Question : Facilities for Agricultural Marketing

(a) whether the Ministry is aware that farmers have to face inconvenience in order to weigh their agricultural produce and cover long distances to reach a weighing facility;

(b) the details of the number of weighing facilities in the country, State-wise;

(c) whether the Ministry is considering to issue guidelines to the States for decentralising weighing facilities from the APMC markets and providing easy access to weighing facilities for agricultural produce by increasing the number of such facilities in the backdrop of the new Farm Laws; and

(d) if so, the details thereof?

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

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(a) & (b): As per the information received from most State Governments, necessary weighing arrangements are available at the concerned APMC Market yards where the farmers can avail weighing facility and no such inconvenience to farmers is reported. The details of weighing facilities as per information made available by majority of States, State-wise is given in Annexure-I.

(c) & (d): No such proposal to issue guidelines to States for decentralizing weighing facilities from APMC markets is under consideration of Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare. However, the New Farm laws viz, “The Farmers'' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020”, “The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020” and “The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020, provide an additional marketing/ trade channels to the farmers in the trade area outside the physical boundaries of markets and deemed markets notified under respective APMC Acts. The farmers are given the freedom to choose any of the channels including APMC market yard for selling of their produce. As far as, availability of weighing facility to the farmers in the trade area is concerned, buyers normally ensure such facility to the farmers; while in case of farming agreement, as decided in the agreement itself, sponsors/ buyers make available weighing facility to the farmers. Thus, farmers will not face any problem on this account. Government provides assistance for development of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure including that of weighing facilities near to farm gate outside the APMC market yards through various schemes such as Agricultural Market Infrastructure(AMI), Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) etc. to facilitate farmers for weighing their produce near to harvest centre. In the APMC markets, the market functionaries including farmers are free to use their own weighing facilities for weighing of agricultural produce.