AGRICULTURAL MARKET INTELLIGENCE CENTRE (AMIC), ANGRAU, Lam, GUNTUR – 522034.

In India, food grain production quadrupled during the last 50 years but failed to bring about a corresponding improvement in the standard of living of the vast majority of farm households, who depended on the agricultural sector for their livelihood security. The time has reached to concentrate more on the agricultural marketing policies and programmes rather than agricultural production policies. At present, the market prices couldn’t be determined only by the forces of supply and demand within the boundaries of a local area or a country and there is a marked asymmetry of access to market information. With this backdrop, Agricultural Market Intelligence Centre (AMIC) was established at ANGR Agricultural University, Lam, Guntur.

To forecast the prices information of principal agricultural commodities and dissemination of better market information to farmers and other stakeholders to realize the better prices to their produce.

1. To provide pre sowing, pre harvest and at regular intervals the price forecasts for principal crops.

2. To disseminate the forecasted prices information through various methods.

3. To study the extent of market integration among major markets of agricultural commodities in Andhra Pradesh.

4. To develop commodity market outlook, tracking commodity flows and commodity market research report for selected commodities at regional and state level.

Forecast models like Multiplicative model, Least Square Method, Co-integration test, Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) Model, ARCH, GARCH, ANN, SPSS (24 version) Software with multiple user, Metastock Software, E views (Latest version) Software, Alyuda Forecaster Software and other suitable statistical models are employed to get the valid estimates.

The price forecasts estimated for different crops released during pre-sowing, mid season, pre and post harvesting stage are directly disseminated to the registered farmers through text as well as voice Short Message Services. All these forecast bulletins were uploaded tothe websites of ANGRAU and the State Department of Agriculture and Agropedia, magazines viz., Vyavasayam of ANGRAU, Rythu Bharosa of Govt of AP and Annadata. They are also made available with toll free FarmersCall Centre of ANGRAU and various departments of state government.

The price forecasts released by the centre were evaluated through impact assessment regularly. Price forecast releases especially matches with seasons (pre-sowing kharif, pre-harvest kharif, pre-sowing rabi, pre-harvest rabi) and in general monthly cum bi-monthly frequency. The accuracy of the forecasts were achieved between 86.54 to 96.38% for the crops under study when compared with the real-time market prices.

The fact sheets/crop outlook reports prepared by AMIC regularly for principal crops of Andhra Pradesh viz., chillies, cotton, sorghum, groundnut, turmeric, maize, blackgram, redgram, greengram and bengalgram which covers the recent information about area, production and productivity particulars of world, India, Andhra Pradesh and its districts; export and import scenario; procurement and consumption pattern; prices of crops in major mandis and price behavior along with forecasted price analysis. These reports can be viewed below.

Department of Agriculture, Department of Marketing, Civil Supplies Corporation and various market committees in addition to exporters and traders of different commodities in Andhra Pradesh.

The Centre is planning to build up a ‘Consortium’ by collaborating with the different public and private institutions in Andhra Pradesh as well as South Indian Agricultural Universities.