Crop Arrivals: Major commodities notified by the Market committee are Paddy, Maize, Turmeric, Soyabean, Onion, Pulses, Oil Seeds, Amchur & Others.

Implementation of e-NAM: For the start of e-NAM, awareness and farmer orientation programmes were organized at all administrative levels. Widespread publicity was given through conduct of meetings, gram sabhas, distribution of pamphlets and information brochures, audio-visual aids and through print, electronic media.

Teams of officers drawn from agriculture, marketing and revenue were formed at all functional levels with the active involvement of public representatives. Three district level, six divisional level, and 30 Tahsil level training programs were organized for farmers on the availability of facility at the market yard.

District administration has taken up several brains storming interactive sessions with stakeholders of the market yard. During these sessions concerns raised by the stakeholders have been listed out and a three-phased action plan involving several reforms was evolved. While making surprise visits to the market and interacting with farmers, traders and officials.

Sri. Vidyasagar has been a seller in the market yard Nizamabad for last 15 years and all through, he was made to perform sale activity through Commission Agents. He has been a witness to open manual auction, Electronic, e-NAM, and e-NAM (Direct Purchase) modes of selling in the market yard. He witnessed weighment of produce on beam scales to automatic electronic weighing machines.

Further, as he narrated that “he never had access to prices of commodities of other markets” and he used to stay back in the market yard for two to three days till completion weighment and wait 20 to 30 days for receiving his payment as there was total lack of transparency in price realization and deductions made by commission agents.

It was understandable that he was made to sell his produce at the rate offered by the local purchaser, never offered clarity on deductions made and the purchasers have been offering lower rates showing the reason of the presence of high moisture content in the Agriculture produce brought by him.

Vidyasagar sold 26.16 quintals of soya white in e-NAM (Direct Purchase center) saved an amount of Rs.1427.00 through additional commission and Rs.1501.00 by way of reduced hamali charges. On a quantity of 26.16 quintals, he received a benefit of an amount of Rs.2929.00 in a single transaction of produce worth Rs 70,000.00(approx). Thus, by selling away his 270 quintals of Soya Vidyasagar has become richer by more than Rs 30,000.00 off his agri produce in 2016, which otherwise would have gone to fill coffers of Commission agents. Further, he received the payment for the produce within 24 hours of selling through online transaction.

Vidyasagar expressed his happiness and gratitude in delightfully stating that “it was a never before market experience walking away home with more money than the expected in a hassle free transaction on the same day of selling, which I never even dared to dream of. He further expressed that he realized the importance of producing quality produce and adopting better post-harvest practices for discovering higher price per produce. Thanks to e-NAM and District administration”.

e-NAM brand building is done through banner and wall painting in and around mandi locations; video show, canopy, brochure distribution, one-to-one counselling and awareness sessions in groups at mandi level and Gram Panchayat level on e-NAM day (14th of every month) and on every Wednesday; articles on e-NAM in leading local newspapers etc.

This apart, the board also regularly organizes farmer and trader felicitation program and has launches cash incentive schemes to promote trade on e-NAM. Regular review of mandi secretaries done by the board to guide them and get updates on progress made on the advertising front.

The aforesaid efforts are resulting in successful increase in e-NAM user base, who are regularly participating in the online trade to obtain various benefits of e-NAM; they also recommend and motivate other stakeholders to be active user of e-NAM.

Going forward, the State is planning for social media marketing, a form of digital marketing that leverages the power of popular social media networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Public, Sharechart, etc. The Board will also further heavily engage in traditional marketing that includes print advertisements (newspapers), and broadcasting (television and radio).

111 mandis are now equipped with mobile sorting and grading units and 25 mandis are having static sorting and grading machines. Important food grains like Wheat, Bengal Gram, etc. grown in the State are cleaned and graded with these machines. The farmers are realizing better price on their cleaned and graded grains and the machines are also saving time and labour cost for the farmers.

Massive digital display boards are showing live trade info for better understanding to Public. This is helping both the parties (buyers and sellers) in taking informed decision on “whether to get or not to get into trade” on a given day, without being dependent on any third party for the pricing information. It is also helping in brining transparency in pricing information and judiciously analysing price trend based on authentic data. Department of Agricultural marketing is also planning to install display board in all 144 mandi in upcoming days.

Following high-tech assaying machines are now available in APMC Mandis of Rajasthan:

1. NIR Spectrometer (Total- 136) - NIR Spectrometer is being used to quickly determine oil and moisture contents of wheat, gram, mustard, soybean, etc., with all-out accuracy

2. MATT AI-Based Grain Analyzer (Total- 136) - MATT machine examines defects, fungal damage, organic impurity, tearing, etc., in food grains. Just put sample of the commodities in MATT machine and within one minute it will give you entire analysis of the product. The mandi staff complemented, “this machine has reduced the time of testing with maximum perfection and overall operations to less than one minute.”

Following high-tech assaying machines are now installed in APMC Mandis of Haryana:

1. MATT AI-Based Grain Analyzer (Total- 54) - MATT machine examines defects, fungal damage, organic impurity, tearing, etc., in food grains. Backed with the prowess of deep learning the machine serves 20 times faster than the most skilled chemist and produces results that are far more reliable and repeatable.

2. NIR Spectrometer (Total- 12) - NIR Spectrometer is being used to quickly determine oil and moisture contents of wheat, gram, mustard, soybean, etc., with maximum perfection. Through these machines, the mandis can upload the results directly on e-NAM without any manual intervention, thus opening new avenues for faster e-trade over e-NAM

To address the issues, very recently, the game changing “Near-infrared (NIR) Spectrophotometer” has been introduced for scientific quality assaying of the crop produce (food grains) in APMC mandis of Gujarat. The State has procured 122 NIR Spectro-photometer. Spectro-photometer is an analytical instrument used to examine crop parameters such as water & oil content with very little sample preparation

NIR machines are leading to better price realization for sellers due to better assurance on the product quality. The mandi staff complemented, “The scientific quality assaying increasing confidence of buyers- especially exporters.”Gujarat – the home state of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of Nation- is renowned for its farmer friendly policies and agriculture infrastructure. The State is a leading contributor in production of many important crops, and Gujarat State Agriculture Marketing Board has been continuously accelerating the pace of economic development of the farmers via brings the producers and consumers together through a series of activities. The current initiative of introducing NIR machines in Mandis of Gujarat is a stepping stone towards brining excellence in the Agricultural Produce Marketing.

Rajasthan State introduced “Krishak Uphaar Yojna” to promote e-NAM trade & e-Payment. Under the scheme, for every sale bill generated, as well as e-payment of transaction worth Rs 10,000, a gift coupon will be issued to the respective farmer through SMS. The draw of gift coupons shall be done and result will be announced in every six months at Mandi level, Division level and in every year at State level.