With more states opening up or facilitating trade of agricultural commodities on  electronic – National Agriculture Market (e-NAM), trade on the platform is projected to touch Rs 80,000 crore in FY24.

In April-February this fiscal, e-NAM turnover  has crossed Rs 70,000 crore and there has been spurt in inter-mandi and inter-state trading of agri-commodities on the platform.  

“We are currently focussing on increasing electronic-payments to farmers and boosting inter-mandi and inter-state trade on e-NAM,” an agriculture ministry official told FE.

eNAM now integrates 1,389 mandis across 27 states.

While the volume of farm gate, inter-state and inter-mandi trade is still a small portion of total turnover of e-NAM at Rs 70,445 crore in April-February (2023-24), up 4% on year, it indicates a gradual shift to the digital platform, being used for better price discovery by the farmers.

Meanwhile, the total traded value of commodities on the digital platform using the farmgate model where farmers have started to sell commodities without physically transporting it to the mandis, during April – February, 2023-24 has been Rs 85 crore compared to a very small amount traded last fiscal.

Officials have urged other states to follow the farm gate purchase model so that farmers could sell their commodities at appropriate time and save costs on transportation and cost of multiple handling of commodities.

Farmers in several states — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir have started to sell commodities on e-NAM using the farm-gate model.

In the April-February period of the current fiscal, there has been a 145% spike in inter-mandi trade on e-NAM to Rs 1485 crore. In terms of inter-state trade, which was not happening a year ago, there has been an increase since the beginning of the year.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her interim-budget speech had stated “e-NAM is providing services to 18 million farmers with a trading volume of Rs 3 trillion,”.

There  are 1389 mandis integrated into the digital platform since its launch in April 2016, are in 27 states and Union Territories including Tamil Nadu (157), Rajasthan (145), Gujarat (144), Maharashtra (133), Uttar Pradesh (125) and Haryana (108).

In addition, 3510 farmer producers Organisations (FPOs), 0.25 million traders and around 0.11 million commission agents are registered with e-NAM.

The e-NAM platform currently allows online trading in 209 agricultural, horticultural and other commodities notified by respective state governments.

Sources said there are estimated to be around 7000 mandis in the country and after the recommendation from mandi boards of respective states, the marketplace for agricultural produce comes on board of e-NAM.

While stating that the e-NAM is the only digital platform with no user charges are being levied on the transaction, the agriculture ministry has urged all the central agencies such as Food Corporation of India, farmers’ cooperative NAFED and others engaged in procurement and selling of grain, pulses and other agricultural produce to use the platform for better price discovery.