Government of India has launched National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) Scheme on 14th April, 2016. e-NAM is a virtual platform integrating physical wholesale mandis/ markets of different States/ Union Territories (UTs) to facilitate online trading of agricultural commodities including foodgrains through transparent price discovery method to enable farmers/ Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to realize better remunerative prices for their produce. As on 05th December,2022, about 1260 mandis of 22 States and 3 UTs have been integrated with e-NAM platform.
Agricultural Marketing is in the domain of State Governments and wholesale marketing of agricultural produce is promoted and regulated under the provisions of States’ APMC Acts. However, Government realizing the significance of markets and also having well understood the riddle of agricultural marketing has taken various measures to develop alternative marketing arrangements. The arrangements include development of multiple and competitive marketing channels with elements of transparency in entire chain of transaction, better price discovery through promotion of private markets and direct marketing.
In addition, Government has launched e-NAM to enhance farmers’ accessibility to multiple markets and buyers and also to improve transparency and price discovery through competitive bidding.
Further, Government of India has launched the Central Sector Scheme of “Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)” to form and promote 10,000 new FPOs which will leverage economies of scale, reduction of cost of production and enhancing farmers’ incomes. As on 30th November, 2022, total 4028 FPOs have been registered. All these contribute towards better marketing efficiency and also better prices to farmers.
This information was given by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
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