Taking a leaf out of the success stories of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the region, the farming community in Haryana is making an effort to emulate the concept of clusters. Farmers integrated through cooperative societies in the state have formed clusters to grow crops and entered into buyback arrangements with different industry verticals. This transformation can be observed in the Desi wheat (C-306) crop in the districts of Jhajjar, Gurgaon and Mewat in southern Haryana, and in a high-yielding variety of barley (DWR UB-52) in the Sirsa, Hisar, Fatehabad and Bhiwani districts. The malt industry prefers this variety of barley and contract farmers are getting better returns from it than farmers who grow conventional varieties of barley. During the 2009-10 Rabi crop year, barley under contract farming was purchased at Rs 1,000 per quintal, whereas the prevailing price of barley in the market was Rs 850 per quintal. The initiative was taken by Hafed (Haryana Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation Limited) four years ago.