MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
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(a) to (c): National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a virtual platform integrating physical wholesale mandis/ markets of different States/ Union Territories (UTs) to facilitate online trading of agriculture and horticulture commodities to enable farmers to realize better remunerative prices for their produce.
Three reforms are mandatory for States/ UTs in their respective State Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts for integrating their mandis with e-NAM platform i.e (i) Provision for e-trading, (ii) Single point levy of market fee, (iii) Unified Single trading license for the State. Based on the Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) proposals received from the reform compliant States/ UTs, mandis are considered for integration by Government of India with e-NAM platform.
So far, based on earlier targets and as per the proposals received from States/ UTs, 1000 mandis of 18 States and 3 UTs have been integrated with e-NAM platform. Government of India has announced in Budget 2021-22, further integration of 1000 mandis on e-NAM platform.
So far, more than 1.69 crore farmers have been registered on e-NAM platform and tradable parameters in respect of 175 commodities have been prepared for trading on e-NAM platform. Total of 1820 FPOs have been onboarded on e-NAM platform. The agricultural produce trade with a value of ?1.25 lakh crore have so far been recorded on e-NAM platform.
e-NAM platform promotes better marketing opportunities for the farmers to sell their produce through online, competitive and transparent price discovery system and online payment facility. It also promotes prices commensurate with quality of produce. Government has also provided e-payment facility on e-NAM platform. e-payment facility enables sale proceeds in e-NAM to be directly transferred from buyers account to the bank account of the farmers in a transparent, speedy and safe manner. All these contribute towards better marketing efficiency and also better prices to farmers.
During COVID-19 lockdown, Farmers were able to sell their produce through e-NAM portal, adhering the social distancing norms and avoiding over-crowding at mandi premises. e-NAM facilitated payments to farmers via electronic mode directly into their bank accounts, thus eliminating the risk of physical presence in mandis during COVID19 lockdown.
Further, Government has launched FPO trading module during covid-19 pandemic to enables FPOs to upload their produce from collection centres/ farm gate with picture/ quality parameter for on-line bidding without physically bringing their produce to the mandis.
As per the evaluation Report of CCS National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM) on “performance evaluation of e-NAM ” , the platform helps in creating a unified market through online trading both at State & National levels. This e-NAM concept further ensures various benefits like streamlining of procedures across the integrated markets, promotes real time price discovery based on actual demand and supply, removes information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, promotes transparency in auction process, promotes access to a nation-wide market for the farmer along with prices commensurate with quality of produce and online payment of sales proceeds.
(d): In order to provide better marketing facilities to the farmers, the Government had released a new model “The Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2017” popularly known as Model APLM Act, 2017, in April 2017 for its adoption by States/Union Territories (UTs). The aforesaid Model APLM Act, 2017 promotes alternative marketing channels of private markets, direct marketing etc. for farmers to market their produce at competitive & remunerative prices. Government has been modernizing the mandis and strengthenining the agricultural market infrastructure in the country particularly in rural areas through various schemes like Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna – RAFTAAR, Agriculture Market Infrastructure (AMI) and National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) etc. Further Government is providing financial support under Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) in terms of interest subvention and credit guarantee for projects for post-harvest management and building community farming assets such as warehouse, cold storage, silos, e-marketing etc. In addition to the above, in order to provide additional marketing channels to farmers for selling of their produce in ‘trade area’ and promote barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade, the Government has enacted “The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020” and “The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020”. These Acts will further motivate APMCs to be more effective, competitive and efficient in providing cost effective services to farmers for efficient marketing of their produce towards improving their income.
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