Kerala to launch 1000 weekly agricultural markets

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The agriculture department will organise 1000 weekly agricultural rural markets this year partnering with the Kudumashree units of local self-governments at panchayat level.  The project will be inaugurated on November 25 at Edappal in Malappuram. Agriculture minister V. S. Sunilkumar said the existing shortcomings in the marketing infrastructure of agricultural commodities like post harvest loss, transit loss, insufficient transport mechanisms, storage loss and cold chain maintenance led to a host of problems for producers in marketing their products. The project is aimed at resolving these shortcomings by setting up weekly market in the vicinity of production sites so that goods could be delivered fresh to consumers and that too in a transparent manner.

A management cum monitoring committee will be constituted with panchayat president as chairman/chairperson, agricultural officers as conveners and Kudumbashree CDS chairperson, joint liability group convener, farmers producer groups and representatives as its members. The management cum monitoring committee will be responsible for the functioning of weekly markets which include procurement of commodities from farmers, market data management, customer relationship and market chain establishment.

The committee will procure commodities directly from approved Kudumbashree, JLG units and other progressive farmers and markets at a discount of 10% on the market rate to the consumers. The profit generated will be utilized for the management, betterment and sustainability of system.  The commodities will be procured according to the market demand and the markets will be set up at different places on different days. In nutshell, customized market will be materialized according to the demand and supply equation, the minister said.