Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on April 14, will launch a digital platform that will allow farmers to sell their produce online to markets across India. It will provide real-time data on prices and provide an auctioning system allowing trade in agricultural goods. It will also allow farmers to sell their produce to any market or directly to the online platform.
A senior bureaucrat said that the Union government had decided to set up the National Agricultural Market in July last year. The plan is to integrate 585 wholesale markets throughout India by 2018, while 200 markets will be integrated by April 2016, another 200 by 2017 and the remaining 185 in 2018. “The platform will allow farmers to sell their produce to any market or directly to retailers online. The platform will allow them to sell to the market or any retailer that offers the best price for their product anywhere in India,” said the officer.
“The online service will allow farmers to sell their produce using a mobile phone and it will be free. With over one billion phones in India, the vast majority of Indian farmers will have access to the service,” he added.
“We will bring a bill before the legislature that will allow farmers to sell their produce in the open market without going to Agriculture Produce Market Committees,” said Chandrakant Patil, minister for cooperatives and marketing.
According to an official from the agriculture department, Indian farmers on an average receive only 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the value paid for by consumers, which is considerably lower than farmers in other countries.
