Mandi arrivals: Seven key summer crops see big drop

By Prabhudatta Mishra & Nanda Kasabe

Amid the row over the three new federal farm laws aimed at giving unfettered market access to farmers, the producers of various crops seem to have started to rely much less on the organised APMC mandis.

According to data reviewed by FE, of the 10 major kharif crops namely paddy (common), jowar, bajra, maize, arhar, moong, urad, soyabean, groundnut and cotton, mandi arrivals have dropped in the case of seven crops, in the range of 3-53% in October from the year-ago period.

Only three crops — groundnut, jowar and moong — have recorded higher arrivals on year (see chart). Even in the case of jowar and moong, arrivals fell in the largest-producing states of Maharashtra (-39%) and Rajasthan (-7%), respectively.

Only groundnut has recorded both higher arrivals pan-India as well as in all three top-producing states – Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka. This could be due to higher production of the oilseed, at 9.54 million tonne, up by 14% from the previous season.

Until October 15, things were a bit sketchy. The arrivals at mandis were showing a mixed trend – in four crops there were a 30-55% fall y-o-y while in six others there was an increase between 4% and 47%.

As the kharif-harvesting season progresses, the impact of the reforms are beginning to get reflected with diminishing business of traders and arthiyas in mandis in terms of volume.

“There is definitely a large chunk going out of mandis’ purview. This year being projected as a bumper year of production with early planting of crops, the arrivals should have been higher in most of the crops and there is no reason for a drop,” Bhavesh Jain, a grain and spice trader from Kota, Rajasthan, said.

As the arrivals also started earlier than last year, the cumulative data across India should have been higher, Jain said and added “the fall in volume at mandis could be a result of farmers’ producers’ organisations (FPOs) increasing their business”.

Business picked up for Latur-based Ranban Agro Producer Company, an FPO, after the new farming laws were passed. “Our company was formed in the year 2015 and we are part of Maharashtra Farmer Producer Company (MahaFPC) which is our umbrella organisation. In the 2018-19 season, we had procured 70 tonne of soybean at market rates. Farmers were skeptical then, and preferred to sell at mandis. But during the current season, we have done business of some 300 tonne, which is a big leap for us,” Das Patil, founder of Ranban, said.

“Our farmer producer company has a 500-tonne capacity warehouse where we store the soyabean procured from farmers from their homes. The rates paid to farmers by us are higher than the Latur APMC mandi. For instance, the soyabean prices were Rs 3,980 per quintal at mandi while we paid farmers Rs 4,020,” Patil said.

After taking the soyabean crop from farmers, the FPO checks rates offered by five processing companies in the region and informs farmers of the highest rates offered by the processor. If the farmer agrees to the price, the FPO sells the produce to that processing company. However, it charges Rs 100 per quintal as transportation, weighing, grading, sorting charges, Patil said. Around 12 FPOs in Latur, Osmanabad, Parbhani and Nanded have supplied over 1,200 tonne of soyabean to ADM Agro Industries — a processing company based in Latur this season.

Concerned over the agitation by a section of farmers and Opposition parties, especially in states like Punjab and Haryana against the farm sector reforms, the Centre has set a target to purchase 74.2 million tonne paddy (nearly 50 million tonne in terms of rice) in the current kharif marketing season (October-March), 18% higher than last season’s 62.7 million tonne.

Terming the current agitation by farmers in Punjab as politically motivated, new minister for food and public distribution Piyush Goyal said the Centre is prepared for a dialogue to remove the apprehensions regarding MSP. He also reiterated that official procurement at minimum support prices (MSPs) would continue.

As for the ongoing kharif procurement, the Food Corporation of India has so far purchased 19 million tonne of paddy across the country, which is 24% higher than in the corresponding period last year.

Given farmers’ agitation in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, the procurement season was advanced by a few days and started from September 26, instead of normal schedule of October 1.