National Agriculture Market:
Prime Minister recently said that with the help of the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) portal, the farmers will be able to decide the place, time and price of selling their products, and reduce the burden on the consumers.
- National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
- It was launched on 14th April 2016, and is completely funded by the Government of India.
- Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) is the lead agency for implementing eNAM under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India.
- Vision is to promote uniformity in agriculture marketing by streamlining procedures across the integrated markets, removing information asymmetry between buyers and sellers and promoting real-time price discovery based on actual demand and supply.
- Mission: Integration of APMCs across the country through a common online market platform to facilitate pan-India trade in agriculture commodities, providing better price discovery through a transparent auction process based on the quality of produce along with timely online payment.
- Features:
- A National e-market platform for transparent sale transactions and price discovery in regulated markets, kisan mandis, warehouses and private markets.
- Liberal Licensing of traders/buyers and commission agents by State authorities without any pre-condition of physical presence or possession of shop/premises in the market yard.
- One license for a trader is valid across all markets in the State.
- Harmonization of quality standards of agricultural produce and provisions of assaying (quality testing) infrastructure in every market to enable informed bidding by buyers.
- Restriction of agriculture Produce Marketing Committee’s (APMC) jurisdiction to within the APMC market yard/sub yard instead of a geographical area (the market area) at present.
- Single point levy of market fees, i.e. on the first wholesale purchase from the farmer.
