ABOUT COSAMB

Marketing of agricultural produce is gaining importance all across the world in general and developing world in particular. Agricultural marketing policy in India has been characterized by State participation in production activities; state intervention in procurement and distribution of food grains; directing agricultural economy through regulatory mechanism such as licensing and control on movement, storage; creation of facilitating centers in the form of regulated markets; encouraging co-operative marketing; creation of supporting infrastructure like storage and warehousing; and construction of link roads, market information network, marketing extension, etc. Over the years, to achieve an efficient system of buying, selling, storage and processing of agricultural commodities most of the State Governments enacted Legislations (Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation & Development) Act’s to provide the regulation for marketing and establishment of infrastructure for agricultural produce. The establishment of regulated wholesale markets has helped in creating orderly and transparent market conditions and also in increasing the access of farmers to such orderly markets.

The government of India supports organized marketing and as such physical markets are meant to make sure that the farmers get reasonable profits by creating an atmosphere of fair play. The fairness is with regard to the forces of supply and demand as well as regulation of market practices and transparency in transactions. Wholesale market is a unique place for buying, selling and value addition for food grains and fruits and vegetables, which are centrally located in cities. This is the place where genuine price of farmer’s produce is determined and exchange of goods with services take place. The main function of wholesale market is to facilitate the break up of the large quantities of perishables supplied to the city into assortments, which meet the requirements of different retailers and end users. But apart from this a wholesale market can itself be an integrated business center for various other commercial activities.