Online published on 19 June, 2021.
Agriculture the largest livelihood sector in India is plagued with a variety of problems where marketing of agricultural produce is perhaps one of the most major one. More than 85 % of the farmers being small and marginal farmers operate on a stand-alone basis and are forced to take care of the marketing of their agricultural produce on their own affecting net margins to the farmer. In the agriculture sector, constant application of latest ideas and better technologies is essential to enhance economic well-being of the farmer. What Indian agriculture is inadequacy and inefficiencies in the dissemination of relevant information to the farming sector. To make marketing systems more meaning full to farmers, the information they provide must be accurate, timely and farmers must understand it with focus on accuracy, availability, applicability and proper analysis to enable the farmer to decide how much to produce, when and where to sell and a trader may expand trade. Small farmers and Farmers collectives like Farmers Producers Organisations face several challenges mainly in marketing which are highlighted in this paper. The paper also dwells on how the manual marketing process has evolved into the electronic mode with a view to benefit the farmers the system of electronic marketing of agricultural produce has been introduced and how the National Commodity Exchange of India (NCDEX) through its NCDEX e-Markets Limited (NeML) has revolutionalised commodity trading in the country and benefiting about 39000 farmers in various ways by linking of farmers on the NCDEX platform through Farmers Producer Companies. The paper explains how NCDEX started taking the farmers to the next level of trading with future markets with two live case studies.
