Dozens of distressed farmers plead for their crops at the gates of a sprawling mandi in Morena, Madhya Pradesh. A government surveyor has left them in a state of shock. He has allegedly rejected their moong produce, all at once.

"None of the 25 trolley-loads was approved," complained Sita Ram, a farmer. "I could understand if ten of them were declared substandard. The rest should have been passed. But none was."

The crop inspector, Govind, discarded their yield as unfit for procurement without testing, the tillers alleged. He made that announcement after taking a palmful of moong from 25 tractor-trolleys, bemoaned Ram, as farmers waved a polythene pouch containing green grams.

"There was no machine. He just put a palmful of it into a single pouch and announced his decision," Ram protested. Govind, who initially claimed the produce had exceeded the threshold for broken dal, admitted he had carried no scientific examination of the samples. And when he did, in the presence of India Today's investigative team, senior officials approved the same moong crop for procurement with minor recommendations.

Farmers were able to confront Govind - and higher authorities were quick to step in as well - because India Today had its cameras rolling on what appeared to be an arbitrary rejection of harvest at a government mandi of Madhya Pradesh. But not all in the debt-ridden sector have been as lucky.

Across Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, farmers came out in angry demonstrations earlier this month after they found no buyers for their bumper crop. Many of them had no government agencies or private traders around to pick up their surplus production, causing prices to nosedive and tensions to escalate.

An incisive investigation by India Today across states went to the root of this chronic crisis.

At Morena's large mandi, the network's investigative team recorded what encapsulates the Indian farmer's crippling hardship, his daily struggle with a wayward officialdom.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's recent assurances about income support to the community aside, the Morena mandi threw a spotlight on a devastating truth - procurement agents virtually forcing farmers to make a distress sale to private sharks. Had there been no India Today's presence at that purchase yard, Sita Ram and fellow farmers would have gone back with their consignments.

"Sir, it would have meant Rs 2,000 more for transportation, another Rs 1,000 for the driver. Altogether, it's a loss of Rs 6,000," Ram explained. "Then, I'd have no choice but to sell it off at Rs 2,000-3,000 to the traders outside."

That precisely illustrates why farmers end up peddling their crops out to private market at almost half of its minimum support price. Official mandis across India number 7,700, with a total coverage area of 2.5 states, said food-policy analyst Devinder Sharma.

Most of them are concentrated mainly in Punjab and Haryana, he said.

Spurned by government-run markets on various grounds, many farmers in other states are compelled to undersell their produce to local traders, India Today's investigation found.

At Rajasthan's Pratapgarh mandi, procurement official Mangi Lal had nothing much to do when the investigative team visited him this month. Located in the middle of the garlic belt of the region, the market wore a deserted look.

It was not accepting the yield because farmers had no crop certification to produce. "There's a strike by patwaris. Farmers have no certificates. There are no sellers. I come here at 10 am and leave at 5 pm," Lal said.

At the receiving end were farmers, who were not able to obtain complete paperwork because issuing authorities were out on a protest. Distressed, they were hawking piles of garlic at unimaginably low prices - down to Rs 1,200 from the MSP of Rs 3,200 rupees a quintal - to local traders.

Back to Madhya Pradesh, which came out with a slew of measures in the middle of the June agitation, India Today's investigation unveiled a painful reality. Farmers were still underselling their produce to greedy private businesses and middlemen outside of the MSP regime.

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"There's a harvest and tur is priced at Rs 5,050 a quintal in MSP. But the farmers won't sell it (to government mandis) because of fears their money would be deducted," disclosed Murari Lal Meena, an inspector at Guna mandi.

"Traders say they will only buy at a price that suits them." Crushed by heavy debts, they were avoiding government mandis that would credit money directly to their bank accounts after procurement. Farmers, said Meena, were apprehensive the banks would debit the deposits as repayment against loans. In neighbouring Rajasthan, middlemen at its Dholpur mandi could also be seen setting their own pricing for wheat purchases.

"Farmers are not selling it. They want cash in hand. Official procurement is on but no one is turning up," said mandi secretary Kailash Meena. "Farmers mainly fear they would lose their money to banks in loan repayments if it goes directly to their accounts. That's why they give their produce to private traders for cash." Experts blame the overall system for the crisis. "For nearly three decades, more so after the economic reforms were ushered in, agriculture has been a victim of neglect and apathy," said Devinder Sharma.

"Following the World Bank's prescription of moving 400 million people from the rural to the urban areas by the year 2015, successive governments deliberately created conditions to turn farming unviable," he insisted, Farmers, said Sharma, have been increasingly forced to abandon agriculture and migrate to cities. "In order to keep food inflation under control, farmers have been routinely paid less, not even to cover the cost of production. They have been driven against the wall."

(With inputs from Umesh Mishra)