

Everyone knows everyone.

Mistakes are forgiven.

Losses are absorbed.

Then scale arrives.

Volumes double.

New staff join.

Margins tighten.

Cash cycles stretch.

This is where intent collapses.

Not dramatically — but quietly.

Suddenly:

• exceptions become rules,

• shortcuts become habits,

• and trust becomes conditional.

This is why procurement governance must be designed for bad days, not good ones.

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Behaviour always finds the gaps

Here is a hard rule:

If behaviour is not governed, it will optimise itself — usually against fairness.

Examples are everywhere:

• Farmers bring borderline quality hoping it will pass.

• Buyers delay payment hoping farmers won’t protest.

• Staff hide small rejections to avoid paperwork.

• Transporters mix lots hoping nobody notices.

None of this is criminal.

It is predictable human behaviour.

Good governance does not moralise this.

It anticipates it.

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The illusion of technical solutions

Many organisations try to solve behavioural problems with:

• apps,

• dashboards,

• traceability software,

• and digital payments.

These tools help — but they do not govern behaviour.

Technology records actions.

Governance shapes decisions before actions occur.

Without behavioural rules:

• apps get bypassed,

• data gets adjusted,

• and systems get gamed.

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Procurement is a continuous negotiation

Another misunderstanding is that procurement happens at a moment.

It doesn’t.

It is a continuous negotiation:

• before harvest,

• at collection,

• during transport,

• at processing,

• at payment,

• and at exit.

At every stage, someone asks silently:

“What happens if I push this boundary a little?”

Governance answers that question in advance.

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A simple mental shift

Here is the shift this doctrine insists on:

❌ Procurement is not buying crops

✅ Procurement is designing predictable behaviour

When behaviour is predictable:

• trust stabilises,

• conflict reduces,

• and systems survive stress.

When behaviour is left to chance:

• fairness becomes accidental,

• and breakdowns feel personal.

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Why this book focuses on people, not produce

You will notice something as you read further.

We talk more about:

• timing,

• pressure,

• power,

• fear,

• incentives,

• and exit,

than about:

• seeds,

• varieties,

• yields,

• or grades.

That is intentional.

Crops differ.

Human behaviour repeats.

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What the next chapters will do

The chapters ahead will:

• define decision boundaries,

• slow down impulsive behaviour,

• remove ambiguity at critical moments,

• and make unfair behaviour hard, not impossible.

Not by controlling people —

but by governing the situations they face.

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A final thought

If procurement were only about buying,

mandis would have collapsed long ago.

They survived because — despite all flaws —

they evolved behavioural rules people understood.

Direct procurement must do the same,

or it will repeat the same mistakes — without the safety net.

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End of Chapter 2

If this chapter:

• deepens the argument from Chapter 1,

• keeps the tone grounded,

• and feels “uncomfortably true”,

then we are perfectly aligned.