National Agriculture Market (eNAM) is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities. It aims 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.
Features of e-NAM
- Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) is the lead agency for implementing eNAM under the aegis of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India.
- A National e-market platform for transparent sale transactions and price discovery in regulated markets, kisan mandis, warehouses and private markets. Willing states to accordingly enact provisions for e-trading in their APMC Act.
- States (State Agriculture Marketing Boards) interested to integrate their APMCs/ mandis with NAM are required to carry out following reforms in their APMC Act.
. Single trading license (unified) to be valid across the state
. Single point levy of market fee across the state
. Provision for e-auction/ e-trading as a mode of price discovery
- Harmonization of quality standards of agricultural produce and provisions of assaying (quality testing) infrastructure in every market to enable informed bidding by buyers.
Benefits for Farmers
- Transparency in trade through better price discovery
- Access to more markets & buyers
- Real time information on prices and arrival in near by mandis
- Quick payments – will be able to build a healthy financial profile
Role of FPO
- The role of FPO is to act as an aggregator for member farmers including from inputs to output which will enhance the economy of scale and bargaining power of member farmers.
- The concept behind Farmer Producer Organizations is that farmers, who are the producers of agricultural products, can form groups. To facilitate this process, the SFAC was mandated by Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India, to support the State Governments in the formation of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs).
Source: e-NAM website & SFAC website
