Agricultural policy describes a set of laws relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural product markets. Outcomes can involve, for example, a guaranteed supply level, price stability, product quality, product selection, land use or employment.

the role of agricultural markets is deliv-ering products from sources to consumers. But, in a broad sense, their role extends to transmitting macroeconomic signals to producer firms, providing incentives to producers to attain the desired growth in agri-food output, improving the welfare of producers and consumers, balancing demand and supply, and promoting the efficient use of resources in the pro-duction and distribution systems. These roles require a com-petitive environment, strong physical and institutional infra-structure, and a favourable regulatory system. These conditions cannot come up on their own, particularly in a developing country

like India. Therefore, agricultural market policies are treated as an integral part of development policies and their functioning has remained an important part of public policy in India. This paper discusses various policies related to agricultural markets since the early 1960s, a time when major steps were taken for their transformation. It analyses how these policies have performed and their relevance, given changing produ-ction and consumption patterns, and technological and

commercial developments.

Policy interventions in agricultural markets in India have along history. Till the mid-1960s, it was mainly meant to facili-tate the smooth functioning of markets and to keep a check on activities that were considered inimical to producers and/or consumers. Subsequently, the country opted for a package of direct and indirect interventions in agricultural markets and prices, initially targeted at procuring