To curb price volatility, early warning system developed for onion, potato

Alerts from the portal will help the govt take timely market intervention under the central scheme 'Operation Greens' by providing subsidy to farmers for storage and transportation of the produce

To develop a robust early warning system for onion,potato and tomato, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Wednesday launched a portal that will forecast wholesale prices of the three key vegetables — for three months and alert the government to take timely action in the case of price crash due to glut. Alerts from the portal will help the government take timely market intervention under the central scheme 'Operation Greens' by providing subsidy to farmers for storage and transportation of the produce from surplus markets to consuming market, she said.
 
The alerts will be triggered when prices of these three perishable commodities fall to a three-year low levels at the time of harvest or when the price fall is more than 50 per cent from the year ago or when the fall in rates is lower than the benchmark fixed by Centre/state government for a specified period, she added. The web portal called Market Intelligence and Early Warning System (MIEWS), developed by cooperative Nafed, has been done under the scheme for integrated development of tomato, onion and potato (TOP) value chain.  Elaborating more, Nafed Additional Managing Director S K Singh said the portal will show wholesale prices of these three commodities from 128 markets monitored by private firm Agriwatch and data of 1,200 mandis tracked by Agmark.