Methodology

How every number on this site is produced, in plain English.

1. Official export statistics (UN Comtrade)

India reports its exports to the UN every month by customs code (HS code). We take the value (USD, FOB) and the net weight (kg) and divide one by the other. That gives a unit value in USD/kg: the average price of everything India shipped under that code that month. Comtrade publishes with a lag of a few months, so the latest month is usually 2–4 months old. Many of our products share a code with other goods (e.g. HS 121190 covers moringa, ashwagandha, neem, vetiver and hundreds of other herbs). We mark those as pooled and label the figure an HS-code group average: every product in that code shows the same number (e.g. karanja oil and moringa seed oil both sit in HS 151590), so it is market context, not the price of the exact product. Comtrade values are FOB-basis (declared export value at the Indian port), so these are the only figures on the site that are FOB-basis official data. We use the free public Comtrade preview API.

2. Indian wholesale mandi prices (Agmarknet)

The Government of India's Agmarknet portal publishes daily all-India average prices (INR per quintal = 100 kg) and arrivals for commodities traded in regulated markets (APMCs). These are raw, farm-gate commodity prices (e.g. turmeric fingers, jaggery blocks, millet grain) before cleaning, grading, grinding, packing, testing and port costs, so they sit well below export prices. We show the latest day reported and the arrivals that day; low arrivals mean a thin, noisy price. The USD/kg conversion uses the European Central Bank USD/INR reference rate (via frankfurter.dev).

3. Estimates (labelled ESTIMATE)

For powders and niche items there is no official price series. Our desk compiles ranges from public seller offers, rate cards and trade reports, with links. These are asking prices, not transaction prices, and are not verified FOB unless the basis says so. Each range shows n, the number of data points behind it; ranges with n<3 are flagged low sample (e.g. khapli wheat: one shipment). We only publish ranges for products where the export economics are positive; we do not publish a figure where we have no source.

4. Empty cells

If a source has no data for a product this week, the cell stays empty. We never interpolate or invent.

5. Weekly refresh and history

A scheduled job runs once a week, fetches every source again, rebuilds the pages and appends the new snapshot to history.csv. Old rows are never rewritten. If a source is down, the previous values are kept and marked stale in latest.json.

6. Who publishes this

Nidhi Farms, a sourcing firm (trader) in Andhra Pradesh, India. We are not a grower and we do not sell certified organic product. Correspondence: c/o GITAM Post Office, Back Gate, Visakhapatnam 530045, India. Questions or corrections: nidhi69n@gmail.com.