Agriculture Ministry working to strengthen farm logistics in e-NAM

The Ministry for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare organised the first National consultative workshop on Strengthening Agri-Logistics in e-National Agriculture Market (e-Nam) in Delhi on January 21. Till date, 585 mandis across 16 States and 2 UTs have been integrated on e-NAM portal. Speaking on the occasion the Union Minister for Agriculture Shri Narendra Singh Tomar said the government is also committed to realizing the Prime Minister’s vision of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.

The workshop saw participation Union Minister of state for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Purushottam Rupala and Agriculture Secretary Shri Sanjay Aggarwal besides industry representatives and start-ups in the agri-business space who deliberated on challenges in setting up an agri-logistics platform and a solution for it. Neelkamal Darbari, Managing Director, Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) which is the implementing agency for eNAM, spoke about advent of latest technologies including Blockchain, AI and Internet of Things (IoT) and their interventions in agri-logistics for better information flow, and adding value in terms of growth & expansion of the sector.

She also stressed on the need for evolving a comprehensive agri-logistics system which may provide end to end solution for all supply chain activities including assaying processes.

In a press statement made by SFAC it was said that eNAM has been evolving continuously. It now includes features like farm-gate trading for farmers, ware-house based trading, “part-payment” facility, GPS based mandi locator with price information dissemination, MIS dashboard for better monitoring and decision making by the APMC Officials.

For traders’ benefit, features like shopping cart and bunching of invoices have been introduced to reduce efforts in terms of repeat actions & further payments.