Govt Launching Portal to Arrest Volatility in Potato, Onion, Tomato Prices

Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal is set to launch MEWIS portal for Operation Green Tomato Onion Potato scheme. The portal intends to arrest volatility of prices of tomato, onion and potato. The portal can be accessed at http://miews.nafed-india.com.

The Market Intelligence and Early Warning System or MIEWS portal is a platform to monitor prices of tomato, onion and potato (TOP) and for generating alerts for intervention under the terms of the Operation Greens scheme. The portal would disseminate all relevant information related to TOP crops such as prices and arrivals, area, yield and production, imports and exports, crop calendars, crop agronomy etc. in an easy to use visual format.

As per the terms of the scheme, during a glut situation, the evacuation of surplus production from producing areas to consumption centres will be undertaken:

a) When the prices fall below preceding 3 years’ average market price at the time of harvest;

b) When the prices fall more than 50% compared to last year’s market price at the time of harvest;

c) When the prices fall less than the benchmark, if any, fixed by the state/ central government for a specified period.

Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that the MIEWS system is designed to provide advisories to farmers to avoid cyclical production as well as an early warning in situations of gluts.

For decision makers, the MIEWS system will help in:

(i) monitoring of supply situation for timely market intervention,

(ii) assist in rapid response in times of glut to move produce from glut regions to deficit/consuming regions and

(iii) providing inputs for export/import decision making

The salient features of the MIEWS portal include (i) a dashboard that would indicate low price and high price alerts as well as price forecasts for three months forward; (ii) prices and arrivals of TOP crops across the country, including interactive charts and comparisons with previous seasons; (iii) area, yield and production of TOP crops; (iv) crop agronomy and trade profile of each of the TOP crops; and (v) regular and special reports on the market situation of the TOP crops.