In an effort to make awareness among farmers about the benefits of Futures trade in commodities, NCDEX and Forward Market Commission jointly organised an awareness programme here recently.

Farmers, traders, processors and exporters/importers took part in the programme where several experts addressed the crowd.

Addressing the meet, Rajeev Agarwal, member, FMC, said prices on commodity Futures exchanges reflect the fundamentals of demand and supply. Price discovery on an exchange platform like NCDEX not only helps farmers take a decision on when to sell their produce but also the crop to grow in the next season.

Pointing out that stagnant productivity in agriculture and global shortfall in supplies of foodgrains and pulses led to the spike in inflation since September 2006, Agarwal said commodity Futures exchanges threw up useful indicators on the demand-supply situation and the government, accordingly could take appropriate remedial measures to ease the pressure on prices of essential commodities.

Uma Mohan, head customer service, NCDEX, said the exchange would shortly be re-launching the robusta cherry AB coffee Futures contracts with specifications designed to suit the requirements of the producers and traders. To make the coffee contract more liquid, NCDEX has decided to slash the trading/delivery unit to 1.5 tonnes from 9 tonnes and incorporate the option of staggered delivery, she said.

Agarwal said FMC is seeking collaboration with regulators in other countries to strengthen its regulatory arm.

FMC has taken membership of IOSCO, a body of all international security and commodity market regulators, and signed MOUs with USCFTC and CSRC, commodity futures market regulators of the United States and China, respectively.

• India and the Commodity Trade: Coverage