AGRICULTURE PRODUCE MARKETING – NEED FOR INNOVATIONS

AGRICULTURE PRODUCE MARKETING – NEED FOR INNOVATIONS

Role of existing APMCs:

• APMCs are started with a purpose of protecting farmers from distress sale at farm gate to money lenders and traders.

• Direct sale of Agri produce by farmers at village to any intermediaries, end users is banned and farmers are supposed to bring produce to APMC markets and sell in auction method under the supervision of APMC.  

• Certain states relaxed the norms and allowed few wholesalers like ITC are allowed to conduct direct purchases under e-choupal platform. Also direct sales to super markets , more trade friendly norms are being initiated in few states.

• Karnataka is more advanced state as far as APMC reforms are concerned followed by Maharashtra, MP, AP, UP.

•  IT enabled auction platform was implemented in few mandis through NCDEX and its named as “mandi modernisation program”.

• Government of India decided to implement National common market for Agri products by linking all the whole sale markets run by APMCs and create one market for nation with single point market cess.

• From this year on wards e-NAM (National Agri Markets) is being implemented in selected APMC markets and planning to link all mandis in next three years.

Field realities:

• Farmer is not really benefited as the village level trader/money lender is replaced by broker, auctioneer & other players and the exploitation is being continued.

• Once farmer move produce from village to market yard, he become vulnerable to the market forces and forced to do distress sales.

•  APMC setup is found to be ineffective and often farmers complain that they play into the hands of traders and brokers.

• APMC fee, auction commission, improper payments, delayed payments etc are the problems being faced by farmers. APMC is not making farmers secure for the payments.

• The fee collected by APMCs are being used to purchase vehicles for officers, chairmenbuilding guest houses, not really for improving village level infrastructure,  transport facilities for shifting farm produce. One good thing done by APMCS is creation of storage facilities for farmers in mandis, but lot to be done.

• Even with e platforms the price realisations are not up to mark and during our visit to mandis where e auctions are in force farmers complained that the traders quote one price when they visit the lot and in system they reduce the price.

• Few farmers felt that it is better to dispose the produce in village to informal traders (who buy and store and sell on later date in the identity of farmer) as the prices are more transparent (due to media there is no scope for cheating on price count) and even the weighing facilities considerably improved at village level hence not much scope for cheating in weights.  In the village level the payments are assured and less risky than in APMC markets.

• Many market yards though they are extending storage facility to farmers in yards, farmers are not comfortable as most of them are open storage and even under lock and key still many are not comfortable.

• e-NAM, unified markets, one market-one nation-one price etc still remain as slogans and farmers are yet to see real benefits out of these big schemes announced in budget.

• NCDEX/NeML who have expertise in Agri commodity trading, who partnered with APMCs through government was asked to leave e-NAM project and it is awarded to Nagarjuna group who are yet to prove their credentials in the field. As it is gathered from field the e-NAM platform is not stabilized and serving purpose of only market arrivals and sales entries rather than linking markets and ensuring better realization for the farmers.        

How best can we help farmers?

• Sharing near accurate information about the acreage sown  under the area specific crops and also information related to carry forward stocks, so that farmers take informed decisions related to crop planning.

• Supply of seeds through APMCs & GOI imposes restrictions on seed prices (similar to generic drug policy) and seed security policy to farmers.

• Encouraging farmers to construct their own storage systems.  It is reliably learnt GOI encouraged and extended subsidies to construct rural go downs when Sri PK Agarwal & Dr. W R Reddy were additional secretaries in Ministry. I was told the subsidies are withdrawn and this program is put to hold.

• Actually own go downs or go down facilities at village level rather than APMC will give confidence to farmers and they avoid distress sales during arrival season and also they plan sales in periodic intervals based on cash flow needs. Hence GOI shall consider promoting individual owned go down facilities and encourage farmers to go for house cum storage so that his supervision and other costs will come down drastically.

• APMCs shall provide transport facilities to bring produce to mandis from villages on concessional freight basis.

• Once produce reach markets, the sale process shall be completed in stipulated time so that farmers will go back at shortest possible time to their villages. To ensure this APMC has to improve on material handling systems, trader interface, stable technology etc.

• APMC has to move from regulatory role to marketing/facilitator role and ensure that they attract new buyers from long distance terminal markets, explore export potential, and play a role of extension officer by promoting the varieties preferred by market forces. Export avenues, processing facilities to be encouraged by APMCs to attract PAN India buyers to producer markets.

VIRTUAL MARKETS – COMPLIMENTARY EFFORT:

• Idea is to create virtual spot markets where farmer can bring samples of produce, samples will be displayed through technology to registered buyers, potential buyers.

• Once the traders quote the rate and same will be communicated to farmer through app and if they are willing to sell, the stock will be inspected to ascertain the quantity and quality match with sample and sale will be confirmed.

• The lifting of stocks, physical delivery, payment gateway, dispute resolution etc will be handled by anchor technology partner & local facilitators.

• State Governments shall provide the space for accommodating a small office to create this facility in market yards and organisations like NCDEX shall be encouraged to implement these virtual markets.

• Processing, packing and any value addition shall be done at village level to reduce transport and multi handling expenses to ensure efficient supply chain and better realisation to farmers other than local employment generation. These shall be easily made possible with proper stake holder engagement.

• For example if one virtual market is opened in Tenali, huge quantities of paddy, rice, maize, turmeric, black gram, green gram, Bengal gram, sorghum, red chillies etc can be traded throughout the year.

HAR KADAM AAGE BADO KISANO KI SEWA MEIN

B G Reddy-9866889246

grbonthu@gmail.com