With more states allowing trading of agricultural commodities using digital wholesale agri-marketing platform, electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM), there has been a spurt in trading amongst various markets within the state as well as at the inter-state level.
In the April-June quarter of the current fiscal, there has been a 290% annual spike in inter-mandi trade on e-NAM to Rs 336 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.
An agriculture ministry official said while the volume of inter-mandi trade is still a small portion of total turnover of e-NAM at Rs 17,000 crore in April-June (2023-24), it indicates a gradual shift to the digital platform, being used for better price discovery by the farmers.
“The agricultural trade between states have also commenced on the platform, after states gradually realising the potential of the pan-India digital market place,” the official said.
Since the beginning of the year, the inter-state trade using e-NAM platform on commodities with farmers from Uttar Pradesh, Kashmir, Maharashtra and Rajasthan selling commodities such as potato, apples, mustard, ragi, silk cocoon, chana, soyabean and jeera, to buyers in Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, sources said.
Trading amongst various markets within the states in commodities, including copra (Tamil Nadu), dry fish, coconut, betel leaf and amarind (Odisha), soyabean (Maharashtra), jeera (Rajasthan), tomato and raw mango (West Bengal), and mustard and vegetables (Jharkhand), has risen in the last six months or so.
“Instead of selling vegetables and other commodities to agents, we have started to sell through using e-NAM which help us in getting better prices through open bidding on the platform,” Nilkanth Gorai, CEO, Nirsha Nupur Producer Company, a farmer producer organisation (FPO) based in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, told FE.
Recently, Uttar Pradesh has allowed traders from outside the state to buy potatoes, tomato, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, mango, green chillies, carrot and lady finger from farmers using e-NAM platform.
Traders from outside Tamil Nadu, who have unified licences now, procure and trade copra, groundnut, turmeric, cotton, maize, paddy, bajra and moth using e-NAM platform.
With more farmers, traders and FPOs on board the e-NAM, the turnover of the digital platform, launched in April 2016, rose 32% to Rs 74,656 crore in 2022-23 compared to 2020-21. The turnover on the platform is expected to cross Rs 1 trillion in the current fiscal.
According to the agriculture ministry, since its launch seven years back, Rs 2.79 trillion worth of trade has been recorded on e-NAM platform.
Still this trade on e-NAM is much less than the total trade of agricultural commodities, excluding milk and marine products, in the country estimated at around Rs 6 trillion.
Recently, farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan have started selling their produce using electronic negotiable warehouse receipts (eNWRs) on the digital market in farm trade.
The e-NAM platform currently allows online trading in 209 agricultural, horticultural and other commodities notified by respective state governments.
At present, 1,361 mandis in 27 states and Union Territories are integrated with the e-NAM platform. Also, 17.56 million farmers, 2,761 FPOs, 0.24 million traders and around 0.1 million commission agents are registered with e-NAM.