AGMARK is a certification mark employed on agricultural products in India, assuring that they conform to a set of standards approved by the Directorate of Marketing and Inspection, an agency of the Government of India.[1][2][3][4][5] The AGMARK is legally enforced in India by the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act of 1937 (and ammended in 1986).[1] The present AGMARK standards cover quality guidelines for 205 different commodities spanning a variety of Pulses, Cereals, Essential Oils, Vegetable Oils, Fruits & Vegetables, and semi-processed products like Vermicelli.[1]
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The term agmark was coined by joining the words 'Ag' to mean agriculture and 'mark' for a certification mark. This term was introduced originally in the bill presented in the parliament of India for the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act. But, as of who exactly suggested this word remains unknown, the probabilites suggest either a bureaucrat or a politician during the drafting of the bill.
The Agmark certification is employed through Agmark laboratories located across the nation which act as testing and certifying centres. In addition to the Central AGMARK Laboratory (CAL) in Nagpur, there are Regional AGMARK Laboratories (RALs) in 11 nodal cities (Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkatta, Kanpur, Kochi, Guntur, Amritsar, Jaipur, Rajkot, Bhopal).[6] Each of the regional laboratories are equipped with and specializes in the testing of products of regional significance. Hence the product range that could be tested varies across the centres.[7]
The testing done across these laboratories include chemical analysis, microbiological analysis, pesticide residue, and aflatoxin analysis on whole spices, ground spices, ghee, butter, vegetable oils, mustard oil, honey, foodgrains (wheat, besan), wheat products (atta, suji, maida), soyabean seed, bengal gram, ginger, oil cake, essential oil, oils & fats, animal casings, meat and food products.[8]