The Centre will soon integrate six online portals with the electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM), a move that is seen not only as boosting trading volumes, but also providing farmers better price discovery to sell their produce. This follows the success of e-NAM nationally.

Also, this may help remove one of the major bottlenecks in online trading – the quality guarantee of the produce – after roping in assaying and certification agencies.

The total transactions over e-NAM stood at ₹42,163 crore during April-January this fiscal, against ₹31,366 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal. This fiscal’s transactions hit a record high since its launch in 2016.

‘Never wanted monopoly’

“We never wanted a monopoly for e-NAM. Our aim is better price discovery for farmers and by leveraging the expertise of others, it will be a win-win for both buyer and seller on the integrated platform,” said Neelkamal Darbari, managing director of the Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC).

The new initiative will also offer transportation, warehousing, quality assaying, storage, fintech and agri-advisory services, in which over 15 firms have expressed their willingness to join, Darbari said. “This will enable farmers, farmer producer organisations (FPOs), traders, and other stakeholders to access a larger market ecosystem through a single window,” she said.

The number of platforms will increase when the expressions of interest (EOI) are opened, sources said.

More choices

The new initiative will enable the integration of other public and private trading and service providing platforms of the entire agriculture ecosystem through APIs. Post this integration, farmers and FPOs of e-NAM and other platforms will be able to upload their produce to more buyers across the portals. This will provide farmers more choices and help better price negotiation for their produce, she said.

SFAC, a society under the Agriculture Ministry, has been tasked to work for increasing the income of small and marginal farmers through aggregation and development of agri-business. Besides e-NAM, it is also the main implementing agency for creation of 10,000 additional FPOs.

Currently, e-NAM has connected 1,000 mandis across the country, whereas the online platforms developed in the private sector are mostly limited to specific geographies or commodities. Besides, e-NAM platforms are also operational at FPO premises in certain States which allow them. Even if transactions are done through e-NAM, mandi fees are payable as per local rules in each State. While some States such as Rajasthan follow uniform fees across all mandis, though charges vary from commodity to commodity, some others like Gujarat have allowed APMC to decide the market fees.

“Depending on the success of the new initiative, the next step will be to convince States to exempt mandi fees for transactions done through the electronic platform,” a source said. The government, either Centre or State, may also think of bearing operational costs if farmers get the benefit, the source said.

Private expertise

Until now, about 1.72 crore farmers, 2 lakh traders and 1 lakh commission agents have been registered on the e-NAM platform. Though the base of the private entities which will join the new initiative is low compared to e-NAM, Darbari said, they (private sector) may have some other expertise which e-NAM farmers will get the benefits after the integration.

“As technology infusion in agriculture grows with adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other tools, there would definitely be changes coming in the conventional way of trading. However, a major task that is yet to be accomplished is to bring reforms at the State level so that inter-mandi and inter-state transactions go up,” said Darbari.

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