National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and its Investor Protection Fund Trust on Tuesday launched the country’s first call center dedicated to farmers and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to impart complete knowledge about agricultural derivatives and related market infrastructure services.

A media release issued by NCDEX said that the initiative will help farmers and FPOs to access all types of information regarding the exchange functionalities, product-related queries, spot prices, delivery and settlement related queries etc. on a real-time basis.

“This will be the first-of-its-kind type of the call center offering information to directly link farmers and FPOs to the derivatives market. I am sure the facility will bridge the gap between NCDEX and farmers, particularly those in remote areas across the country and bring them into the mainstream of marketing of agricultural produce,” said Arun Raste, managing director and chief executive officer, NCDEX.

Speaking at the launch V. S. Sundaresan, executive director, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said, “Derivatives provide effective risk management tools to farmers. But the level of awareness among farmers about the derivatives market is not up to the mark. SEBI has been working hard in that direction and this call center will complement our efforts. It is a step in the right direction.”

The information made available at the call centre will not be limited to the derivatives trading and it will also include all services under the NCDEX Group such as Electronic Negotiable Warehouse Receipt-based financing, and electronic spot trading through auctions and reverse auctions to enable farmers’ connect to the entire agri-value chain.