National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India

                                 

                National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) is an apex organization of marketing cooperatives for agricultural produce in India, under Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.^[1][2] It was founded in October 1958 to promote the trade of agricultural produce and forest resources across the nation.^[3] NAFED is now one of the largest procurement as well as marketing agencies for agricultural products in India. With its headquarters in New Delhi, NAFED as four regional offices at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, apart from 28 zonal offices in state capitals and important cities.
In 2008, it established, National Spot Exchange, a Commodities exchange as a joint venture of Financial Technologies (India) Ltd.

Objectives

To co-ordinate and promote the marketing and trading activities of its affiliated co-operative institutions;

To make arrangements for the supply of the agricultural inputs required by member institutions;

To promote inter-state and international trade in agricultural and other commodities; and

To act as an agent of the government for the purchase, sale, storage and distribution of agricultural products and inputs.

Membership of Nafed

There is no change in the membership of NAFED as no new member was admitted during the year 2015-16 nor any member withdrew membership of NAFED, therefore, the membership of NAFED as on 31.03.2016 stood at 847, which is as under :

S No.	Category of Members	Total No. of Members as on 31/03/2015	Total No. of Members as on 31/03/2016
1.	State Level Marketing Federations	25	25
2.	Apex Level Marketing Federations	03	03
3.	State Level Tribal and Commodity Federations	24	24
4.	Primary Marketing/ Processing Societies	793	793
5.	Government of India*	00	00
6.	NCCF & Other National Level Coop. Organisations	02	02
	Total	847	847

*Government has no equity participation in the share capital of Nafed.

Management of Nafed

The management of NAFED vests in the Board of Directors, which includes Chairman and Managing Director. The Board is supported by 2 standing committees - Executive Committee and Business Committee. In addition, the Board can also constitute two more committees/sub-committees as per the provision of the MSCS Act/Rules and Bye-laws of NAFED.

Activities

The NAFED performs the following activities:
♦ Internal Trade
NAFED is engaged in interstate trade in agricultural commodities, particularly foodgrains, pulses, oilseeds, cotton, jute, spices, fruits, vegetables and eggs with a view to assuring better prices to the producers.

♦ Foreign Trade- Export and Import of Agricultural Commodities
The NAFED exports agricultural commodities, particularly onions (canalised), potatoes, ginger, garlic, nigerseed, sesamessed, gum, deoiled cake of groundnut, soyabean and cottonseed, fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, spices- black pepper, cardamom, turmeric, cuminseed, coriander seed; cereals-rice, barley, bajra, jowar and ragi and jute bags.

♦ Imports
The NAFED also arranges for the imports of pulses, fresh fruits, dry fruits, nutmeg (jaiphal), wetdates and chicory seeds and inputs particularly fertilizers and machinery as and when asked to do so by the government.

♦ Price support operations
Government of India have designated NAFED as the nodal agency for implementing the price support policy for oilseeds and coarse grains during Seventh Five Year Plan period (1985-90). NAFED is being appointed as the agency of the government to undertake support price purchases of commodities like groundnut, soyabean, mustard seed, gram, tur, moong, bajra, jowar, maize, barley, toria and sunflower seed.

♦ Production and Marketing of Agricultural Inputs
NAFED helps the farmers by supplying them agricultural machinery like harvesting combines tractors, spare parts and such other inputs as bio-fertilizers. NAFED also imports some of the machine and spare parts from abroad to ensure timely availability of genuine spare parts at reasonable prices.

♦ Promotional Activities
NAFED maintains expert staff, which conducts market studies, collects data and circulates the results among the members.

♦ Developing Co-operative Marketing of Tribal Produce
A separate cell to develop the marketing of product of the tribal areas (minor forest products) having economic value has been set up with the assistance of NAFED. NAFED arranges market intelligence, establishes better system for auction of tribal produce and develops for other commodities like chilgoza, gum, karya etc. Keeping in view the importance of marketing of tribal produce, a separate Tribal Co-operative Marketing Development Federation (TRIFED) has been set up.

♦ Setting of Scientific Storage System
NAFED has set up a cold storage alongwith an ice factory and a warehouse in Delhi. It has set up an onion warehousing complex at Nagapattanam.

♦ Processing of Fruits and Vegetables
NAFED has set up a multi-commodity fruit and vegetables processing unit at Delhi and at Vellore (Tamil Nadu). The basic purpose is to develop the processing industry in co-operative sector in a major way so as to make fruits and vegetable marketing and processing to the advantage of the farmers.

NAFED also manufactures jute goods in joint venture with Konark Jute Limited-promoted by Industrial Development Corporation of Orissa.