What is the Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI)?

The Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI) is an attached office of the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India, headquartered at NH-IV, Faridabad, Haryana, and headed by the Agricultural Marketing Adviser (AMA) to the Government of India. It was set up in 1935 on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture (1928) as the nodal Central agency for agricultural marketing in India. DMI administers the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 (the Agmark law) and the General Grading & Marking Rules, 1988; operates the Central Agmark Laboratory at Nagpur and eleven Regional Agmark Laboratories; runs the Agmarknet market-intelligence portal at agmarknet.gov.in; administers the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) with its AMI, MRIN and Agmark sub-schemes; and drafts the Model APMC Act 2003, Model APLM Act 2017 and Model Contract Farming Act 2018 that State Governments adopt with modifications.

When was DMI established and why?

The Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, which reported in 1928 under the chairmanship of Lord Linlithgow, recommended a Central agricultural marketing authority to standardise grading, publish reliable price information and reduce the market power of intermediaries in an era when agricultural produce moved through opaque bazaar chains. Acting on that recommendation, the Government of India set up the Directorate of Marketing & Inspection in 1935 as an office of the then Department of Agriculture. Two years later, Parliament enacted the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937, giving DMI the statutory basis for the Agmark scheme. DMI has been headquartered at Nagpur, then Delhi, and today at NH-IV, Faridabad, Haryana.

Who heads DMI and where is it in the government structure?

DMI is headed by the Agricultural Marketing Adviser (AMA) to the Government of India, a senior officer of the Government who reports to the Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. The AMA is supported at Faridabad by Additional / Joint / Deputy AMAs across functional wings — Agmark and quality control; ISAM and marketing infrastructure; MRIN and Agmarknet; cotton marketing; training; and administration. The field structure has four Regional Offices — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai — and a network of 27+ Sub-Offices in State capitals and commodity-heavy districts; the testing network is CAL Nagpur plus eleven Regional Agmark Laboratories.

What is DMI's role in the Agmark scheme?

DMI is the sole authority that (1) notifies a commodity under Section 3 of the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937; (2) publishes the grade standard under the General Grading & Marking Rules 1988 — Special / Standard / General grades for ghee, Grade-A / Grade-B for atta, and so on across ~220 commodities; (3) issues the Certificate of Authorisation (CA) with printing permission for the Agmark logo to a food processor or packer; (4) tests samples at the Central Agmark Laboratory (Nagpur) and the eleven RALs; (5) does surveillance sampling from the market; and (6) enforces label compliance. See our /agmark deep-dive for the CA process, grade-standard structure and how Agmark sits alongside FSSAI, BIS, India Organic and the FPO mark.

What is DMI's role in Agmarknet and market intelligence?

DMI operates the Agmarknet portal at agmarknet.gov.in — launched in 2000 as the Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) sub-scheme — which aggregates daily arrivals and minimum, maximum and modal prices from Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis nationwide. Data collection runs through the DMI Sub-Office network, which validates the daily feed uploaded by reporting mandis, and pushes the consolidated dataset both to the public portal and, via API, to state e-mandis, the mKisan advisory pipeline and the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) for its MSP work. See our /agmarknet deep-dive for the underlying commodity, market and grade coverage.

What are the Model APMC and Model APLM Acts and why did DMI draft them?

State APMC Acts have historically been State subjects — every mandi, licence and fee structure was governed by State law. To modernise APMCs and open up private wholesale markets, direct-purchase channels and contract farming, DMI drafted the Model State Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development & Regulation) Act, 2003, which most States adopted with modifications. As inter-State and electronic trading became feasible, DMI followed up with the Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Marketing (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2017 (Model APLM Act) — enabling a unified single-licence trading area within a State, an e-trading platform, and the removal of fragmentation across markets — and, in 2018, the Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Contract Farming and Services (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2018. These are model laws for States to adapt; they are not directly enforceable Central legislation.

How does DMI relate to APMCs, e-NAM and NAFED?

APMCs are State-regulated market yards; DMI supports their modernisation through the Model APMC / APLM Acts and by validating APMC price feeds for Agmarknet, but does not directly run mandis. e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) is operated by the Small Farmers' Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) on behalf of DA&FW, with participating APMCs onboarded under Model-APLM-consistent State laws; DMI's Agmarknet price data and Agmark grade standards are foundational inputs into e-NAM assaying and price discovery, but e-NAM is not run by DMI. NAFED is the apex marketing cooperative and Central-nominated agency for MSP procurement of pulses, oilseeds and other notified crops under PM-AASHA — a different institutional wing that DMI works with on grading and quality parameters but does not administer.

How does Agmark differ from FSSAI food-safety compliance?

The two are complementary and orthogonal. FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India), created under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, is the mandatory food-safety regulator — every packaged food sold in India requires an FSSAI licence or registration and must carry the FSSAI number on the label; FSSAI enforces safety limits (aflatoxin, pesticide residues, heavy metals, microbial counts). Agmark, administered by DMI under the 1937 Act, is a voluntary quality-grading scheme — the Agmark logo means the packer has a valid DMI Certificate of Authorisation and the pack has been graded to a published standard (Special / Standard / General for ghee, Grade-A / Grade-B for atta). A pack of mustard oil typically carries both — FSSAI (mandatory safety) and Agmark (voluntary quality tier).

Where can farmers, FPOs and food entrepreneurs go for the current DMI schemes and forms?

The DMI portal at dmi.gov.in publishes the current list of Agmark-notified commodities and their grade standards, the ISAM operational guidelines and AMI subsidy schedule, the Model APMC / APLM Act texts, the list of Regional Offices and Sub-Offices with contact details, and the online Agmark application system. Daily APMC arrivals and prices are on the Agmarknet portal at agmarknet.gov.in. The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare umbrella portal is agricoop.nic.in. Training on grading, warehousing and e-NAM operation is conducted by the National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM) at Jaipur (ccsniam.gov.in), an autonomous body under DA&FW that DMI works closely with.

Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI) — India's apex agricultural marketing authority

The Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI) is the attached office of the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India, set up in 1935 on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture (1928) and today headquartered at NH-IV, Faridabad, Haryana. Headed by the Agricultural Marketing Adviser (AMA) to the Government of India, DMI is the sole statutory authority for the Agmark quality-grading scheme under the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 and the General Grading & Marking Rules 1988; runs the Agmarknet portal (launched 2000) that aggregates daily arrivals and prices from APMC mandis nationwide; administers the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) with its AMI, MRIN and Agmark sub-schemes; and drafts the Model APMC Act 2003 and Model APLM Act 2017 that State governments adopt with modifications.

At a glance

Organisation: Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI); attached office of DA&FW.
Established: 1935, on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture (1928).
Head Office: NH-IV, CGO Complex, Faridabad, Haryana.
Headed by: Agricultural Marketing Adviser (AMA) to the Government of India.
Parent ministry: Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare — agriwelfare.gov.in.
Parent department: Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare — agricoop.nic.in.
Statutory basis: Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937; General Grading & Marking Rules, 1988.
Portal: dmi.gov.in (organisation), agmarknet.gov.in (market prices).
Regional Offices: 4 — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai.
Sub-Offices: 27+ across State capitals and commodity-heavy districts.
Testing network: Central Agmark Laboratory (CAL) at Nagpur + eleven Regional Agmark Laboratories (RALs).
Flagship scheme: Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) — sub-schemes AMI (infrastructure), MRIN (Agmarknet) and Agmark.
Related deep-dives: ISAM · Agmark · Agmarknet · e-NAM · WDRA · MSP · CACP · NAFED · SFAC · APEDA · Operation Greens · FPO scheme.

Why DMI matters

Indian agricultural marketing has three long-standing problems —opaque quality, opaque prices and fragmented market structure. DMI is the Central Government wing that has, for nearly ninety years, worked on all three: it publishes and enforces public quality grades (Agmark), it publishes daily mandi arrivals and prices (Agmarknet), and it drafts the model State legislation (the Model APMC Act 2003 and Model APLM Act 2017) that has slowly reshaped how APMC yards operate, opened room for private wholesale markets and, most consequentially, made a Nation-wide electronic auction like e-NAM legally feasible. DMI is not itself a mandi operator, a procurement agency or a bank — it is the standards, information and rules layer beneath the marketing stack.

Organisation structure — Head Office, Regions, Sub-Offices and the CAL / RAL network

Head Office — NH-IV, Faridabad, Haryana. Office of the Agricultural Marketing Adviser (AMA) to the Government of India. Nodal centre for policy, scheme administration, ISAM implementation, Agmark authorisation policy, coordination with State Directorates of Agricultural Marketing, and the Agmarknet content system.
Regional Offices (4) — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai. Regional supervision of Sub-Offices, Agmark surveillance for the region, coordination with State Agricultural Marketing Boards and APMCs, market survey oversight and export-lot inspections for basmati rice and select spices covered by mandatory Agmark grading.
Sub-Offices (27+ across states) — State capitals and commodity-heavy districts. First point of contact for a food processor or FPO seeking an Agmark Certificate of Authorisation (CA). Sub-Offices verify premises, draw first-lot samples, run continuous market surveys, collect and validate daily APMC arrivals-and-price feeds for Agmarknet, and administer state-level ISAM/AMI sub-scheme sanctions.
Central Agmark Laboratory (CAL) — Nagpur, Maharashtra. Apex Agmark testing laboratory. Handles complex analytical work — edible-oil adulteration and fatty-acid profiles, chromatography, referee samples in disputes, method validation for new notified commodities — and trains RAL analysts. Adjudicates disputes on RAL findings.
Regional Agmark Laboratories (RALs, 11) — Amritsar, Bhopal, Byculla (Mumbai), Chennai, Delhi, Guntur, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Rajkot. Do the volume grading work for CA-holders in their jurisdiction — atta and edible oils out of Amritsar / Kanpur, spices out of Guntur / Kochi, honey and ghee out of Jaipur / Rajkot, oilseeds and pulses out of Bhopal / Nagpur circle, marine and coconut products out of Kochi. Also do surveillance sampling from the market.

The six core functions of DMI

Statutory quality grading — the Agmark scheme. DMI is the sole authority under the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 and the General Grading & Marking Rules, 1988 to notify commodities, publish grade standards, issue Certificates of Authorisation (CA) with printing permission for the Agmark logo, run the CAL-and-RAL testing network, and enforce label compliance. About 220 commodities are currently notified — edible oils, ghee and vanaspati, honey, whole and ground spices, pulses and dals, wheat products, unpolished rice, gur / jaggery, tapioca sago, cattle and livestock compound feed and select horticultural produce for export.
Market intelligence — the Agmarknet portal. DMI operates the Agmarknet portal at agmarknet.gov.in — launched in 2000 as the Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) — that aggregates daily arrivals, minimum, maximum and modal prices from Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis across the country, for hundreds of commodities and thousands of varieties. Data flows from DMI Sub-Offices and reporting mandis into a national database used by farmers, traders, State Agricultural Marketing Boards, CACP for MSP recommendations, the Directorate of Economics & Statistics, and the mKisan advisory pipeline.
Marketing infrastructure — the AMI sub-scheme of ISAM. The Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) is a Central Sector scheme administered by DMI that consolidates back-end infrastructure and market-intelligence work into sub-schemes — Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI) for capital subsidy to storage godowns, cold chains, grading and packing units and rural haats set up by farmers, FPOs, cooperatives, panchayats, State agencies and private entrepreneurs; MRIN for Agmarknet; and Agmark for the grading and standardisation work. AMI capital subsidy is credit-linked and is disbursed through NABARD and scheduled commercial banks against sanctioned project cost.
Model laws — APMC 2003 and APLM 2017. DMI has authored the Model State Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development & Regulation) Act, 2003 and the Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Marketing (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2017 (Model APLM Act) that States have adopted with modifications — introducing private markets, direct-purchase and contract-farming provisions, unified single-licence trading across a State and, later, the electronic-trading enablement that made e-NAM possible. DMI also drafted the Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Contract Farming and Services (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2018.
Cotton Marketing under the Cotton Control Order. DMI's Cotton Marketing Section, historically based at Mumbai (Byculla), enforces the Cotton Control Order 1986 — regulating packaging, marking, ginning-press standards and quality parameters for cotton bales — and is the nodal DMI wing for cotton-specific market surveys.
Training and capacity building. DMI runs and funds training for State Marketing Board staff, APMC secretaries, Agmark CA-holders, FPO CEOs and food-processing entrepreneurs on grading, packaging, warehouse receipts, e-NAM trading and export marketing — largely through the National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM) at Jaipur, an autonomous body under DA&FW that DMI works closely with.

Historical timeline

1928. Royal Commission on Agriculture (Linlithgow Commission) recommends a Central agricultural marketing authority for standardised grading and reliable price information.
1935. Directorate of Marketing & Inspection set up as an office of the Department of Agriculture under the Government of India.
1937. Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 enacted — statutory basis for the Agmark scheme.
1988. General Grading & Marking Rules 1988 notified, consolidating commodity-wise grade standards.
2000. Agmarknet portal launched under the Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) sub-scheme.
2003. Model State Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development & Regulation) Act, 2003 issued to States for adoption.
2014. Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) consolidated back-end infrastructure and market-intelligence sub-schemes under a single administrative umbrella.
2016. e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 14 April 2016; operationalised by SFAC on Agmarknet-price and Agmark-grade foundations.
2017. Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Marketing (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2017 (Model APLM Act) issued — unified single-licence trading area, e-trading enablement.
2018. Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Contract Farming and Services (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2018 issued.

Convergence with the wider agri-marketing stack

Agmark. DMI is the sole authority for CA issuance, grade standards, CAL / RAL testing and label enforcement under the 1937 Act.
Agmarknet. DMI Sub-Offices validate the daily APMC arrivals-and-price feed uploaded to agmarknet.gov.in — the single largest public price dataset in Indian agriculture.
e-NAM. Operated by SFAC on behalf of DA&FW; foundations are the Model APLM Act 2017 (drafted by DMI), Agmarknet price data (DMI) and Agmark grade standards (DMI).
CACP and MSP. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices draws heavily on Agmarknet mandi arrivals-and-price data when recommending Minimum Support Prices for kharif and rabi crops.
NAFED. Apex marketing cooperative and Central-nominated agency for MSP procurement of pulses and oilseeds under PM-AASHA — works with DMI on grading and quality parameters.
WDRA. The Warehousing Development & Regulatory Authority issues Negotiable Warehouse Receipts against WDRA-registered warehouses — Agmark-graded storage and warehouse-receipt-based finance are complementary.
APEDA. The Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority accepts Agmark-graded consignments for export (notably basmati rice through the Basmati Export Development Foundation) and coordinates with DMI on export-lot inspection.
mKisan Portal and GKMS. Farmers registered on mKisan receive Agmarknet-sourced daily price SMS for their selected crops from the nearest mandis.
SFAC and FPOs. FPOs registered under the 10,000 FPO scheme are heavy users of AMI subsidy under ISAM for grading, cleaning and packing infrastructure, and are the natural on-ramp for Agmark authorisation at the aggregator level.
Operation Greens and PMKSY. Post-harvest infrastructure funded under Operation Greens (TOP crops) and PMKSY layers on top of the AMI storage / cold-chain base that DMI administers under ISAM.

What DMI does NOT do

DMI does not run mandis. APMC market yards are State-regulated under State APMC laws — DMI drafts model laws but the licensing, fees and day-to-day operations are with State Agricultural Marketing Boards and APMC secretaries.
DMI does not do food-safety regulation. Mandatory food-safety licensing under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 is with FSSAI. Agmark is a voluntary quality-grade layer on top of FSSAI, not a substitute.
DMI does not procure at MSP. MSP procurement is done by NAFED, FCI, the Cotton Corporation of India, State civil-supplies agencies and cooperative federations — DMI is the market-intelligence and quality-grading provider, not the buyer.
DMI does not operate e-NAM. e-NAM is run by SFAC under DA&FW; DMI supplies the underlying grade standards and price data.
DMI does not certify organic produce. Organic certification under NPOP is administered by APEDA through accredited certification bodies — the India Organic mark and Agmark are separate schemes.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI)?: The Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI) is an attached office of the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India, headquartered at NH-IV, Faridabad, Haryana, and headed by the Agricultural Marketing Adviser (AMA) to the Government of India. It was set up in 1935 on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture (1928) as the nodal Central agency for agricultural marketing in India. DMI administers the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 (the Agmark law) and the General Grading & Marking Rules, 1988; operates the Central Agmark Laboratory at Nagpur and eleven Regional Agmark Laboratories; runs the Agmarknet market-intelligence portal at agmarknet.gov.in; administers the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) with its AMI, MRIN and Agmark sub-schemes; and drafts the Model APMC Act 2003, Model APLM Act 2017 and Model Contract Farming Act 2018 that State Governments adopt with modifications.
When was DMI established and why?: The Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, which reported in 1928 under the chairmanship of Lord Linlithgow, recommended a Central agricultural marketing authority to standardise grading, publish reliable price information and reduce the market power of intermediaries in an era when agricultural produce moved through opaque bazaar chains. Acting on that recommendation, the Government of India set up the Directorate of Marketing & Inspection in 1935 as an office of the then Department of Agriculture. Two years later, Parliament enacted the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937, giving DMI the statutory basis for the Agmark scheme. DMI has been headquartered at Nagpur, then Delhi, and today at NH-IV, Faridabad, Haryana.
Who heads DMI and where is it in the government structure?: DMI is headed by the Agricultural Marketing Adviser (AMA) to the Government of India, a senior officer of the Government who reports to the Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. The AMA is supported at Faridabad by Additional / Joint / Deputy AMAs across functional wings — Agmark and quality control; ISAM and marketing infrastructure; MRIN and Agmarknet; cotton marketing; training; and administration. The field structure has four Regional Offices — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai — and a network of 27+ Sub-Offices in State capitals and commodity-heavy districts; the testing network is CAL Nagpur plus eleven Regional Agmark Laboratories.
What is DMI's role in the Agmark scheme?: DMI is the sole authority that (1) notifies a commodity under Section 3 of the Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937; (2) publishes the grade standard under the General Grading & Marking Rules 1988 — Special / Standard / General grades for ghee, Grade-A / Grade-B for atta, and so on across ~220 commodities; (3) issues the Certificate of Authorisation (CA) with printing permission for the Agmark logo to a food processor or packer; (4) tests samples at the Central Agmark Laboratory (Nagpur) and the eleven RALs; (5) does surveillance sampling from the market; and (6) enforces label compliance. See our /agmark deep-dive for the CA process, grade-standard structure and how Agmark sits alongside FSSAI, BIS, India Organic and the FPO mark.
What is DMI's role in Agmarknet and market intelligence?: DMI operates the Agmarknet portal at agmarknet.gov.in — launched in 2000 as the Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN) sub-scheme — which aggregates daily arrivals and minimum, maximum and modal prices from Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis nationwide. Data collection runs through the DMI Sub-Office network, which validates the daily feed uploaded by reporting mandis, and pushes the consolidated dataset both to the public portal and, via API, to state e-mandis, the mKisan advisory pipeline and the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) for its MSP work. See our /agmarknet deep-dive for the underlying commodity, market and grade coverage.
What is the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM)?: ISAM is a Central Sector scheme administered by DMI that consolidates back-end marketing infrastructure and market-intelligence work into three principal sub-schemes: (1) Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI), a credit-linked back-ended capital subsidy for storage godowns, cold chains, grading, packing and standardisation infrastructure, primary processing units and rural haats set up by farmers, FPOs, cooperatives, panchayats, State agencies and private entrepreneurs, disbursed via NABARD and scheduled commercial banks; (2) MRIN for the Agmarknet portal and market-intelligence work; and (3) Agmark for grading and standardisation activity including CAL and the RALs. AMI project subsidies scale by category (Northeast, hill and tribal beneficiaries qualify for higher subsidy rates) and are the principal DMI-controlled capital line for post-harvest and marketing infrastructure outside PMKSY.
What are the Model APMC and Model APLM Acts and why did DMI draft them?: State APMC Acts have historically been State subjects — every mandi, licence and fee structure was governed by State law. To modernise APMCs and open up private wholesale markets, direct-purchase channels and contract farming, DMI drafted the Model State Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development & Regulation) Act, 2003, which most States adopted with modifications. As inter-State and electronic trading became feasible, DMI followed up with the Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Marketing (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2017 (Model APLM Act) — enabling a unified single-licence trading area within a State, an e-trading platform, and the removal of fragmentation across markets — and, in 2018, the Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Contract Farming and Services (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2018. These are model laws for States to adapt; they are not directly enforceable Central legislation.
How does DMI relate to APMCs, e-NAM and NAFED?: APMCs are State-regulated market yards; DMI supports their modernisation through the Model APMC / APLM Acts and by validating APMC price feeds for Agmarknet, but does not directly run mandis. e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) is operated by the Small Farmers' Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) on behalf of DA&FW, with participating APMCs onboarded under Model-APLM-consistent State laws; DMI's Agmarknet price data and Agmark grade standards are foundational inputs into e-NAM assaying and price discovery, but e-NAM is not run by DMI. NAFED is the apex marketing cooperative and Central-nominated agency for MSP procurement of pulses, oilseeds and other notified crops under PM-AASHA — a different institutional wing that DMI works with on grading and quality parameters but does not administer.
How does Agmark differ from FSSAI food-safety compliance?: The two are complementary and orthogonal. FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India), created under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, is the mandatory food-safety regulator — every packaged food sold in India requires an FSSAI licence or registration and must carry the FSSAI number on the label; FSSAI enforces safety limits (aflatoxin, pesticide residues, heavy metals, microbial counts). Agmark, administered by DMI under the 1937 Act, is a voluntary quality-grading scheme — the Agmark logo means the packer has a valid DMI Certificate of Authorisation and the pack has been graded to a published standard (Special / Standard / General for ghee, Grade-A / Grade-B for atta). A pack of mustard oil typically carries both — FSSAI (mandatory safety) and Agmark (voluntary quality tier).
Where can farmers, FPOs and food entrepreneurs go for the current DMI schemes and forms?: The DMI portal at dmi.gov.in publishes the current list of Agmark-notified commodities and their grade standards, the ISAM operational guidelines and AMI subsidy schedule, the Model APMC / APLM Act texts, the list of Regional Offices and Sub-Offices with contact details, and the online Agmark application system. Daily APMC arrivals and prices are on the Agmarknet portal at agmarknet.gov.in. The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare umbrella portal is agricoop.nic.in. Training on grading, warehousing and e-NAM operation is conducted by the National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM) at Jaipur (ccsniam.gov.in), an autonomous body under DA&FW that DMI works closely with.

Official sources

Directorate of Marketing & Inspection — dmi.gov.in (organisation, Agmark commodities and grade standards, ISAM guidelines, Sub-Office directory, online Agmark application).
Agmarknet — agmarknet.gov.in (daily APMC arrivals and prices across commodities and mandis).
Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare — agricoop.nic.in (parent department; annual report; ISAM operational guidelines).
Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare — agriwelfare.gov.in (parent ministry).
Agricultural Produce (Grading & Marking) Act, 1937 — bare Act available on the India Code portal at indiacode.nic.in.
Model Agricultural Produce & Livestock Marketing (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2017 and Model Contract Farming Act 2018 — DA&FW model law texts on agricoop.nic.in.
National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM), Jaipur — ccsniam.gov.in (autonomous body under DA&FW; training partner for DMI on grading, warehousing and e-NAM operation).
Press Information Bureau — pib.gov.in (ISAM sanctions, Model APLM Act 2017 release, e-NAM launch of 14 April 2016).

The 1935 establishment of DMI on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture (1928), the 1937 Grading & Marking Act, the eleven Regional Agmark Laboratories, the four Regional Offices (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai), the CAL at Nagpur, the Faridabad head office and the Model APMC Act 2003 / Model APLM Act 2017 authorship by DMI are drawn from the DMI portal, the DA&FW annual report and the India Code bare Act. The exact list of Agmark-notified commodities, ISAM subsidy rates, RAL / Sub-Office jurisdictions and Agmarknet mandi coverage evolves — food processors, FPOs, State officials and researchers should verify the current position on dmi.gov.in, agmarknet.gov.in and the current DA&FW annual report before quoting them.