b. The withdrawal of the state from grain storage and
marketing, depending on the management of the
state managed grain boards, may have left a vacuum
in grain handling and storage know-how at the commercial
level. The skills of private sector traders and
trade associations need to be substantially strengthened,
particularly because greater inter-temporal
price variation increases the risks associated with
holding stocks. This risk, which was occasionally subsumed
by government-controlled marketing boards,
yet not necessarily successfully, has now been
transferred to farmers.