If you look up the mandi price of tomatoes and then visit your local vegetable seller, the two numbers will not match. That does not mean either one is wrong. They measure different things.
What a mandi is
A mandi is a wholesale agricultural market, usually run under a state's Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) rules. Farmers and traders sell produce there in bulk. Many markets report their daily prices to AGMARKNET, a Government of India network, which publishes them.
Minimum, maximum and modal
Each market's daily report usually gives three prices:
- Minimum price: the lowest rate at which that produce traded that day.
- Maximum price: the highest rate that day.
- Modal price: the rate at which the most trade happened. It is the most useful single figure because one unusually cheap or costly lot does not distort it.
Prices vary inside one market because quality varies. Fresh, evenly sized produce sells higher than bruised or mixed lots.
Converting a quintal price to a kg price
Mandi prices are normally reported in rupees per quintal. One quintal is 100 kg, so:
Price per kg = price per quintal / 100
For example, a modal price of Rs 2,000 per quintal is Rs 20 per kg. The vegetable and grain prices on this site are already converted to rupees per kg.
Why your shop charges more
Between the mandi and your bag, several costs are added:
- Commission and market fees paid at the mandi
- Transport and loading
- Spoilage. Leafy and soft vegetables lose weight and go bad quickly, and the seller has to recover that loss
- The retailer's own costs and margin, such as rent, labour and a living wage
Retail prices are therefore usually well above the modal price. The gap is often larger for perishable vegetables than for grains.
How to use mandi prices
A mandi price is best used as a guide to direction, not as a price to demand in a shop. If the mandi price of onions doubled in two weeks, you can expect shop prices to rise soon. If it is falling, you may find better deals, or you could buy less now and more later.
See the latest rates on our vegetable price and grain and pulse price pages. Rates are labelled as wholesale so you always know what you are looking at.