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Farmers may soon be able to sell their harvested produce at farmgate, with the government adding new features on the electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM) that bypasses the need for taking the produce to wholesale mandis.
Agriculture Ministry on Thursday updated eNAM platform by adding two new software modules that would recognise trade from recognised warehouses using electronic negotiable warehouse receipts (eNWRs) and allow farmer producer organisations to sell their produce from collection centres without bringing the produce to mandi. These new software modules were unveiled by Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar here.
Transport logistics
In addition, an enhanced version of logistic module was also released to facilitate inter-mandi and inter-State trade. The modified module will help users track transport facilities available from aggregators of transport logistics, who have signed up on the eNAM platform.
Tomar said these new features are important steps in the fight against Covid-19 and also to help farmers sell their produce at better prices from the farmgate.
While the eNWR module will make it possible for small and marginal farmers to trade their produce stored in recognised warehouses which are declared deemed market by the State government, the new FPO module in eNAM will help FPOs place their produce for bidding from their collection centres, the release said.
Warehouses as market
The release said Andhra Pradesh (23 warehouses) and Telangana (14 warehouses) have already declared designated warehouses as deemed market. There are several benefits of integrating eNWRs with e-NAM. Besides helping depositors save logistics expenses and farmer get better prices, this will help farmers place their produce in WDRA accredited warehouses to obtain pledge loan, if required.
This will not only decongest mandis but also help farmers and FPOs save transaction and logistic costs, it said.
According to the Minister, another 415 mandis are soon to be added to the eNAM portal, taking the total registered mandis to 1,000.
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