The scheme, similar to the `Apana Mandis' in Punjab, initiated by the state cheif minsiter M Karunanidhi has evoked much interest. He has opened 14 such markets so far, beginning from Madurai. By March, there may be 50 more markets.

The chief minister has promised 100 such markets in the state by December 2000. The state agricultural marketing department has already identified 57 locations in different municipal and corporation areas.

The district authorities will set up markets having 50 to 100 shops in a centralised area with necessary infrastructure facilities. Each market will cover 10-15 villages within a 40 km radius having vegetable fruit cultivation in at least 200 hectare. Thefarmers are given indentity cards.

They can bring their produce to the market place and sell directly to the consumers. A special committee with farmers' representatives will decide the prices on a daily basis based on the open market prices. The agricultural marketing department staff are employed in collecting price and related data.

The farmers can bring the vegetables in state transport corporation buses without paying luggage charges and they are insulated from the possible harassment by local porters. Traders and middlemen are not allowed to buy from these markets.

The farmers in areas which have their own markets have started phasing out harvesting. Steps are being initiated to help the farmers to stagger cultivation so that there can be vegetables in their market round the year, according to CV Sankar, commissioner of agricultural marketing.

The farmers' markets will not be able to trade in the entire 48 lakh tonnes of vegetable and 50 lakh tonnes of fruits produced in the state and cater tothe needs of the entire population. But they offer an alternative to the farmers to sell their produce, he opined.

The farmers' markets can deal with only a tiny fraction of vegetables grown in the state and wholesale traders do not expect any impact on their business or on prices. In Chennai wholesale vegetable market at Koyambedu, on an average, 200 truck loads of vegetables are traded daily. They come from Tamil Nadu districts, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Vegetables like green peas reach Chennai even from Delhi and Jhansi markets.In the wholesale trade of vegetables there is no tomorrow. Goods have to be sold on the same day at any price.``Otherwise it will be total loss,'' according to a leading wholesale trader at Koyambedu.

Even in the Government sponsored faremrs' markets, pricing is done based on the open market prices which are fixed not on cost but on supplies. Hence in the long run the farmers are not going to benefit much as there may be occasions when they would be requiredto sell even below cost of production.

In the present trading process involving district traders, city bulk wholesalers, semiwholesalers and retailers, the consumers, especially those in cities, are four or five times removed from the farmer. In each stage, price goes up and at the consumer's point price also will be four or five times higher than the farmer's price .

``But all these are not profits,'' says the wholesaler. In the eraly stages of the trade, there is no quality control or grading which is in fact done by the consumer. There will be large quantities of unusables as brokens, rotten, pet-infested, over ripened etc. There will also be the natural weight loss. ``To make up for all these the retailer, from whom the consumers choose only the best ones, marks up his prices and nobody can do anything about that or is there any other alternative to it,'' he says.

``Farmers' markets can be an experiment but is not an answer to the problem of low returns to the farmers.''

fruits including mango,banana, guava, lime, orange, jack, grapes, pear, pineapple, papaya are grown in two lakh hectares in Tamil Nadu.

Vegetables including brinjal, ladiesfingers, potato, tomato, carrot, beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, onions and garlic are cultivated in 1.76 lakh hectares in the state.

Tamil Nadu has a well-orgnaised agricultural marketing system with district-level market committees and 270 regulated markets for 30 commodities including paddy, cereals, pulses, oilseeds, cotton, turmeric, chillies, sugarcane, jaggery and cashew.