Farmers Producer Organisations have been on boarded onto digital platforms such as e-NAM, the Open Network for Digital Commerce, and the Government e-Marketplace to enhance digital market access.
The minister of state for agriculture and farmers’ welfare, Ramnath Thakur said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that 2,454 cold storage projects have been sanctioned under AIF with sanctioned amount of ₹8258 crore until 30 June 2025.
The minister said that under the agriculture infrastructure fund (AIF), support is extended to cold storages in agri-export clusters, at farm gate level, for small and marginal farmers as well as big businesses, APMCs/mandis to reduce post-harvest losses and increase farmers’ returns. Entrepreneurs, cooperatives, PACS, and SHGs are actively availing AIF support for establishing cold chain logistics, often integrated with grading, sorting, and packaging units.
He said that in 2016, the government had launched a National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) to enable the farmers to transparently sell their produce to large number of buyers accessing multiple markets electronically.
Farmers Producer Organisations (FPO) have been on boarded onto digital platforms such as e-NAM, ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce), and GeM (Government e-Marketplace) to enhance digital market access.
Tomato, Onion, Potato
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced RBI working Paper series to present research in progress of the staff members and are disseminated elicit comments and further debate. Working Paper titled “Vegetables Inflation in India: A Study of Tomato, Onion and Potato (TOP)” estimates farmers’ share in the consumer rupee to be about 33 per cent for tomatoes, 36 per cent for onions and 37 per cent for potatoes.
In another RBI’s Working Paper “Price Dynamics and Value Chain of Fruits in India”, the farmers’ share in the consumer rupee is estimated at around 31 per cent for bananas, 35 per cent for grapes and 43 per cent for mangoes in the domestic value chain. The factors such as number of marketing channels, higher marketing cost and margins, and high perishability affects the price realisation by the farmers.
Together with enhancing production and productivity, the government’s priority has been to take various measures to improve marketing of agricultural produce and reduce post-harvest losses to ensure remunerative prices for farmers’ produce, the minister said.
Besides, the minister said, under the MIDH, for holistic development of horticulture sector, including reducing of harvest and post-harvest losses, financial assistance is provided for various horticulture activities. These include setting up of Pack Houses, Integrated Pack House, cold storages, Reefer Transport, Ripening Chamber etc.
He said that the component is demand/entrepreneur driven for which Government assistance in the form of credit linked back ended subsidy is available at the rate of 35 per cent of the project cost in general areas and at the rate of 50 per cent of the project cost in hilly and scheduled areas through respective State Horticulture Mission(s).
