A Tribal Crop and a Market Commodity: An Analysis of Kodo Millet Wholesale Markets in India

Abstract

Kodo millet, Paspalum scrobiculatum (L), is one of the least commercially visible minor millets in India, yet its formal market presence has increased sharply in recent years. Using AGMARKNET arrivals and mandi price data for 2007-2024, this article examines the geography, liquidity, seasonality, volatility, and spatial integration of kodo millet markets. The data analysis shows that kodo millet is not a broad national market. Its recorded APMC trade is concentrated overwhelmingly in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which together account for more than 95 percent of arrivals. The main trading belt lies in tribal and highland districts such as Dindori, Kabirdham, Mandla, Singroli, Katni, Dantewada, and Surguja. Recorded arrivals expanded sharply after 2017, suggesting greater formalization and visibility in regulated markets rather than the emergence of a fully mature commercial market. Seasonality is irregular and district-specific; arrivals occur in episodic bursts rather than smooth marketing cycles. Prices show a more systematic upward trend, but volatility is market-specific and influenced by thin trading, quality variation, and reporting practices. ADF tests broadly support cointegration analysis, while Johansen results indicate one cointegrating relation among six district price series at the 5 percent level. Rolling-window tests show that higher-order integration is unstable. Overall, kodo millet markets are partially integrated, but substantial district-level independence remains. The discussion highlights that tribal geography, infrastructure deficits, affected-area conditions, and Aspirational District development priorities are central to interpreting this market system.

Introduction

The article examines the formal market development and spatial integration of kodo millet markets in India, using AGMARKNET data on arrivals and prices from 2007–2024. It argues that kodo millet has become increasingly visible in regulated markets, particularly after 2017, but its markets remain thin, geographically concentrated, irregular, and only partially integrated.

Key findings:

• Rapid growth in recorded arrivals: Formal-market arrivals increased sharply after 2017. However, this may reflect not only higher commercialization but also improved reporting, digitization, market formalization, and procurement initiatives.
• Strong geographical concentration: Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh account for about 95.2% of recorded arrivals. Major districts include Dindori, Kabirdham, Mandla, Singroli, and others in the central Indian tribal/highland belt.
• Polycentric market structure: Although geographically concentrated, trade is spread across several mandis rather than being dominated by one major wholesale market. Shahpura and Kawardha are among the largest mandi-level markets.
• Irregular arrivals and seasonality: Arrivals show episodic rather than smooth seasonal patterns. Local procurement, weather, trader participation, and reporting practices appear to influence market activity.
• Rising but locally volatile prices: Prices generally increased over the study period, while volatility differed substantially across districts. Surguja showed particularly high and persistent price dispersion.
• Partial spatial integration: ADF tests indicate that the district price series are generally nonstationary in levels but stationary after differencing. The Johansen test identifies one cointegrating relationship among six district markets at the 5% level, indicating some common long-run price movement but not full integration.
• Integration is unstable: Rolling-window tests suggest that higher-order integration is not persistent. Thus, kodo millet markets are linked but fragmented, with substantial district-specific price behavior.
• Institutional and infrastructure constraints matter: Poor connectivity, limited storage and aggregation facilities, small-scale production, weak buyer networks, and conditions in tribal and development-priority districts increase transaction costs and restrict arbitrage.
• Policy developments: The introduction of central reference-price procurement from 2023 and earlier state-level procurement in Chhattisgarh represent important institutional changes, but their causal effects cannot be established from the available data.
• Policy recommendations: The article calls for better AGMARKNET reporting, village-level aggregation, farmer organizations, grading and quality standards, storage, decentralized processing, improved roads and market infrastructure, carefully designed procurement, and integration of millet-market policies with broader development and nutrition programs.
• Main limitation: AGMARKNET captures only formal regulated-market activity. Informal sales, household consumption, local exchange, and direct procurement may be substantial, meaning that recorded arrivals should not be interpreted as total production or total market participation.

Conclusion

Kodo millet markets in India present a distinctive combination of increasing formal visibility and persistent structural thinness. Recorded arrivals expanded sharply after 2017, and prices show a broad upward trend. Yet the market remains overwhelmingly concentrated in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, especially in the central Indian tribal belt. The leading districts and mandis form a localized trading system rather than a broad national market. The empirical results show that arrivals and prices behave differently. Arrivals are irregular, episodic, and district-specific, reflecting thin trade, localized production, and procurement or reporting events. Prices are more systematically upward-moving, suggesting common demand, inflationary, and policy-related forces. Volatility remains highly local, with Surguja showing the most persistent price dispersion among the selected Chhattisgarh districts. The integration evidence is clear but limited. ADF tests broadly support the use of cointegration methods, and the Johansen test identifies one cointegrating relation among six district price series at the 5 percent level. Rolling-window results show that higher-order integration is unstable. Kodo millet markets therefore share a limited common long-run price relationship, but substantial district-level independence remains. The broader implication is that market development for kodo millet cannot be judged only by rising prices or rising recorded arrivals. Kodo millet needs a policy approach that recognizes its tribal geography, improves market reporting, builds aggregation and grading infrastructure, supports decentralized processing, links market investments with Aspirational District and affected-area development programs, and treats procurement as part of a wider market-building strategy.

References

[1] Directorate of Marketing and Inspection, Government of India, \"AGMARKNET: Agricultural Marketing Information Network,\" Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India. [2] G. González-Rivera and S. M. Helfand, \"Economic development and the determinants of market integration: The case of the Brazilian rice market,\" University of California, Riverside, 2001. [3] M. Kherallah and J. F. Kirsten, \"The New Institutional Economics: Applications for agricultural policy research in developing countries,\" Agrekon, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 110-133, 2002. [4] C. B. Barrett, \"Smallholder market participation: Concepts and evidence from eastern and southern Africa,\" Food Policy, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 299-317, 2008. [5] R. B. Cleveland, W. S. Cleveland, J. E. McRae, and I. Terpenning, \"STL: A seasonal-trend decomposition procedure based on loess,\" Journal of Official Statistics, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 3-73, 1990. [6] M. Parkinson, \"The extreme value method for estimating the variance of the rate of return,\" Journal of Business, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 61-65, 1980. [7] S. E. Said and D. A. Dickey, \"Testing for unit roots in autoregressive-moving average models of unknown order,\" Biometrika, vol. 71, no. 3, pp. 599-607, 1984. [8] S. Johansen, \"Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors,\" Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, vol. 12, nos. 2-3, pp. 231-254, 1988. [9] S. Johansen, \"Estimation and hypothesis testing of cointegration vectors in Gaussian vector autoregressive models,\" Econometrica, vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 1551-1580, 1991. [10] N. Mylonidis and C. Kollias, \"Dynamic European stock market convergence: Evidence from rolling cointegration analysis in the first euro-decade,\" Journal of Banking & Finance, vol. 34, no. 9, pp. 2056-2064, 2010. [11] D. J. Nithya, E. D. I. Oliver King, M. Swaminathan, and P. Yuvaraj, \"Strengthening the millet economy: lessons from a South Indian case study,\" Food Security, vol. 17, pp. 477-492, 2025. [12] V. Verma and K. N. S. Banafar, \"Price spread of minor millets in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh,\" Economic Affairs, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 273-277, 2014. [13] NITI Aayog, Government of India, \"Aspirational Districts Programme,\" 2026. [14] Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, \"Left Wing Extremism Division,\" 2026.

Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Prasanna Surathkal, B.H. Nagoor. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.