"I am confident that my farmers will now decide where, when, and at what price their produce will be sold. And I believe there will be no burden on consumers," the Prime Minister stated in a statement. The National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a pan-India electronic trading site that connects the existing Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities, according to a news release from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer's Welfare.
e-NAM, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 14, 2016, is entirely supported by the Central Government and is managed by the Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare. The e-NAM platform encourages farmers to sell their products through an online competitive and transparent price discovery mechanism and online payment facility. "The e-NAM portal offers a single point of contact for all APMC-related information and services. This comprises, among other things, commodity arrivals, quality and pricing, buy and sell offers, and e-payment settlement directly into farmers' accounts."
Its goal is to "promote uniformity in agricultural marketing by streamlining procedures across integrated markets, eliminating information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, and promoting real-time price discovery based on actual demand and supply," according to the Ministry. According to the Ministry, the e-NAM aspires to integrate markets at the state level first, and then throughout the country, using a shared online market platform that can promote pan-India agricultural commodity trade.
It also tries to streamline marketing/transaction procedures and make them uniform across all marketplaces in order to increase market efficiency. The Ministry also stated that it aims to promote better marketing opportunities for farmers/sellers through online access to more buyers/markets, removal of information asymmetry between farmer and trader, better and real-time price discovery based on actual demand and supply of agri-commodities, transparency in the auction process, prices commensurate with the quality of produce, online payment, and other factors that contribute to marketing efficiency.
Its other goal is to build quality assaying systems for quality assurance in order to promote informed bidding by buyers and the availability of quality products to consumers. According to the Ministry, over 1.75 crore farmers and 2.43 lakh traders have enrolled on the e-NAM platform as of March 31, 2023. On the e-NAM platform, 2,575 FPOs have been onboarded, and a transaction value of Rs 2.50 lakh crore has been recorded. As of March 16, 2023, the e-NAM platform had been integrated with 1361 mandis from 23 states and four UTs.
In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture's Electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) programme received the Platinum Award (1st) in the Digital Empowerment of Citizens Category. The main advantages of the e-NAM include transparent online trading with increased market accessibility, real-time price discovery for better and more stable price realization for producers, lower transaction costs for buyers, and the availability of commodity price information on the e-NAM mobile app.
