With the farmers’ cooperative NAFED and the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) starting to use the government’s National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) to sell onion from buffer stocks, inter-state mandi trade on the platform has got a fillip.
In the last one week, Nafed and NCCF have sold more than 260 tonnes of onion on e-NAM, which digitally integrates wholesale markets across states, from their buffer stock in Lasalgaon, Maharashtra to buyers in Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab and Jharkhand.
“We will continue to sell onion using e-NAM platform for ensuring supplies across key consumption centres and price discovery on the platform has been transparent,” Anice Joseph Chandra, managing director, NCCF, told FE.
Anice said that for selling onion on e-NAM from its NCCF stock in Maharashtra, the state government has exempted the buyers from payment of mandi fee.
Recently the government directed Nafed and NCCF to sell onion in the open market from their buffer of 0.3 MT to curb spike in prices. It also directed two agencie to procure 0.2 million tonne of onion from farmers at a highest ever rate of Rs 2410/quintal, as it sought to help farmers hit by the prohibitive 40% export tax on the vegetable.
Meanwhile, overall turnover of e-NAM during April-August, 2023-24 has crossed Rs 24, 717 crore about 2% higher than previous year.
In the first five months of the current fiscal there has been a 301% spike in inter-mandi trade on e-NAM at Rs 593 crore compared to the same period previous fiscal.
An agriculture ministry official said while the volume of inter-mandi trade is still a small portion of total turnover of e-NAM, it indicates a gradual shift to the digital platform, being used for better price discovery by the farmers
In terms of inter-state trade which was stagnant until a year ago, there has been a pick-up since the beginning of the year.
The turnover of the e-NAM trade rose by 32% to Rs 74,656 crore in 2022-23 compared to previous fiscal.
Since the beginning of the year, the inter-state trade using e-NAM platform on commodities with farmers from Uttar Pradesh, Kashmir, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand 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.
Recently, the agriculture ministry has approved integration of 25 new mandis with e-NAM to allow farmers to sell their produce through digital platforms.
The new mandi is being integrated in Maharashtra (15), Jammu and Kashmir (6) and Uttarakhand (4). With this integration, the total mandis using e-NAM platform would be 1386.
At present, 1,361 mandis in 27 states and Union Territories are integrated with the e-NAM platform. Also, 17.96 million farmers, 3043 FPOs, 0.24 million traders and around 0.1 million commission agents are registered with e-NAM.
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 come on board of e-NAM.
The e-NAM platform currently allows online trading in 209 agricultural, horticultural and other commodities notified by respective state governments.