The National Agriculture Market, or eNAM, is a pan-India electronic trading platform for agricultural commodities. eNAM has done a phenomenal job in providing better price realisation for farmers and being an effective tool for price discovery. eNAM has helped farmers get more number of bids per lot, and this has been increasing over time.

However, the participation of the corporate sector and farmer producer organisations (FPOs) in eNAM is virtually absent or insignificant due to lacuna in fulling the demand.

Adding to this, inter-State sales have been minimal and have not been increasing despite the platform being in operations for the last seven years. The major reason for this is the absence of market linkage.

Quality ignored

Today, eNAM does not ensure a better price for better quality/grade produce, owing to which quality is not given priority by farmers. However, large buyers mandate quality assaying, grading and sorting and are willing to offer better prices.

Also, corporate buyers and inter-State sale require strong logistics support for demand fulfilment, which is not prevalent in eNAM ecosystem currently.

Assaying, grading, sorting and logistics — the key elements of market linkage — should be in place for the active participation of corporate buyers and to encourage inter-State sales. Also, plugging market links will help farmers find international buyers, which can improve their price realisation significantly.

Market linkage is a business imperative, without which positive disruption of the agri marketing sector will not happen.

To ensure quality, it is imperative to have assaying machines of FCI standards at the mandi level. This will ensure that quality assaying becomes part of demand fulfilment.

Subsidise

Assaying : In the last decade or more, drip irrigation has seen major adoption and expansion across the country. This has benefited the farmers significantly, in terms of better yield and sustainable farming. The adoption of drip irrigation was possible through subsidising its implementation.

Similarly, assaying machines matching FCI specifications should also be subsidised by the government in order to improve the quality of agri produce.

In order to adopt quality assaying as a business practice, it is imperative to install AI based assaying machines where the results on quality will be made available instantaneously.

Since AI-based assaying machines are costly, it is important that both the Central and State governments subsidise the procurement and installation of these machines.

Logistics, grading and sorting : Grading and sorting are also important for better price realisation for the farmers.

There’s need for a grading and sorting system at the mandi level. Subsidies may be provided for buying grading and sorting machines and operating the same on a BOT (Build Operate Transfer) basis after a period of time.

BOT model

Also, an agri logistics marketplace based on BOT model must be in place.

Seamless market linkage, with the key links of quality assaying, grading, sorting and logistics, will be possible by subsidising these through the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, NABARD, and via the public-private partnership model.

Girivasan is Sr VP Tech Platform & Services, and Kshirsagar is GM - Govt & Corporate, Fertis India Pvt Ltd