The national agricultural market (nam): Problems and prospects

An efficient market system for agriculture is tantamount for the sustainable agricultural development of an economy. The developed agricultural market provides the outlets and incentives to agriculturist to sell their produce at assured price. The asymmetric information in one hand and monopoly practices by the traders at mandis on other not only create problems to farmers but it was creating problems for agro-based industries via shortage of raw materials or higher prices charged by the traders and commission agents. Many industries has shut down or running with acute sickness due to this problem. Now they can collect or find the sources in anywhere else in the state or country. In order to overcome these challenges, a proposal to set up online National Agriculture Market (NAM) was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on July 01, 2015 through Agri-Tech Infrastructure Fund. This paper attempts to analyse the necessity and prospects of NAM specially a poor state like Odisha. It is an explorative study based on secondary data. It is found that 1, 53,992.7 MT of agriculture produce worth Rs. 421 crore has been transacted through e-NAM platform in the country by end of September 2016. There are 1,60,229 farmers, 46,688 traders and 25,970 commission agents have been registered on the e-NAM platform during the same time period that reflects the acceptability and success of NAM in our country.. Odisha has excluded Fruits and Vegetables from the definition of notified agriculture produce on 16.02.2015. It promotes transparency in market operations in process of weighing, pricing, billing and presence of a competitive marketing platform will help in reaping the maximum dividend.