Nafed exports soar to Rs 561cr in 2002-03

The National Cooperative Agricultural Marketing Federation (Nafed) exported agro-goods worth Rs 561 crore in 2002-03, against Rs 345 crore in the previous year.

This included onion exports worth around Rs 238 crore. For the first time, it exported rubber worth Rs. 6.5 crore, according to date released at Nafed's annual general meeting held here yesterday.

Nafed was planning to introduce warehouse-receipt based financing and direct marketing through local cooperative societies, future trading, contract farming and other such initiatives.

The minister of state for agriculture Kanti Lal Bhuria said Nafed was able to procure about 2.6 million tonnes of oilseeds worth Rs 3900 crore through state and village level market intervention and price support operations.

He asked Nafed and other cooperative marketing organisations to professionalise operations making best use of the recent Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act.

He advised them to upgrade their technology, especially relating to storage and processing.

Information-technology should be used for gathering market-related information, both domestic and international, to evolve better marketing strategies. This would help farmers get better prices for produce.