Taking online route to enter the agriculture markets seems high on government agenda with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday urging states to dismantle agriculture produce marketing committees (APMCs) and join the electronic national agriculture market (eNAM).

 

“eNAM is being pushed very much by the union government. Hope states are cajoled into rejecting APMC. APMC has outlived its utility,” Sitharaman said.

 

According to Sitharaman, the reason behind pushing for eNAM, a pan-India electronic trading platform, was due to its effectiveness in the present times, “APMC platform has outlived its utility,” Sitharaman added during the 6th world congress on rural and agriculture finance.

 

With better online connectivity in place the Union government looks to connect all 7,500 APMCs, for better trading options, with the weekly and bi-weekly temporary markets across the country with e-NAM-the centralised online commodities trading platform by financial year 2021-22.

 

National Agriculture Market (eNAM) is an online trading platform for agricultural commodities in India. The online marketplace works like other online marketplaces and provides platform to farmers to sell their produce online.

The new marketplace is not just an easy way for trading in commodities but it also help in bringing better prices to the farmers for their yields. The new online system further brings better price discovery with better facilities for smooth marketing of commodities.

 

The plan to integrate eNAM with existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities will not just bring sellers and buyers closer but will also bring single-window services for all APMC related information and services.

 

Some of these services include information regarding commodity arrivals and prices, buy and sell trade offers and provision to respond to trade offers.

 

The online platform was launched in April last year and the platform has so far witnessed 4% of the wholesale trade on its platform, which government looks to maximise by 2022.

 

Meanwhile, Sitharaman also said that the government plans to form 10,000 farmer produce organisations (FPOs) as government looks to put rural and farmer development on a larger map.

 

Sitharaman also mentioned slew of other government reforms to help farmers, agriculture and fisheries sector. She said that the government has fast tracked the scheme to provide farmers with Kisan credit card and health cards.